Crow’s Nest 48: 022623
Guaranteed to Have Listened To Everything Included—Or Your Subscription Back!
Hey there, what’s up, and welcome to issue #48 of Crow’s Nest. As always thank you for reading, here’s hoping there’s something within you enjoy. No issue or essay as the subheadline is enough of a comment (and if you don’t know, that’s probably for the best). Away we go after the buttons:
Jazz organist and keyboardist Larry Young left a remarkable legacy during his 38 years on earth—most notably, contributing to Bitches Brew, though an accomplished solo player and bandleader himself, as obviously on display here. While it took 2 years to come out after recording in 1973—and even then, Pharaoh Sanders’s masterful contributions on tenor sax had to be left un-noted in the liner notes—this release immediately preceded one of his best known works Fuel and has finally been reissued by the folks at BBE. Essential fusion work for anyone remotely interested in the genre.
Crossover between classical music and contemporary genres like video game soundtracks and dance music can, at best, help connect people and communities, expand the realms of beauty and possibility and show the relevance of the forms to different audiences. At worst, they actively harm both with cheap, hollow, sterile productions which alienate and miserably fail all who are involved. (I should note that I have seen Tár and do not have an opinion on its ending.) This album of midi-controlled pipe organ pieces exploring dance music stylings like dub techno and trance from Belgian composer Maxime Denuc firmly falls in the former camp, thankfully. Imagine Lorenzo Senni remixing or collaborating with Kali Malone, Tim Hecker without the low-end heaviness, Kara-Lis Coverdale writing pieces you wouldn’t be hesitant to put on mood playlists, or orchestras whose programs note the performance of the works of the composer Richard D. James, and you know what this is about. Wonderful stuff indeed.
There isn’t much that hasn’t already been written about Yo La Tengo. Hell, there hasn’t been much written about them, parodied to death and considered old and clichéd about them … at least a decade ago. And yet, they persist, never content to call it a day or exist as a rehash/pastiche of themselves, forever insistent on experimenting, writing new material and giving it their all as they get into their 5th decade as a group. I agree with everything people have been saying about This Stupid World—their best in at least a decade, very much worth your time and consideration—coated in a warm haze that’s equal parts meandering and inviting. This world is stupid, yes, but it’s also beautiful, and we’re blessed that groups like Yo La Tengo populate it.
I’ve long thought of Fire Records as an under-the-radar record label, so much so that, despite having nice impressions of it going back nearly a decade at this point … I only discovered a couple weeks ago that Bardo Pond are signed to them. [My most reactively unamused stare imaginable] While the band itself is not too active in the present sense, the stoner rock lifers do have a new archival LP of material dating back to the early 2000s out next month. Better stock up at the dispensary before then.
Speaking of both Yo La Tengo and Bardo Pond, did you guys know the two groups put out a split LP back in 2015? I just now learned that in the past week or so. Then again, back then I was not as considerate of YLT as I am now and also did not indulge in as much weed as I do now, despite spending months of that year a short train ride from Amsterdam. Hoboken has the edge here on their longform side, Philly got mired in the ambient muck.
If a common crack about YLT is the regard record store owners have for them, the fact that one of the members of Surgery Cult, a local group for whom Yo La Tengo is the most obvious touchpoint, literally owns Tone Deaf Records in Portage Park should come as little surprise. The group surprise released their debut LP to exactly zero fanfare earlier this week, which is massively unfortunate considering it is exactly the sort of gem you’d expect to be championed by the type of guy I’ve evoked. When I saw them last year I felt they had stronger Orange Juice and REM influences than they do here, though there are some REM-esque moments—if they shared the same drugs with others out of Athens. Also, they did not have any synths onstage to haze out with and they kept the tempo steady, which here feels more like a suggestion. If you don’t like a track like ‘Wanderer’—which very well might be my song of the year at this point—I don’t know what you’re doing reading this newsletter.
If you are still jazzed for more psych and/or psyched for more jazz after the above run, I have good news for you. This record was released by, of all places, Third Man, and I’m glad that I managed to listen to it during that moment between getting to year-end list items and losing all my browser tabs last week. Don’t let the ‘ambient’ self-description and Jack White associations lead you astray, this is psych-jazz through and through and well worth your time, smoke session optional.
As Miami has reasserted itself as an underappreciated hub for serious dance music in the past 2 years, the lifers and associates championing the scene in Latin America’s capital city have been busy recirculating past gems to newly receptive audiences. It took a spin or two from me to warm up to this gem of electro/IDM, which perfectly captures the spirit of the place well before rave lost any meaning and the use of ‘intelligent’ became derisive and/or hair-splitting with downtempo. There’s plenty of squiggle and vitality amongst these tracks that many contemporary producers don’t have, which means there’s not so much to argue about when you could be shaking your ass on a dance floor to them.
The last few weeks, despite work stress, have truly had a bounty of rich music to discover, as evidenced by the fact that I’m only getting around to highlight this after 8 entries slotted above. Yet another contemporary jazz future classic out of Brazil, the debut album from Tunico is full of rich, lush but never heavy detail well worth spinning in the afternoon of or following a sunny day. I’m reminded a bit of Floating Points’s Eleania here, if that album were sped up and drew from tropicália, especially on the first track. If this is the first full-length from the guitarist and self-taught soprano saxophonist, I greatly await the next chapters of this promising career (and will re-read this extensively in anticipation of the next volumes).
Let’s return to the archives for some material worth fresh discovery:
Purple Pyramid dug up this live recording of 70s prog-kraut mystics Brainticket in Rome. While they’ve never not been a freaky outfit as far as I’m aware, this concert sees them in an especially out-there moment before they began transitioning to a (lesser imo) period of zither-heavy, New Age-y zones. Unhinged old-school horror movie soundtrack vibes within this one.
Last year, officially sanctioned reissues of the hermetic Japanese noise psych legends Les Rallizes Dénudés finally came out. Of the trio that came out in late November that I finally got to a week or two ago, ’77 LIVE is my favorite of the bunch, showing the group at a particularly coherent time to this American listener. Third track 氷 の 炎 / Flame of Ice is my favorite at this time, but brace yourselves—the shortest track here is still nearly 9 minutes long.
Two of my favorite genres of music—slacker post-punk and experimental Portuguese—have never crossed paths in my listening … until now, if I’m not mistaken. Lovers & Lollypops released this album of material right before I was fully paying attention to their output, and the news of a CD repressing was enough to pique interest. Listening to it made me a fan, naturally. There are a few longform groovers alongside sunnier, shorter moments within.
As a proud Illinoisan/Chicagoan I talk a healthy amount of shit about neighboring states/cities, though I’m sure they’re mostly fine, not as systemically inferior as I might hope, and have their bright spots to them. For example, there’s St. Louis’s Rotten Apple, who released this album late last year. ‘Circular Jam’ is probably the highlight and outlier of this lo-fi (post-)punk collection of tunes, which includes members of Cloud Nothings contributing parts and fortifying their experimental side project bona fides here. You know what to do if this style floats your boat:
While many people—myself included—rightfully have been hailing the punk scene in Cincinnati as of late, the enthusiasm the crowd showed for The Serfs at Empty Bottle earlier this month took me by surprise. (Probably because I never closely follow what the goths are into.) Fellow Queen City group The Drin, a previous Crow’s Nest highlight whose now 6-person lineup includes some if not all of The Serfs, have released their fourth album in as many years. Their amorphous nature helps retain a sense of mystery about what’s going on, but their dark post-punk/industrial stylings that draws on successor genres remains paying attention to. As one example, ‘Go Your Way Alone’ sounds a bit like a dreary country band attempting a Godspeed You! Black Emperor build-up. There’s a lot more fuel to the fire present on here beyond depiction.
And that’s issue #48 of Crow’s Nest for you. Thank you once again for reading, hopefully something within captured your fantasy. We’re almost to March now, days getting longer, weather mostly getting warmer and concert season about to kick into high gear. Who else is ready for that?
Warmer weather? Yes please. And not that weird “parka in the morning, shorts in the afternoon” nonsense, either.