Crow’s Nest 87: 072825
Hot records for muggy weather
Hello everyone, and welcome to issue #87 of Crow’s Nest. Thank you for opening, reading, listening, consuming the contents within. I hope you’re doing alright through this weather; I hit a new record for my power bill due in no doubt to running my A/C unit near-constantly this past month. I can afford it, and hopefully you can afford yours too! Anyway, here’s hoping I do not have another embarrassingly bad error in this issue, like I’ve had the last 2. But there’s only one way to find out for sure:
Animal Collective and Gwar. Two bands that, while you might have some somewhat-annoying friends that are just a bit too into (one of) them, don’t strongly intersect. Nevertheless, the former’s Brian Weitz (Geologist) and the latter’s Jim Thomson and third member Marc Minsker started running into each other a fair amount in the Washington D.C.-centric experimental underground, bonding over fried rockish music, and forming this hurdy gurdy/bass/drums trio. As you can guess by the instrumentation, the sound is descendent from krautrock and Swedish progg, a bit more song-structured than contemporary noise droners like France and Water Damage, but still has plenty of room to sprawl and freak out those unprepared for things to get weird. An excellent addition to a head’s record collection.
The quiet details label is new to me, but with a distinct info statement of “a record label where each release is an interpretation of the name” and a strong first impression in the form of this record by Jo Johnson, it’s obviously one to be paying attention to. You definitely will want to crank up the volume for this one, as it’s a very typical ambient record in the Eno-formative manner, but the squirrelly mutations in the synthesizer-led compositions on offer prove this to be a record worth spending considerable time with. In particular, the lengthy compositions of ‘Stop The Transmission’ and ‘Lessons in Listening’ build to stunning heights through their runtime. Johnson is also utilizing Bandcamp’s subscription service to release another album Alterations over the course of this year. Unfortunately at this point you (and I) have missed several parts to that record now, though by the time that comes out, you probably still won’t be done getting lost in this one.
Wet Leg’s self-titled 2022 debut was a refreshingly sharp and direct slap of hooky post-punk whose success seemed to take everyone by surprise. 3 years later, the band retool their sound for their second album. Ellis Durand, Henry Holmes, and Joshua Mobaraki have officially become full members alongside founding duo Rhian Teasdale and Hester Chambers. If you’re expecting another full slab of tunes like ‘Wet Dream’ or ‘Chaise Lounge’, you’ll no doubt find yourself underwhelmed and reaching for the words ‘sophomore slump’, but the subtlety the group newly display rewards repeat listening nonetheless—and if we’re being honest, it’s good the group no longer feels compelled to clearly shout each lyric. ‘davina mccall’ is in the running for my song of the summer if not year, and I’m confident I’ll discover new favorites as I continue spinning this in advance of their show at the Salt Shed a few weeks from now.
Fuubutsushi—the cross-country group of Patrick Shiroishi, Chris Jusell, Chaz Prymek, and Matthew Sage—play an intriguing style of contemporary classical music that falls somewhere, to my ears, between ambient jazz and chamber music, while also folding in field recordings made about the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. Primarily known for the series of records made via remote collaboration over the past 5 years, this is a live record of their first and, to date, only live performance. While Shiroishi in particular is a fairly prolific composer and live performer, the fact that the group have explicitly set up a separate page for these live recordings, plural, means you shouldn’t give up hope for seeing this magic on stage at some point.
East meets West, traditional meets contemporary etc. on this beautiful record by Lebanese artist Sary Moussa. Situated somewhere within the broader spheres of electroacoustic music and folk, the record is a charming whirlwind of styles, fragments, synthesis and more to get lost in. Names like Olivia Block, Talk Talk, Tara Clerkin Trio, and probably a good chunk of the room40 roster come to mind as I try to wrap my head around this music, to say nothing of the other side of influence I can’t pretend I’m familiar with. Well worth listening to and getting lost in if patient, impressionistic, dreamy instrumental music is your thing.
James Din A4. I hadn’t heard that name in a while, one of many to come onto my radar over a decade ago during FACT magazine’s heyday that deserved more time and attention from me. (If you were there for his peak and did give him that attention, you now may want to book some preventive healthcare appointments.) After Jan Jelinek reinterpreted some of his apparently considerable catalog in 2014, he went quiet, reemerging with a new album last year I only heard about (but have not yet listened to) when this record came onto my radar. This is house music heavily in wonky left-field territory: tunes that shapeshift rapidly, music obviously composed super seriously but doesn’t come across with the morose severity many dance music producers cultivate in their image. Imagine Syro’s restlessness applied to a microhouse palette, the material that ought to make up a sequel to Pampa, Vol. 1, maybe Matthew Herbert? and you’re in the right area. Listening to this, it’s like a decade hasn’t passed since those references were fresh.
Similar to James Din A4, producer Dave Huismans had some success and acclaim under the monikers 2562 and A Made Up Sound a decade+ ago, but has been quiet on the production front for a bit. Returning under the name ex_libris, Husimans has put out a pair of 12” dub techno records recently that have gotten a fair amount of buzz from the underground, if you didn’t notice that. It’s safe to say it’s a welcome return for the producer, even as the dub techno revival has reached the point where I no longer feel the need to write about all the great new releases in the genre here. I think 002’s more inventive percussion gives it the edge among the pair—I’m getting some nice Call Super-esque notes from it—but both are worth your time.
I’m not gonna use the e-word to describe this group—see below—but this record by Leipzig’s Poky continues in the tradition of underground post-punk, kinda jangly lo-fi rock that sounds pretty good to my ears. If you’re into sticky riffs and the types of records where energy and passion take a band further than so-called ‘technical proficiency,’ studio trickery, and fully intelligible lyrics, you’ll find plenty to love here (though maybe not that shipping cost to get the wax stateside).
Jay Glass Dubs reasserts himself as one of the most intriguing producers around on his latest release. These numbers—an assemblage of unreleased material from the past few years—feel at home both soundtracking a hazy late night in a monochrome city, and a languid summer day when the heat and humidity are just too much for one to handle.
It’s been a little bit since I’ve featured something that’s truly egg punk in Crow’s Nest, and not just something I think kinda sounds like it. Lismore, Australia’s media puzzle source their post-punk name from the horse that won the 2002 Melbourne Cup, which feels fittingly eclectic. Tinny drum machine percussion and jagged guitar lines are held together by the bouncy glue of the bass in the lineage of Young Marble Giants, alongside the requisite political-ish lyrics and oddball sounds to flesh things out. It’s over in a flash—their full 3 album and 2 EP discography is around 45 minutes long—though you may not notice how quickly it ends if you’re hitting rewind as frequently as I do, so here’s a fitting cover to spin alongside this.
Putting this issue together, I realized it’s been a few issues since I featured anything local from me. I’m not 100% certain why that is, though. So I guess this is worth highlighting: buried in the link list at the end of last month’s Record Report from the Chicago Reader is this piece from a project called To the mount of the holy stone. I couldn’t pull up any more info about it online—Googling the project name in quotes turned up nothing—but the record is still intriguing. It’s a 23-minute recording that starts off with what sounds like someone practicing hand drumming. It’s charmingly lo-fi in that you can hear the natural reverb of the space in there—no post-processing on this recording—and picks up a few minutes in, becoming a fairly compelling, trance-inducing listen. Again, no further detail here, though evidently this somehow got the attention of the Reader alongside more recognizable local fare. Could it be my buddy Jake who lives in the area and does practice Indian drumming? Or someone else doing similar? Hard to say. The mystery seems worth keeping an eye on though.
Following a particularly harsh post-independence separation from France, Guinean president Sékou Touré embarked on a cultural program called authenticité to help revitalize the country through the promotion and modernization of traditional Guinean music, released through the state-run Syliphone label. This compilation of highlights from the label showcases some of the best of this work, primarily through orchestres playing a mix of traditional and modern instrumentation (with strong Afro-Cuban influence). Some of these numbers are slower and more somber than I’d expect from African music, and given the label’s ownership and Touré’s later dictatorial turn, I can’t imagine the lyrics are among the best the continent has produced. Still, it’s a great collection of music from an underrepresented country showcasing some groundbreaking work.
Well, considering my too-lazy Sunday wound up delaying getting this out the door (and no I want’t gonna send it out at like 11 PM), that’s issue number 87 of Crow’s Nest for you. Hopefully something among the dozen entries above made it worth digging into. Until next time, stay cool and dry.
