If you've ever had an interest in contemporary jazz but didn't know where to start, this is the place. Brud: 3 CDs filled with every permutation of back-cracked jazz you'd ever hoped existed. It's a lengthy testament to Andre Vida's infinitely brilliant imagination. Listen below and be converted (it's that simple):
Andrew Douglas Rothbard's hyper-collagist, über-stylized psychedelia is like a chocolate fountain, constantly brimming over with candy-sweet richness. On his latest, Frequenseqer, It's almost too much, carrying the threat of short-wiring the listener's brain. But that's part of the deranged beauty of it: an all-cylinders assault constantly teetering on the point of collapse (yet always managing to stay right-side up). Containing 23 tracks, Rothbard's most recent outing is a gorgeous, expansive mind-tangle, flush with swirling electronics, beat-mashing intricacies and a giant-sized, glitched-out imagination. A very worthy successor to 2009's Exodusarabesque(and his debut, Abandoned Meander, for that matter). File under: should've been on my year-end list (like everything I've been posting lately: new 2011 year-end list in February (I should kill myself...)).
Kurt Weisman is right: more is more. Which is why, when I finally got around discovering and hearing his debut 7" (pre-Spiritual Sci-fi), More Is More, I had to drop my jaw open here. I love Spiritual Sci-fi, and this is in that exact vein of weirdness/wonderfulness.
Double-bonus, Weisman-acolyte and FG-featured musician, Salvador (Salvita?) Cresta, made this mind-warping video for More Is More's "(Syd´s snooze room)´s blues and leather gallery":
I'm just discovering the brilliant, brilliant composer and cellist, Okkyung Lee, which is always a terrific and terrifying experience: reaffirming that there are endless numbers of incredible musicians, musicians who you (read: I--but probably you too) would love if you only knew they existed, and each with lush, exciting back-catalogs: infinite music. There's simply not enough time... But, at the end of the day, at least I can say that I did finally find Noisy Love Songs. An easy comparison here--she being a cellist--is with fellow cellist, neo-classical composer, experimentalist (and FG fave) Aaron Martin. However, while Martin has perfected sad-gorgeous melodies and sparse-but-effective sound samples, electronic flourishes, Lee's work takes on a more animalistic, almost feral quality. There's a move into more contemporary, improvised territory with Lee (perhaps they're not so comparable after all). The album's beautiful by nature of the cello, but that doesn't stop Lee from pushing the boundaries of her instrument and the musical territory we've come to expect from it (the cello). Noisy Love Songs is certainly verging well into avant garde territory, but Lee manages experimentalism that doesn't all-together abandon what is obviously a high level of classical/compositional training. The album skips back and forth between "love songs" content, simply, to stretch and heighten one's back fur to those bent on obliterating everything into a primal, beastly huff. It's a very dynamic record and, I must say, Lee has me totally smitten. I imagine in the coming months I'll be digging up a lot of Okkyung Lee to feature on the blog. Brilliant, brilliant work.
Bloody gorgeous, muddy, bluesy solo guitar improvisations from this Pacific Northwest guitar-neck strangler. And occupying a well-fitting place with Mississippi Records (even as one the very few contemporary artists they've put out). Anderson's certainly in touch with old-age blues. On The Golden Hour, the blues/delta/ragtime lineage is immediately apparent, but with a new-style corrosiveness and grit, grandeur, and most importantly, soul. Did I mention how gorgeous this record is? Nowadays, if you are releasing a solo guitar record, there's some obligatory sense in the critic of name dropping Fahey and everyone else. Marisa Anderson (and I apologize for having mentioned the name already) stands outside that obligation as a guitarist whose work holds up singularly and boldly on its own merits. Strong, timeless music here with the strength to rebuild a wobbling nation by harnessing what grace that helped build that nation in the first place. The Golden Hour is one of those kinds of albums.
