Tide Ripples (2016)

The layering of what appears delicate to the point of being ephemeral- Asuna has 22 minutes each song to make something monumentally delicate before stripping unexpected layers away and leaving others, actively avoiding density and leaving the listener feeling elated

bandcamp / -o-

Ditties (2016)

Bitchin Bajas cutting up, arranging, sometimes disembowling Bonnie Prince Billy's donkey cries = best donkey cries of the year and at a time where we want our voices processed and ghostly, a stand-out processed ghost voice record too. Bitchin Bajas aren't focused like they might have been on swirling arpeggio symphonies because that'd be competition and not collaboration- instead they use the donkey cries like an instrument and the result is low-key bizarro melancholy. Which on the surface sounds like them, but put this way sounds like a new way of Bonnie Prince Billy doing Bonnie Prince Billy

drag city / -o-

Only the Youngest Grave (2016)

Seems driven by the desire to uncover a human past in the landscape but rather than rekindling a relationship with the elemental (as in the Scandinavian tradition), finds a kind of abandoned occult sadness (as in the British tradition), which is to say that it's all bones and no spirit. A few things strike me every time (one good, one subjectively not good_)- I have no idea what makes good music much less good mixing but the sparseness of Only the Youngest Grave allows me to hear around the noise in a way that I'm not accustomed to (good!), and also I am all attention whenever the music wanders, but it every now and then builds instead (repeated motif, click distortion pedal) which is a thing I am most allergic to thanks to post-rock but which is quite moving if you are into that, and which I consciously overlook as the noise actually overrides the loud-quiet dynamic and maybe inadvertently distracts from it. So there's something for everyone there

bandcamp

マホロボシヤ (2016)

-o- / amazon / cdjapan

Dreamboat (2016)

mie / -o-

Flutes (2016)

As pure sound (which is unfortunately all I can account for) without ritual context the sacred flute playing on display here is complex and very emotional, with the human voice made to pass through the flute rather than attempting to stay invisible through blowing just air, and the player adding percussions which draw attention to the physicality of the flute again. The voice brings the instrument into being, the instrument processes the voice, and the hands alter both.

mego / -o- / boomkat

pretty days

YAAAY JUST PICKED UP DELUXE EDTN DBL LP HAVEN'T HEARD YET BUT YAAAY

maybe album of the year (like the last one was)
might listen to it after watching police story 2 and eating toblerone
otherwise it'll have to be at work which is SOO BORING
what's your favourite jackie chan movie?
if you get the deluxe edtn like me you can put the graffiti stickers on yourself so it's kinda like your own special version
it's sorta lopsided even without my clumsy contribution
i really like rush hour 2 and think shaolin wooden men is sort of beautiful
probably write cute description of song content tomorrow at work
and for now:

buy it obvs / try BUT THEN BUY IT

dead man 2/phase 4 (2012)

As novel as the idea sounds, of recording Jim Jarmusch (sometimes great filmmaker and arbiter of hipster drone) jamming with Jozef van Wissem (cult lutist), their musical dialogues often transcend this conceit on The Mystery of Heaven, though their antecedents do it better and more naturally. Take Earth/Dead Man as a genre though, and you get to squeeze in good-era Growing and Loren Mazzacane Connors just because you feel like it. Derivative, but effective.

B-

try / buy

lost songs washed up all sad & sick (2013)

I mean, I was gonna wait 'til I understood it properly, though it's fragments and that's all, then BAM bnm

It's all just moments and ideas any way... glue them together and give it a title and people will find or project meaning onto it. Understandably some take issue with Harris' openness about this procedure- they want a concept, dammit! Likely fragments as a concept won't cut it, particularly as it threatens the illusion of Dead Deer's narrative. I thought she'd done it all with A I A and those Violet Replacement tracks, so naturally I wanted songs again. I'm willing to see past the illusion and glue it together myself. Did it with Dead Deer and doing it all over with Man Who Died. Projection or not, it works. Laziness or not, it works. Just try not feel sad and sick, 'cause then she's not done her job. Worked on me, great job.

A+

buy / try

Famous Boating Party - Silvery Branches (2003)

Weird lil ep, an incredibly good one too, manages to transcend its lo-fi-delity through using its own lo-fi-delity- fluttering (?), weightless, chiming, and so on, brought about through its very murkiness and inaccessibility- the recording that is, the sounds are all very sweet. For summer!

A+

v0

Lula Côrtes & Zé Ramalho - Paêbirú (1975)

Incredibly beautiful/intense psych, Paêbirú feels like it has an aim/purpose bigger than me and I'm either willing to believe that 'cause critics say I should or 'cause it just sounds that good and something mysterious/conceptual about it might just make it all the more engaging. Psych-er than your new psych, probably more musical too

A+

here

John Fahey - Live in Tasmania (1981)

Album Notes to Live in Tasmania - John Fahey
TAK-7089 (Chrysalis) 1981
John and I were flying somewhere between Melbourne & Sydney & Perth. A long flight and it was delayed due to the outback haze. Flying Devils were at our heels...We were scared, so we asked the stewardess for some beers. She was scared too, so she had a beer with us. Brought us more. It was, it was, it was...
John and I got definitely drunk, definitely charged and rapping freely about whatever seemed timely, especially the stewardess passing out because of the passing Macleayasaurasis. I don't quite remember the complete idioscopic sequence but it went from Tasmanian Devils, Buggs Bunny to Tasmanian Angst und Scienheit so far from everywhere. There in the Outback and then WHAM, Idea!! Let's do a live recorded concert in Tasmania. So much better than...
Well folks, the free thoughts were flowing more than the beer. (That's mighty fast in the down-under) and pretty soon the attack plan was formulated.
A call to Stefan Markovitch the owner of Hobart's (Tasmania's Capitol) Discurio Record store and a lover and sometime promoter of accoustic guitar (even Stefan Grossmannn!!!!)(!?) and jazz, who loved the idea of a concert in his very esoteric home town...but who just couldn't see covering the expenses.
Continuing, undaunted, a phone call was placed to Festival Records, Takoma's Australian representative who telexed the U.S.A. and to everyone's surprise the answer was a resounding YES! (but to what question?) (Are we in our Einheit for sicher?)
Yes! they sayeth, "An album to be recorded live in Tasmania seemed commercially viable to the POWERS THAT BE (OR DO THEY?) and we were off and running.
Stefan (Markovitch) booked the university hall in Hobart, and before we knew it we were on a submarine for Tasmania (with Fahey's wife, Melody McBad).
The entire deal was four days in the making (I am such a genius) there we were at Hobart University making recording history. The first recording by an international artist in Tasmania. Well, with only two days promotion we had a full house and a dream audience who were there to hear FAHEY and make it all work. John was on. The tapes sounded great on playback. There are some moments such as on "Waltzing Matilda" that are simply brilliant and then there's the remarkable Railroad Song, Indian-Pacific which Fahey traveled. (Fahey's other buiness is Railroad stocks.) This is the first time that Fahey has been sufficiently satisfied to approve a live recording and I am proud to have been involved.
In the prospect that I can't wait for this record's release, I should like to say that I sincerely hope (Hoffung) that the enjoyment you derive from this album is equal to the joy I had in producing it.
Peter Noble
Sydney, Australia 15/10/80

"Detractors have dismissed this album as a piece of ephemeral froth" HOW COULD U! LOOK AT THE KANGAS

A

256

Guy Clark - Dublin Blues (1995)

A mere three years after Boats to Build, Guy Clark offered Dublin Blues, a record filled with sizzle, inspiration, and his best batch of songs in years. Teaming with Miles Wilkinson for the third time and using in the studio for the first time his road band -- which includes über guitarist and singer Darrell Scott -- Clark delivers a batch of searing portraits, intimate observations, first-person narratives, and one dumb throwaway cut ("Baby Went to Memphis in a Limo"). As usual, some old friends return to the fold -- Rodney Crowell, Emmylou Harris, Sam Bush, Verlon Thompson, Kenny Malone, and Suzy Ragsdale -- but there are new faces as well like Ramblin' Jack Elliott, Nanci Griffith, and Kathy Mattea. The magic begins with the title track. Haunted Celtic melodies played on the fiddle and a mandolin with an acoustic guitar usher in a country song that could be from the countryside of Ireland. With Mattea on the backing vocals, the listener is transported between worlds in time and space. "Black Diamond Strings" is a friendly little number about what else: guitar strings! Its catchy hook and singalong chorus make it a Clark winner. "Shut Up and Talk to Me" features Scott playing the swinging blues as Clark counts off the music like a fierce memory. "Stuff That Works" is another of Clark's quiet observation tunes, where his words speak volumes and the instruments underline their meanings. It's a workingman's anthem sung seemingly from the workshop bench. But "Hank Williams Said It Best," "Tryin' to Try," "Cape," and "Hangin' Your Life on the Wall" are all tremendous in their scope and intimacy. They are full of dimension and depth, and Wilkinson gives them textures. The set ends with a re-recording of the spooky yet shattering elegy "The Randall Knife" Clark cut on Better Days. The difference here is age. The view Clark sings from is one of distance and age. "The Randall Knife" doesn't feel quite so spooky this time out, but it does resonate with empathy and even tenderness. As it winds to a close, the listener is left not in bewildered silence but in awe that such a bond exists at all.
-AMG

here

Acid Mothers Temple & the Melting Paraiso U.F.O. - Absolutely Freak Out (Zap Your Mind!!) (2001)

Psych for perverts, or tasteful noise. Star Child vs Third Bad Stone and Supernatural Infinite Space - Waikiki Easy Meat are enjoyably washy, noisy, and dreamy. Grapefruit March - Virgin UFO - Let's Have A Ball - Pagan Nova is the 60s avant-garde + Suicide + noise. It's retarded. Stone Stoner finds something good every now and again as weird folk gets caught up in noisy leftovers and Makoto Kawabata's guitar work soars like Neil Young's does. The Incipient Light of the Echoes shows they didn't get Terry Riley completely out of their system with In C. Minimalism filtered through noise and drugs. Actually pretty awesome. Magic Aum Rock - Mercurial Megatronic Meninx reminds of Boredoms' Super Ae in that it's a constantly driving and messy noise workout. There seems to be no feel-good trance intention, however. Children of the Drab - Surfin' Paris Texas - Virgin UFO Feedback is Kawabata being Kawabata again... starts doing guitar freakouts even when the rest of the band can't keep up. Casually awesome. The Kiss That Took a Trip - Magic Aum Rock Again - Love is Overborne - Fly High is a nice little Yoko Ono-ish excursion (I like Yoko's voice) and a heavy psych excursion and the guitars at the end are nice. Psych for perverts.

B-

1 / 2
stream

Terry Callier - What Color Is Love (1972)

Intricate/sophisticated arrangements would be the source of much inspiration to lesser artists a decade or so later also concerned with the human condition by way of their own 'profound' experience or observation- I'm thinking of you, sophistipoppers! Lyrically repetitive/sentimental like you'd expect from a soul record. Grand, organic, stoned, atmospheric, and melancholic like you mightn't. And that might be where the folk kicks in. Or was that jazz? Who can tell. Starting things with your best song and then repeating that but not as good with a few Withers-y ones to mask or dress up the repetition would be a terrible idea if it weren't for his fantastic voice carrying it. He might repeat himself, but he sounds good doing so. Not a terrible idea, but not a good one either. The ear longs for anything half as good as Dancing Girl and after 30 mins still has blue balls. This record will probably blue ball you. But it also has a song so good that it almost makes it worth returning to that blue ball state. And that's the most critical I can be of What Color Is Love/Terry Callier: you put your best song first. The others are pretty good too, but you put your best song first

A-

here
stream

Donovan - H.M.S. Donovan (1971)

An extension of Donovan’s Blake-ish A Gift From a Flower to a Garden which alternated sides of experience and innocence (GET IT SIDES NOT SONGS), HMS Donovan is all innocence: 28 songs for children. It’s almost a good use for his timeless pastoral nostalgia! Download it for your children! I don’t have children either! I’m too young and I can’t drive! Other than performing its function (and let’s presume, doing that well), it’s also got some of the sweetest melodies he’d ever write. But it’s 28 tracks long! Boldly unhip and really odd, HMS Donovan likely captures the hazy timelessness of your childhood and fragmentedness of your memories. I'll warn you again though: it’s also 28 songs for children!

B

Mark Fry - Dreaming With Alice (1972)

Less creepy than B'eirth's 60s psych inspired 'medieval' fragility which denied any real sense of time other than 'the medieval,' pushing The Kinks' and Donovan's timeless pastoral nostalgia to the limit of absolute escapist falseness, Fry's genuine 60s psych (1972, but it sounds that way) boldly touches on that familiar some time other than now simulacrum full with hippie mysticism and unsettling sepia imagery, but goes further to establish itself in time and place with things like raga jams (The Witch and Mandolin Man), popular with psych weirdos of the time

B+

spotify

In Gowan Ring - Hazel Steps Through a Weathered Home (2002)

As knowingly pretentious as Rome, B'eirth looks to and acts in the same medieval simulacrum as Donovan where Jérôme sought to capture the atmosphere of the actual 'world on the brink of war.' He goes delicate rather than pompous, hence comparisons to Nick Drake rather than Nick Cave. Musically he attempts the same purity as Cashmore's best moments on Beauty Reaps The Blood of Solitude and actually manages- Hazel Steps Through a Weathered Home is a beautifully composed album. Lyrically he's Romantic where his influences might go psychedelic (Donovan), and a troubadour rather than a prophet or a mystic (Tibet). Regardless of how expertly done this all is (and it is expertly done!), appreciation of Hazel Steps Through a Weathered Home comes down to how much (expertly done) Romantic/troubadour folk the listener can manage in one sitting. The first few tracks really moved me, but I couldn't listen for the whole 50 minutes. Highly recommended for those who can do it

B

buy
spotify

Rome - Flowers From Exile (2009)

Damn you tl;dr/hyperbolic-gush/adjective/thesaurus reviews! It’s when I try to find reviews for ‘serious’/’beautiful’ albums like this that I’m convinced that rock critics are as bad as film critics!

Blending ‘martial’ folk- folk inspired by shit like dark ambient, war marches, neoclassical music- and awesome melodramatic pop, Flowers in Exile is apocalyptic folk replacing aggression with introspection, dorky/disgusting fetishization of aforementioned influences with sentiment, and subversive shocks with indulgent artistry. Obtrusive museum-core occasionally breaks the flow of things or goes against what I just praised the album for, but often these sections are followed by an appealing mixture of U2, Nature and Organisation, Nick Cave, and something exotic, all situated firmly in wartime atmospherics- check ‘A Culture of Fragments’ getting saved by the wonderful ‘We Who Fell In Love With the Sea’ for example

B+

buy
spotify

Roy Harper - Flat Baroque and Berserk (1970)

Stoned hippie spoken ramblings make their way into Flat Baroque and Berserk and upset the otherwise appealing flow of stoned hippie song ramblings

Hands too numb, next sentence later

B-