Crow’s Nest 88: 081725
[To the date mansplaining stomp-clap hatred to me] So, what kind of music do you like then?
Hello everyone, welcome to issue #88 of Crow’s Nest, and as always, thank you for your time, attention, consideration, whatever it is that you bring to the table with Crow’s Nest. Hopefully you are doing alright at this time, and your windows have not been shattered by this weekend’s Air and Water show. Some of this stuff might be loud, but not that loud, and your intact windows should help to keep the peace with your neighbors if they don’t appreciate my selections.
Speaking of selections, I’ve got some exciting news on that front that I’m keeping under wraps for now. Details to come in a future issue; reach out to me separately if you’d like to know earlier though.
Susumu Yokota remains a towering, entrancing figure in the realms of dance and ambient music, even more than a decade after his death. Having released 14 albums through his own Skintone label, Lo Recordings is in the process of reissuing these records as a double box set. 6 of the 7 to be reissued this year can be streamed through the first volume of this page. Attempting to detail all 6 of them here probably won’t work given my listening habits—that’s a very intimidating prospect—but Lo Recordings is also reissuing the individual albums as standalone items, and that feels more manageable to take on.
1998’s Magic Thread is a patient affair, with certain elements low in the mix slowly cohering alongside the other elements. While many of the tracks on the record lean ambient, understated thumps populate them too, to the point they more closely resemble dance music proper or the more experimental Soundcloud demo-y stuff I recall a lot of the ‘deconstructed club’ folks FACT magazine hyped last decade would do. No one promised a clean split between the club and the world beyond the club. Magic Thread is also full of the hard to describe but instantly recognizable aesthetics ascribed to Japanese art that I certainly do not have the vocabulary to detail here. As the other albums receive their standalone releases over the next few months/years, you can bet I’ll be spending more time in these pages with them.
If that’s not enough for you, Bandcamp Daily notes there’s plenty more of his work available on the platform, which is definitely not his full discography. What a loss. What beauty.
I’m not going to pretend to have substantial knowledge of post-colonial African history, but the bits and pieces I pick up through reissue liner notes make it even more impressive that the music to come out of that period is of such high quality. In reviewing this record by Benin’s T.P. Orchestre Poly-Rythmo featuring Malian saxophonist Tidiani Kone, The Quietus highlights the sociopolitical climate this record came out in and some of its resulting warts. That being said, overall I find this record’s two side-length pieces to be absolutely stunning. They’re structured like standard jazz songs, but set at highlife’s pace. Impressive solo after impressive solo pile up across the runtime of this eminently danceable record, and then you come around and realize the completely locked in rhythm section is equally worth praise. If that’s not enough, apparently the Orchestre cut another 49+ albums and at least 350 45s as well, so consider this as only a taste of what’s out there from this period.
It’s been a while since I covered anything broadly post-punk/indie pop from France, but it’s not every day a group like dona casque comes onto my radar. I’ve been enjoying the lo-fi eclecticness of this understated LP recently, which pulls as much from Parquet Courts as it does Automatic and whomever else is among their list of influences. I feel a line like “I can’t believe that this is real/When everything feels so fake” on ‘les oranges’ might be overstating it, but finding a record with a solid heart like this is always pleasant.
Bitter Lake Recordings dug up this trio of cassette tapes released by then-medical student Kusafuka Kimihide, before he adopted the K2 moniker and—per the liner notes, I’m not familiar with this work—became an important “classical Japanese noise artist”. (Now there’s some exciting research to conduct.) Made primarily on the SH-101 synth that powered a lot of 90s dance music iirc, each tape has its own distinct, non-dance identity that is well worth sinking into.
Demise Symphonika’s A-side is a droning piece of kosmiche with proto-hauntological, proto-dungeon synth undertones, with the B-side getting into more abstract, noisier then spacier territory. Re-Musik sounds quite like a minimal wave record, with Bureau B-esque mysticism in its chunky lo-fi synth instrumentals, though you can also hear where other artists would start taking the SH-101 a decade later here. The highlight of the trio, to my ears, is Requiem In The Sun: here, Kusafuka mostly plays around with martial (as in military music) rhythms within this lo-fi spacey synth pop framework to intoxicating effect. As someone who likes to think they’ve heard quite a lot of different things in a lot of different music, I can honestly say I’ve not heard anything quite like Requiem in the Sun before.
I’ve been quite taken with this set of tunes from DJ Flea recently. No clue who is behind this—Googling turns up some artists that I’m confident aren’t them—and OPAL is playing their cards close to their chest about who, exactly, is behind this release. For a not quite EP or album allegedly not made on hardware, it does have the gritty, lo-fi feel of jam-y material from such a source, like the type to come out on L.I.E.S. or Jungle Gym, or the rawer side of Chicago house, where breakbeats help form the skeleton of the tracks. If you, like me (and DJ Flea apparently) are the type where noise is a great palliative for whatever might be messing with your head or body, you’ll find plenty to love within.
NYC-via-NZ noise rockers Bailterspace dip into the archives for this set of live recordings made on tour in Germany in 1991. These songs sprawl and jam towards double digit track lengths, and are perfect for getting lost in some great textural fuzz and noisy repetition.
On the other end of the 90s and genre (kind of), Mancunian sibling duo Shadow Dancer have been dusting off techno tapes from their archives, including this batch from 1997-1998. I forget who/what tipped me off to this, but a lot of this material is loose, raw, and covers a variety of styles within the broader techno umbrella. It picks up steam as it goes imo, so be sure to stick around through all two dozen jams within.
The local trio of Whitney Johnson, Lia Kohl, and Macie Stewart are always worth catching. All three performers have a slew of different projects ranging from experimental electronic to contemporary classical to art rock. I’ve seen a few of their trio performances live over the past couple years, and each one has been an engrossing, unique listen combining string instruments and singing with looped elements to them. That same combo is present on their debut recording, out on International Anthem, in advance of an album due out next year. The anticipation for their next set and this record only builds with each listen.
Lost Legion proudly hail from the South Side of this great city, and really impressed me with their set at the Empty Bottle last month, slotted in alongside lighter, more jangly guitar groups. It took me a little bit to get to their studio output, and it equally impressed me. I’m not really familiar with oi as a punk subgenre as far as I know, but the anger is righteous, the fury intense, and even if you’re not exactly hearing every word of this correctly, you know this stuff just rips.
Affective Experience of Urban Space sure sounds like the type of stuff I was reading and getting into towards the end of my undergrad studies. Thankfully, that wasn’t traumatizing enough to prevent me from appreciating this no wave-y record from French group Moleskine, out on Swiss label Chrüsimüsi Records. It’s got the undead chug I associate with the genre, alongside spiky guitars, which means you don’t necessarily need to analyze the material under a scholarly microscope to appreciate it. You can hardly tell they’re no New York as you listen.
It can be a bit overwhelming to get into DJ Haus’s Unknown to the Unknown label, given how frequently they drop quality material. His E-FREQ duo with Last Magpie is always worth a spin, and this new single might be over in a flash but leaves you wanting more. The second track ‘Rokin’ Houz’ is the highlight for me, recalling a certain anthemic, electro-tinged classic.
And with that, we have issue #88 of Crow’s Nest in the books. Like I always say here, thank you for reading, opening, listening, and that you do to engage with this work. Hopefully something within captured your fancy that you weren’t previously familiar with. Hopefully this heat and humidity winds down soon, but until then, see you later.
Got DJ Flea playing as I type this. Perfect soundtrack for a (kinda) stormy morning here in flyover country. Thanks for getting it on my radar!