Crow’s Nest 74: 091524
It’s still not fall yet, put the pumpkin spice flannel back
Well howdy there folks, welcome to issue #74 of Crow’s Nest. I hope you’re doing well at the moment; I’ve been busy with getting stuff sorted in my world and also trying to make plans while putting off planning and prep for some upcoming trips, but I had the day today to write this up after deciding to take things easy for a (little) bit. So, yeah, it’ll almost certainly be some time before the next issue, so let me get to the dozen+ releases that have been highlights of the past few weeks for me.
It’s never not incredible to discover something new to you that someone else has constructed, just totally off your radar, that is as impressive as it is hidden. That’s one of the feelings I have listening to this album from Belgian collective Razen. Recorded in one night in an abandoned underground walkway in central Düsseldorf, the group get some impressive results out of a minimalist setup, simple rhythms and drones from gear including an oscillator, recorder, processing and the natural reverb of the tunnel. Admittedly, I don’t really hear the thematic connections to rainfall that went into this album, but the phenomenal textures the group got out of this session are well worth the entry. I can’t stop thinking about a passerby who might have encountered these sounds that night, and wondered what was going on. This label TAL should already be on your radar from the Non Band reissues and some Sam Prekop releases—already an extraordinary breadth and not even half their range—and this records solidifies their reputation, for sure.
Several decades on from their initial impact, DEVO continue to be, at least in my sphere, a massive touchpoint in combining social critique with absurdism through a palette of twitchy groove, where energy matters far more than sonic fidelity. Currently we call the most promising descendant genre of the band egg punk, and The Bug Club are a strong presence in the realm. (To my knowledge, egg punk hasn’t strongly penetrated the British underground, which is in thrall to other strains of post-punk and critique through music.) The duo is pretty wildly productive, writing sticky hooks in semi-deconstructed song formats, myopically, reductively skewering the realities of modern Britain through bite-sized sloganeering in far fewer words than I’ve written here. Or, in some of theirs on the matter, “War movies/Every night/War movies/Every single night”. Applying some of the best lo-fi, semi-fried production one can get after a decade and a half plus of austerity, the pair come across a bit like not James Bond but rather Weebl and Bob to my ear. I’m sure there’s some solace that, knowing they can’t afford a house even in southeast Wales, they can have a stiff upper lip over some quality pints regarding the matter.
Fake Fruit impressed me a few years back with their self-titled debut LP, especially lead single ‘No Mutuals’. On their next record, the Bay Area band level up with more complex arrangements, noisy squall and getting a bit freakier as a reflection of getting older while still dealing with all of the bullshit the world throws at you. There are a few ‘I can’t believe it’s not Uranium Club’ moments within, more meditative numbers, but plenty of articulate fury as well. I think the last time they were in town, I had COVID, and this record gives me all the more reason to make it out to the Hideout next month to see them in person.
You’d be forgiven for thinking the Elephant 6 collective has wound down or is currently defunct. It’s not as prominent as it once was, but many members of the group are still active and making pretty stellar work. Derek Almstead has been in a lot but probably not more than half of those groups, and his duo Giant Day with Emily Growden is a gorgeously knotty pysch pop affair, with their debut album out after a drip feed of singles over the past few months. Jane Weaver is the closest contemporary that springs to mind as I write this, though late album highlight ‘We Were Friends’ shares a bit of DNA with Mount Kimbie too. A great album for daydreaming, leisurely walks or just getting lost in your own world.
Many people criticize dance music for its repetitive nature, particularly if they do not care for the detail that goes into its elements. Wolfgang Voigt’s GAS project definitely won’t win those people over, but those records are always a treat for the more ambient, meditative side of the music, taken to the mellow extreme by Voigt over decades. A reissue of the first self-titled album, I can’t say I listen to the other records enough to catch the details and development of this record over different forms and the project as a whole (see Pitchfork’s review for a primer), but it remains a great now hour and a half of drone and pulse, acid trips in the forest optional.
Chris Forsyth, one of the first guys I remember as someone I’ve definitely heard of and should listen to their records more but … assembled a new group inspired by 80s undergroundish collaborations in the prog rock meets New Wave vein, deriving its name from the Robert Quine and Fred Maher teamup from that era. From the sounds of this record, that sounds like a very intriguing yet underappreciated space full of records I’m sure I would love, and yet I can already tell I won’t and I should stop deceiving myself that I will get to exploring more eventually. Anyway. Pandemic jamming with fellow guitarist Nick Millevoi led to something promising, with Natural Information Society drummer Mikel Patrick Avery pulled in to flesh out the not strings parts further. The end result is something more psychedelic and energetic than the typical lastname1/lastname2/…/lastnameX improv group performance, a bit too complex for jam band music, way too experimental to be jangle pop, does ‘art rock’ even have a meaning anymore? Whatever you call this, it’s fantastic stuff, and when the group swings through the Judson & Moore Distillery near here in a few months, I’m sure it will be a rollicking good time.
Speaking of upcoming programming at Judson & Moore, Setting are making a stop there that I’m getting excited for. If you think you can guess their sound based on the name, incorrect; the trio of Nathan Bowles, Jaime Fennelly and Joe Westerlund produce a group improv drone based in the Appalachian folk tradition as filtered through the 60s countercultural moment when figures like Silver Apples and Laurie Spiegel started tinkering with technology. It’s deliciously meditative work and also their second live album from western North Carolina, which fairly impressively doesn’t sound texturally like either the first or their studio record from last year, both of which I purchased yet did not get to including in previous issues from what I can tell. Even if they don’t reinvent their palette again for, at minimum, a fourth time at that show, I’m sure it will be a delight paired with some wonderful intoxicants.
‘Aquarian and Hodge release a split single on TraTraTrax’ is not a combination of words I would naturally put together, but we’ll allow it when the music is this good. The Berlin-based Canadian gets the first and honestly better slot with a punchy, everything and the kitchen sink breakbeat house number. The Bristolian brings a twitchy screwball flavor to his half of this. Second in the split series from this venerable Colombian label, and well worth it to keep an eye on them if this is just the start.
I don’t mean to disparage the artists I cover—I will typically just not write about them—but there isn’t much to Sydney-based artist Skeleten’s music for me. Synthwave has never strongly appealed to me and he seems like he’ll either recede into obscurity after a few albums or become inexplicably popular with a massive fanbase. Anyway, I bring this up because Studio Barnhus mainstay Axel Boman has managed to remix Skeleten’s latest single into fairly compelling form. This is particularly true of the extended version, which doesn’t necessarily land in Villalobos runtime territory, but is nevertheless a lot longer than even the typical one getting the mix labeled that way without thinking it needs a trim. Definitely something real going on here.
The unknown - untitled label is an intriguing label/concept: the identity of the producer(s) releasing on it only get revealed after it’s out and in the hands of DJs and other listeners, to put the music first, in their words. It’s a good thing the project recruits excellent contributors, as evidenced by this compilation. You’ve got 6 cuts on contemporary bass music out there to dig into, and whether the names within are new to you or not, they’re sure to leave a mark on an open-minded dancefloor near you.
From the opposite coast as Fake Fruit (or Vermont, close enough), Robber Robber also make indie rock about getting older and expectations not meeting reality, with a bit more of a smeared, fractured sound. Still delicious post-punk noise, and something I’ve been revisiting a bit recently. TBD on whether I make it to their show at Sleeping Village in a week and a half or not—I may see Caterina Barbieri instead that evening if I don’t catch her during a three-way conflict at Making Time. That’s adulthood for you, I guess.
An American in London wanders into a local record shop, discovers the beauty of reggae, tropicalia, and bossa nova, and winds up recruiting an all-star cast of contributors for her debut album, alongside her own alluring yé-yé style vocals. That’s the story behind Claude Fontaine’s first album, and she’s done it again on her second. If you’ve been needing a bit of dreamy, romantic escapism in your life, you could do much worse than putting this one on and getting lost in its world. Never been myself, but Honest Jon’s forever if this is what we get from them.
A lot of Brazilian music is very obviously masterful, but through its subtlety and understatedness. Caxtrinho’s album here is obviously in that lineage, but folds in elements of progressive rock and some straight-up noise passages in its psychedelic samba. If Claude Fontaine’s album is an idealized fantasy of tropical island life, Caxtrinho’s seems to reflect the reality of life in contemporary Rio. No judgement if you prefer the former, but both albums are worth your time and contemplation.
Noise! Is it good for you? Probably, if it’s good noise, but if it’s bad noise it’s probably bad for you. That’s about all I got on this album from Japanese noisemaker Yuko Araki. It’s firmly on the ‘good noise’ side of things for me, so, yeah. Listen away if you think it might do the same for you:
Alright, the brain’s seizing up after close to 2,000 words today (with some written yesterday as well), so I’m calling this issue #74 of Crow’s Nest. You made it through, congrats! Hopefully something sticks with you afterwards from this. See you in … probably some point in October at this point. Enjoy what you can until then.
