Crow’s Nest 73: 082524
It’s Not Fall Yet, Don’t Get Too Excited
Hello all, and welcome to another issue of Crow’s Nest. I’m your host, and thank you for joining once again. I hope things are going well for you, and you’re continuing to make the most of your summer before temperatures and sunlight levels plummet too much. I’ll be spending most of that window, as always, here in Chicago, though I do have a trip to Vancouver on the books for early October. If you have recommendations for what to do/see/avoid etc. in that area, drop me a line:
Anyway, now that you’ve perhaps done a bit of your own recommending, here are mine:
My listening queue is still a bit backed up from there being too much stuff I want to check out relative to my capacity to listen to it all, so there was a little delay, but actually perfectly timed in my world, in getting to the latest Les Rallizes Dénudés live record. Dating to 1980, with guitarist Fujio Yamaguchi in the mix, this one has a bit of a bluesier and cleaner (by relative standards) feel to it than the other ones that have emerged since they started getting new, official releases. It’s even got some tender, practically romantic moments to it, if you’re in the right headspace for that. I’m not recalling the earlier releases well enough to even do quick rankings, though if you tuned out a couple of them, this is one to give a shot, for sure.
I’ve known the name Haley Heynderickx for a bit—how could you forget such a last name—but never gave her music a spin before. Seemed a little too twee/singer-songwriter-y for me. But I caught a short set of hers opening for Belle and Sebastian—15 minutes (!) unless she started before the listed set time (?!)—and was fairly impressed. This single too, presumably the first from a forthcoming record as her tour schedule seems a little ambitious for someone who’s gone 6 years since her debut album, has really impressed me. A simple folk song, masterfully executed, a bit of a humanist serenity prayer inside. Gorgeous, spellbinding stuff.
‘Gang of Four but they write actual love songs’ is a pretty easy sell for me, considering my household reserves a slot in the top ten best songs of all time to Maximum Joy’s ‘Searching for a Feeling’. For a little more context, APB are a group of Scottish fellas who got into punk music, then P-Funk, and wound up making a set of punk-funk tunes that got heavy airplay on a Long Island New Wave station and were highly sought after to make dancefloor edits on the far western edge of the island. Bandcamp Daily has the full story, and while this won’t upstage Entertainment! in my mental rankings, you get the appeal, don’t you? Your ears are working, right?
Update: I actually realized putting in links that the BD story was for their Radio 1 sessions, so I’ve got more work to do on them myself.
A recurring theme of the entries in this newsletter that I’ve kinda retroactively cobbled together is ‘I don’t know how they keep doing it, but …’ considering the high quality of the material and the artist’s prolific output. It’s no exception for this set of material from deep house producer Fred P. A number of these tracks, notably opener ‘Love Tones’ and mid-record highlight ‘Enterprise’, just hit that balance of elements perfectly, demanding your full attention when they might otherwise be on in the background or just your soundtrack to whatever you have going on. A bit of a steep price for the digital, but as the title Reference Sounds indicates, you might be inclined to keep this close on hand. And since this one came out Fred has announced another 3 upcoming releases; maybe the subscription option would be cheaper at this point.
I like to dance a bit when the music’s good, though I’m not very good at it. And I like jazz music sometimes though I’m probably not the best at explaining it. Combine the two together as an art form and … I’ll spare you that unless you want my opinion after an event. So I’m not really sure how well this soundtrack from Rick Panzer holds up for its stated purpose, but BBE have rescued it from obscurity and given it a reissue. The two opening tracks, each 15 minutes long, sprawl out and have a great funkiness to them. If this was a non-recital event I was at and not seated for, I’d definitely be at least grooving to this and giving mental “Come on now”s to those standing stock still, for sure.
I wasn’t expecting to head out to the Empty Bottle a couple Thursdays back, but then they emailed me saying they had an egg punk band from Spain coming through, would I be interested in that? And you know what, I was! And it was a good time! sprgrs (I don’t know what they’re going for with that) are definitely a young group finding their way—the drums came via one of their phones, and they solicited the crowd for a song to repeat to close out their set—but they came with an infectious joy of being able to play their music for strangers thousands of miles from home. I bought a shirt at the merch table, and I’m definitely looking forward to what more they have in store in the future.
It feels a bit inappropriate to spin music by Jules Reidy when it’s hot and sunny out, it’s just got a glacial feeling better suited to other seasons. But I’m sure there are reasons for getting this piece out via Longform Editions in August, and it’s just as good as their last record Trances. And speaking of other records, Reidy also has a new, full, proper record just out now too, collaborating with just intonation brass ensemble Zinc & Copper, moving them closer to the space Kali Malone’s been in recently. In classic ‘me’ fashion I have not yet gotten to the full record yet—though the one released in advance was solid!—give me a few more days with that.
The Soundcarriers return with their new album, following up 2022’s exceptionally good Waves here. It’s a bit more restrained than that last one: the drums are no longer as prominent in the mix, giving a more mellowed-out feeling similar to Jane Weaver’s latest record compared to the one before. Still, for those interested in the psychedelia coming out of the British Isles, it’s a solid spin. (No, Elijah Wood does not make a return appearance within.)
Dutch label Solar Phenomena Music continues proving why they’re one of the best in the game currently going with these tunes from restless Portuguese producer Photonz. It’s another set of ever-mutating longform house numbers, keeping things interesting with weird hisses and gurgles, hard-charging drums and just a general shapeshifting nature that keeps you on your toes and grooving throughout. If the dancefloor’s feeling a bit stale with large amounts of headless techno banging away, sliding a few of these on is a welcome palette cleanse.
As the apocryphal quote attributed to Borges about writing about music goes … I can imagine it’s equally challenging to come up with even a descriptive name for the tunes some dance producers churn out. So I can forgive Man Power, one of my favorite seemingly underrated producers, for the title of this record. As for said sounds … yeah. Nice ones there. Cyborgian house to start, cyborgian techno in the middle, and a breakbeat-y affair to close out. Sounds good to me.
And yeah, that’ll be issue #73 of Crow’s Nest for you. I hope you enjoyed the tunes within, thank you for reading, as I always say around here. Unfortunately we’re going to be heading into a heat wave around here shortly, but stay cool and, once you feel fine to step outside, enjoy the rest of summer before fall returns.
