Record Roundup: New Music Cavalcade

The turns of history that have transpired since I started this post are even more head-spinning than the kaleidoscopic variety of music I discuss below. But the fact remains that whatever happens in the world of politics, we will always have artists to inspire us and reflect the world back to us in ways that lend perspective, strength, and solace. With the monumental election now behind us, the end of the year also seems to approach ever more rapidly. However, I will attempt to get one or two more "regular" posts up before we start delineating the best of 2020. Because, yes, there is yet more mind-blowing music to cover!

Tracks from the albums below, and many others, can be found here or below. Click follow to make sure you don't miss a thing.

  

Ash Fure - Something To Hunt The first time I heard Echoes by Pink Floyd (which was shamefully late in the game), I thought, "This should be played in concert halls around the world." So when I put on this album, the first portrait collection of Fure's music (also shamefully late!), I felt my vision coming to a certain kind of reality. Especially on Shiver Lung (2016), which opens the album, there's a sense of distant observation, narrative sweep, and mounting terror that brings some of the legendary band's sounds and structures into the realm of contemporary composition most effectively. I'm not surprised to read that it's an excerpt from a longer work, The Force Of Things: An Opera for Objects, as Pink Floyd themselves fruitlessly pursued an album made solely for household objects. As heard here, Shiver Lung is a landmark work of nearly pure sound that makes astonishingly original use of the forces of the International Contemporary Ensemble, who perform most of the pieces on the record. I've probably rung this bell too often already, but if you have some bigger speakers in your house, let it rip on them for full immersion. Something To Hunt (2014) is more recognizable as ultra-modern chamber music, although of a highly distinctive nature, with strings plucked and stroked, and a dynamic architecture that edges towards chaos before pulling back. 

Soma (2012), a reflection on Fure's grandmother's Parkinson's disease, is a restless assemblage of piano notes, rustling strings, and white noises, and would fascinate even without knowing the inspiration behind it. The most stripped-down piece here is A Library on Lightning (2018), which makes the most of a trio of trumpet, bassoon, and double bass, ranging from skeletal stretches to furious conglomerations for a discomfiting 14 minutes. Bound To The Bow (2016) is presented in a spellbinding live recording by the Interlochen Arts Academy Orchestra and brings us full circle to the sound world of Shiver Lung, with shimmering electronics blending with the acoustic instruments. It's edge-of-your-seat stuff and the perfect conclusion to Something To Hunt, which finally begins to slake the thirst I've had to dive into Fure's music, which, like that of Anna Thorvaldsdottir is highly complex but holds broad appeal. Don't miss it.

Anna Thorvaldsdottir - Rhízōma Speaking of this Icelandic wonder, her first portrait album, which introduced me to her music nearly a decade ago, has been reissued in a stunning remaster by Sono Luminus, and includes a new recording of Dreaming performed by the Iceland Symphony Orchestra. You have no excuse to miss it the second time around.

Jacqueline Leclair - Music For English Horn Alone Funny how the world converges sometimes. Just today I started catching up with the awesome podcast from TAK Ensemble, listening to Hannah Kendall interview Elaine Mitchener and thinking I need to follow up on both of them. Then I plucked this album off my teetering stack and spotted Kendall's name among the seven composers Leclaire included here. At just over three minutes, Kendall's piece is short but characterful. Called Joe (2006),  and based on the photo of the same name by Richard Boll, it asks more questions than it answers while conveying empathy for its subject. Leclair's technique in this world premiere recording is flawless, as it is throughout this concise collection. There's plenty of variety here, too. In The City At Night (2008) by Jenni Brandon has some of Gershwin's jazzy insouciance, full of dance rhythms and narrative thrust, while Kara Obermüller's different forms of phosphorous (2020) tends towards abstraction, exploring extended techniques. Perhaps most radical is Música invisible (2004) by Cecilia Arditto, which has Leclair removing the reed and bocal to make some very human noises. 

The Obermüller and Arditto pieces are also recorded for the first time, as is Layered Lament (1984) by Faye-Ellen Silverman, which in its use of electronics is at least 20 years ahead of its time. Besides just being a good listen, such advocacy and archiving make Music For English Horn Alone, which also includes fascinating works by Meera Gudipati and Lisa Bielawa, a truly important release and one that will define this repertoire, for years to come.

Dominique Lemaître - De l’espace trouver la fin et le milieu This gorgeously recorded collection of Lemaître's cello music, played with mastery and a deep connection by Dan Barrett, was my introduction to the French composer. Based on these jewel-toned pieces, which often tingle the spine and always engage the mind, I'm ready to deepen the friendship. The album opens with Orange and yellow II (2013), in a transcription from the original two-viola version, making full use of the eight strings as Barrett duets with Stanislav Orlovsky. Inspired by Mark Rothko and written in tribute to Morton Feldman, the two cellos pursue a dialogue that is as riveting as listening in on a conversation by dazzling intellects. Like many of the pieces, the highly resonant acoustic is almost another instrument, with notes hanging in the air and echoing in the distance. 

Mnaïdra (1992) and Plus haut (2018) are the two solo works here and a good measure of how Lemaître's work has developed over the years. The former is lyrical and almost folk-like, with gentle strums and tidy melodies, while the latter is an epic of abstract yearning, ending with a series of piercing repeated notes ("higher" - as implied by the title) that will stay with you for some time. Pianist Jed Distler is on hand for Stances, hommage à Henri Dutilleux (2015), which has single notes from the keyboard decorating long, ruminative lines from the cello, like sunlight sparkling on water, and you would likely not need the title to recognize Lemaître's debt to his fellow French master. The album also includes Thot (1994), which has Barrett playing with clarinetist Michiyo Suzuki in a wonderfully hushed exploration of woody textures. Read the notes and you will find that Lemaître is, in some ways, what you might expect from a cultured French composer: elegant, well-read, well-traveled, and with phenomenally assured technical skills. But that doesn't mean that this music isn't quietly surprising and the fact that it is surpassingly excellent is likely a result of all those qualities. There's something to be said for new music made old school!

Brooklyn Rider - Healing Modes This high-concept album interleaves the five movements of Beethoven's String Quartet No. 15 with five new pieces commissioned by Brooklyn Rider from some of today's most notable composers. While Beethoven's 250th anniversary was obviously an impetus for putting the album together, along with the world's desperate need for healing, there's no way the group could have predicted just how much healing when they commissioned these works a few years ago. I'm also fairly certain the group was not expecting Beethoven to become a flashpoint in the ongoing quest for social justice in classical music. While celebrating his "genius and humanity," as violist Johnny Gandelsman puts it, is a valid point in every year, whether the concept ultimately works for you will depend on your patience for listening to Beethoven. For me, I'm just not in the mood - and not for ideological reasons but for musical ones. I have shelves of the stuff, after all, and it just felt too familiar, even in their lapidary performance. So after a couple of listens, I teased out my own playlist of just the new works and...WOW. This is some of the best string quartet music of recent years. 

Matana Roberts' borderlands... opens the album in cinematic fashion, with indistinct voices, "Psycho" jabs, intricate and angry pizzicato, and the occasional moment of calm. By the time the players started spitting out "We hold these truths! To be..Self Evident!" I was almost on my feet. Reena Esmail's Zeher (Poison) seamlessly combines the sinuous melodies of Indian classical music with brusque chording for a bracing and beautiful eight minutes. I was reminded of her lovely piece on Nicholas Phillips' Shift and once again have a whetted appetite for more. The third new piece on Healing Modes is Gabriela Lena Frank's Kanto Kechua #2 and, based on this commanding and incantatory work, she is someone about whom I need to know more - and here's the perfect place to do just that. 

Then we get i am my own achilles heel, a mesmerizing 12-minute piece from Du Yun, which maps out a wide dynamic range, from airy whispers and pensive melodies to gnarly tangles of sound. She can do no wrong. The final new piece is by Caroline Shaw, the tuneful, Americana-infused Schisma, ending the album on a perfect note of hopefulness, although in no ways uncomplicated. By all means, follow the program and listen to Healing Modes as programmed by Brooklyn Rider. But if that's not hitting the spot, find your way to these wondrous new works through other means. 

Another hint of the depth of talent in Brooklyn Rider is violist Nicolas Cords' new album, Touch Harmonious, which mixes new works by Anna Clyne, Dmitri Yanov Yanovski, and Dana Lyn with older pieces by Britten, Handel, Bach, and other, all played with the same burnished tone and emotional engagement he displayed on Recursion, his solo debut from 2013. Gandelsman also has a new album, following up his complete recording of Bach's Solo Partitas, this time assaying the master's Complete Cello Suites transcribed for violin, including the first-ever recording of the 6th suite on a 5-string violin. It's a fleet-fingered take, emphasizing the Baroque dance rhythms embedded in each movement. Gandelsman's technique is flawless yet imbued with personality, making you hear these oft-played works anew. Now, if I could just get cellist Michael Nicolas to give me a sequel to Transitions, my life would be complete...for a little while, anyway!

Chris P. Thompson - True Stories & Rational Numbers Though inspired by the fearsomely complex player-piano works of Conlon Nancarrow and some deep thoughts about just intonation and Hermann von Helmholtz’s book On the Sensations of Tone, these nine piano pieced gleam with off-kilter charm, like a futuristic blend of Aphex Twin, Roger Eno and Erik Satie. Put it on and the sparkle will fill your room, like mirrored mobiles spinning around themselves, as you hear the piano in a whole new way.

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Record Roundup: On The Cutting Edge

The idea of "progress" in music is a bit amorphous. One description of it might include music that reflects the current state of society and the sonic universe of the time in which it was created. This would have us recognize both musique concrete and hip hop as "progressive" for reflecting industrial and urban realities in a way that was new at the times they arose. But there's also the fact that, once introduced, even the edgiest sounds can become fodder for generations of artists, leading to modern or "new music" tropes that are maybe not so modern or new - but they can still sound fantastic and challenge our ears. Below find five albums that are either on the cutting edge of musical progress or that sound "new" even if they draw on the modernism of earlier eras. 

Grand Valley State University New Music Ensemble  - Return Saul Steinberg's famous New Yorker cover showing a supposed void between America's coasts should be redrawn with a giant neon sign pointing to Allendale, MI, where this estimable band has been plying its trade since 2006. Even more astonishing than their excellent performances of canonical pieces like Reich's Music For 18 Musicians or the works they have commissioned over the years is the fact that the program, under the direction of Bill Ryan, is churning out composers to reckon with at an alarming rate. 

It all comes together on Return, featuring electro-acoustic music written by three GVSU grads, Adam Cuthbert, Matt Finch and Daniel Rhode, who together founded slashsound, an "experimental" music collective. While the three composers all get individual credits among the 15 tracks on offer, the sound of the record is so cohesive that you don't think much about who wrote what. They also used the time-honored "write-record-cut-paste" method where the final product is the result of further manipulating sounds laid down in the studio and assembling them into the works we hear here. This means that the personality and skill of the players is not something you're very aware of, although I don't doubt that these are all excellent musicians. 

So where does this leave us? With 15 gorgeous selections of music at the intersection of ambient and minimalism, where repeating patterns may devolve into washes of sound or bold chords, and where a mechanical pulse may underlie soaring stardust synth before resolving into a drone. Like the best of Brian Eno's instrumental music, your attention can dip in and out at will with no loss of satisfaction. Return is a consistently immersive listen but if you want to sample try location sharing, with its commanding thrums, or dearest rewinder these, which moves through overlapping patterns, some quite Reichian, and resolves into gleaming, triumphant keyboard chords that wouldn't sound out of place on the new Beck album. Good show, GVSU!

Phong Tran - Initiate This first album by recent NYU grad (he studied with Michael Gordon) Tran was released by slashsound’s label and definitely fits their aesthetic. Tran, however, is exploring the use of “minimal source material” and composed the work using only homemade synthesizer software. But there’s still more than enough variety in texture and tempo in the seven movements to keep you interested. What really keeps you riveted is the narrative structure and urgency. Tran was inspired by “the story in every story” theorized by Joseph Campbell’s Hero With A Thousand Faces and as applied to the enormous life changes going on for him and his family and friends. Of course, the mind movie you create while listening will be your own - get ready to watch it in IMAX. 

Scott Wollschleger - Soft Aberration This debut album of angular chamber music showcases a composer so steeped in the European avant garde that neither Schoenberg, Berio or Boulez would have trouble connecting to what he’s doing here. But it’s rare that you hear such command of structure and orchestration in any idiom. Some of that may be a result of the fact that each piece was commissioned by its performer(s) and conceived with their specific talents in kind. The first piece, Brontal Symmetry, has wit, melody, and plenty of spice, doled out in digestible bits. Created from scraps unused in earlier works, it’s an ideal introduction to Wollschleger’s talents. The recording by Longleash, a trio comprised of Pala Garcia (violin), John Popham (cello), Renate Rohlfing (piano), sets a very high bar with their commitment and surprisingly light touch. 

Popham is also heard in the threnodic America for solo cello, which he dispatches as though the ink were drying on the score. But with the great pianist Karl Larson on board with violinist Anne Lanzilotti in the title piece, and the Mivos Quartet closing the album with the spectral White Wall, there was never going to be any let up in quality. Wollschleger’s astonishing grasp is further demonstrated by perhaps the most challenging piece here, Bring Something Incomprehensible Into The World, a three movement work for soprano (Corinne Byrne) and trumpet (Andy Kozar). With both musicians pursuing extended techniques with style and even levity, it more than lives up to its title, and wonderfully so. Far from an aberration, this album is the sound of someone firmly planting their flag at a thrilling elevation. More, please. P.S. Keep an eye on upcoming performances of Wollschleger's music, including Larson in the complete piano music on November 20th.

Brooklyn Rider - Spontaneous Symbols A new album from this expert quartet is always cause for celebration, and this album of 100% premiere recordings may be their finest yet. The five pieces here cover a lot of ground, from Tyondai Braxton’s ArpRec1 - two brief and busy movements created using generative software - to Kyle Sanna’s ruminative Sequence For Minor White, which pays tribute to the great photographer over 20 searching minutes. 

The quartet is enhanced by some tinkling chimes at the end of Sanna’s piece and also by electronics in Paula Matthusen’s on the attraction of felicitous amplitude. The additional sounds are treated recordings made in an ancient Roman cistern and the short piece is as mysterious as that would imply. Evan Ziporyn, a founding member of Bang On A Can, knows something of field recordings, but his Qi is probably the most straightforward work here. Featuring three dynamic movements filled with lyricism and driving rhythms, Qi also shows a real mastery of arrangement as the stings pair off in different combinations or take soaring solos against a backdrop of the other instruments. 

The last work to mention is BTT, composed by Colin Jacobsen, one of Brooklyn Rider’s violinists. Inspired by the idea of downtown Manhattan as a hotbed of the avant-garde, from the Velvet Underground to Glenn Branca, over 20 minutes it pursues a series of riffs that occasionally imply a rock backbeat before devolving into impassioned scrubbing or delicate pizzicato. There’s a narrative thrust to BTT, like a series of overheard anecdotes, or scenes from the window of a cab ride home over rain-slicked midnight streets, that makes it consistently fascinating throughout. 

The recording, released on In a Circle Records, which is run by quartet violinist Johnny Gandelsman, is second to none, with dimension, clarity, and just the right amount of warmth. Brooklyn Rider are in the midst of an international tour that runs through June 2018. You won’t want to miss them if they come to your town. 

Quatuor Diotima - Arturo Fuentes: String Quartets Is it truly impossible to find the bottom of the well of great string quartets and composers? It’s starts to feel that way when an album like this comes on the radar. Fuentes while still young, is 20 years into a career that is all news to me - and maybe to you, too. I was also unfamiliar with Diotima, which was founded in 1996. This is the first recording of these four quartets, however, which were all composed between 2008 and 2014, so at least we’re caught up on that front! 

The titles of the substantial single-movement works here would suggest that they all occupy the same sound-world - and they do. It could even be said that Broken Mirrors, Liquid Crystals, Ice Reflection and Glass Distortion are all movements in one meta-quartet or even a symphony for four strings. The thin, wiry sounds of heavily angled bows on high strings thread their way through each piece, along with harmonics and slightly shredded bass strings, giving the impression of an almost constant fragmentation, like a kaleidoscope that will never stop turning, pieces that will never cohere. 

There’s an almost mimetic quality to these absorbing works, too, with the mirrors, crystals, ice and glass referred to in the titles coming to life in your mind’s eye as you listen. While occasionally discomfiting, there is also an elegance to Fuentes’ writing, with a recognition of the characters of the instruments that seems to run very deep. I also can't help hearing harmonization with the icy, scrabbling textures on Nordic Affect's Raindamage - if you liked that, this will be right up your alley. From my brief traverse of his other recorded works, this album is as good an introduction as any to an exciting composer who is sure to only grow in stature. 

Selections from these albums and others in this zone can be found this playlist. Click “follow” if you want to keep in touch with what is still to come in 2017. 

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Best Of 14 (Part 1)

Just three of the great records included in 11-20.

My turntable, CD player, iPod and Spotify account have all runneth over with fantastic music this year. Hopefully my attempt to quantify the many, many great records I've heard this year into a Top 20 list won't keep me awake at night, but you really should not rest until you've heard all of these. First up, 11-20.

11. Debby Schwartz: A Garden Of My Own - In which my old friend Debby makes good on the promise she showed all those years ago in the Aquanettas. 

12. Brooklyn Rider: American Almanac - Furious energy and a spate of new commissions make this the string quartet album of the year. 

13. Hospitality: Trouble - Hospitality maintain their charm while deepening and darkening their sound with hints of glacial prog and electro.

14. Kate Tempest: Everybody Down - I recently read that a large percentage of those who were shortlisted for the Mercury Prize had sold less than a 1,000 copies of their albums. I certainly hope that Kate Tempest, who was a member of that select group, has found more listeners than that. Of course "sales" are only one measure of success in today's world and, while Tempest was ultimately passed over for the Mercury, it would have been just one more award for this decorated poet, rapper, playwright and novelist. Everybody Down is a kaleidoscopic song cycle about young Londoners set to state of the art, insistently danceable beats by Dan Carey. Tempest makes the most of her slightly raspy voice, finding melodies in the words and inhabiting the different characters with total commitment. New details emerge from the songs at every listen. She will be performing this material for the first time in New York on March 24th, 2015 at Mercury Lounge. Needless to say, I already have my ticket.

15. Angel Olsen: Burn Your Fire For No Witness - Olsen arrives at the forefront of songwriting and singing with this top-flight album.

16. John Luther Adams: Become Ocean - While Adams' gorgeous Pulitzer Prize winning tone poem may not solve climate change, it will certainly change your own personal atmosphere. Smashing recording and performance from Ludovic Morlot and the Seattle Symphony.

17. Scott Walker & Sunn O))): Soused - In what may be the most surprising collaboration since Lou Reed met Metallica in Lulu's abbatoir, Soused found Walker joining forces with drone metal avatars Sunn O))) (named for the logo of an American amplifier company) to produce possibly his least obscure work since the last Walker Brothers album. Hearing his magnicent tenor ring out with a line from Oh Shenandoah ("Across the wide Missouri") to start the album is a thrill and when the guitars start wailing and slashing it sounds uncannily right. Lyrically, Walker is up to his usual tricks, exploring the dark side of American popular culture (Brando: "I took it for Wild One. And then for my sin"), the darker side of history's anti-heroes (Herod 2014) and other pitch-black subject matter. There's a strong feeling of theater to the whole enterprise and Soused demands to be listened to in one sitting. It's a real experience and one that seems to have given new purpose to Sunn O))), who have been plowing their singular furrow for nearly 20 years without really getting anywhere. Walker has harnessed them brilliantly, drawing on their mastery of guitars and textures to add weight to his soundscapes. Soused connects like a haymaker - be forewarned.

18. Golden Retriever: Seer - One could almost imagine Scott Walker finding a place for his frightening ruminations in the sounds created by Matt Carlson (modular synth) and Jonathan Sielaff (bass clarinet) as Golden Retriever, except their music is somehow more friendly and inviting than what he typically goes for. They make the most of their limited palette, drawing on sources both ambient (Harold Budd comes to mind) and avant garde (they cite Alvin Lucier) to create long, spacious environments for the listener to explore. There's a lot of color and detail to Golden Retriever's music and the feeling of excited collaboration between Carlson and Sielaff is palpable - and contagious. Don't let Seer fly under your radar. 

19. Jonny Greenwood: Inherent Vice OST - While his Radiohead bandmate Thom Yorke gets more ink for his thoughts on the business of music delivery than for his mostly terrific new album, Greenwood quietly goes about his business. He's already had quite a year, what with the beautiful recording of a symphonic suite from his There Will Be Blood soundtrack released on Deutsche Grammophon (as for Bryce Dessner's music on the same album, the less said the better), and his fluid, concentrated performance of Steve Reich's Electric Counterpoint included on that composer's record of Radiohead-inspired music. Now we get his latest soundtrack for a Paul Thomas Anderson movie, Inherent Vice, based on the Thomas Pynchon novel. While I confess to not being a fan of Anderson, he's done a great service by repeatedly giving the reins to Greenwood and enabling him to create some of the most striking movie scores of our era with There Will Be Blood, The Master and now Inherent Vice. 

Greenwood seems to see the sound-world of a movie as a whole, composing his own pieces and also selecting other music as an incredibly apropos supplement. For Norwegian Wood, he sequenced songs by Can in between his symphonic cues, creating a unique tapestry. Inherent Vice also contains a Can song - their classic Vitamin C is the second track, after Greenwood's lush, pensive theme - but there are also songs by Minnie Riperton, Neil Young, surf-rockers The Marketts and soul singer Chuck Jackson, among others, for his most varied soundtrack yet. There's even a curio for Radiohead fans: a version of Spooks, which they've played live but never recorded. As finished here, it features Greenwood alongside two members of the now-defunct Supergrass and a spoken narration. It's terrific but "not really rh," as Greenwood himself Tweeted.

In some of Greenwood's own compositions, there are echoes of Bernard Herrmann's brilliant score for The Ghost And Mrs. Muir, with delicate woodwinds and strings intertwining to explore psychological depths perhaps ignored by the characters. His guitar comes out on Spooks and couple of other tracks that have a band feel, but for the most part he stays away from his day job. The Markett's track is a bit goofy and Kyu Sakamoto's Sukiyaki is kind of irritating, but the Minnie Riperton song is surprisingly great, and the important thing is the totality of the listening experience. From what I've heard, some who excessively laud Anderson are finding Inherent Vice to be quite a bit less an the sum of its parts. Not so for Greenwood's music. I'll probably save the $12 bucks and stick with the movie he's already created in my mind. You shouldn't form any opinions on Greenwood's work based on the movie's trailer, which features exactly none of his contributions. The soundtrack to Inherent Vice will be released on December 15th. 

20. Perfect Pussy: Say Yes To Love - I admit to a secret fascination with online comments related to this young band from Syracuse. Invariably someone will say, with absolute authority: "This just isn't good noise or hardcore," which usually makes me think: "As if they care." While they do draw on those traditions, they have no need to fit into any genre or subculture or follow anybody's rules. Their debut album is short, serrated and sweet, like their performances. A recent concert from Paris shows they can rule a big stage as effectively as a small one.

A burst of blistering noise - that's a good way to end a Top 20, clearing the decks for 2015. However, there's still more 2014 to come: next time I'll go back to the beginning and deliver numbers 1-10. After that will come The Best of the Rest of 14 and Out of the Past (reissues and other older sounds).

Information For 16 Strings

Like the binary system, string quartets can convey seemingly infinite amounts of information using a simple and easily replicable structure. Two recent releases from Brooklyn Rider and the Juilliard String Quartet highlight some of those possibilities.

The Brooklyn Rider Almanac, featuring 13 new compositions commissioned by the group, comes swathed in layers of information before you even get to the music. The inspiration for the collection, the liner notes explain, comes from Der Blaue Rieter Almanach, the compilation of music, art and essays published in 1912 by The Blue Rider, an art collective based in Munich and centering around painter Wassily Kandinsky. Brooklyn Rider's name is an homage to the German artists and the inspiration for their Almanac comes from the way Kandinsky and company allowed different forms of art to inform each other. In fact, the spark for the Munich visionaries was provided by Kandinsky's Impression III, a quite wonderful painting itself a response to a performance of Schoenberg's Second String Quartet in Munich in 1911.

To carry through the idea, Brooklyn Rider asked the mostly young composers (at 63, Bill Frissell is the oldest) to compose a new work based somehow on the work of an artist they admired. Muses include everyone from William Faulkner to Keith Haring and from James Brown to Mierle Lederman Ukeles, the Artist in Residence at the Department of Sanitation. The composers themselves come from all over the map, including two of indie rock's finest drummers, Glenn Kotche and Greg Saunier, a few notable jazz musicians, such as Vijay Iyer, Frissell, and Ethan Iverson of The Bad Plus and a few singer-songwriters. All of the writers for the album are people who perform as well as compose, which could be one of the factors that gives the Almanac its extraordinary energy.

Right from the start, with Necessary Henry! by Albanian cellist Rubin Kodheli, we are treated to a surge of churning power from the quartet. With inspiration from composer Henry Threadgill, Koheli works in all sorts of jazzy swoops and glides, along with percussive thwacks before driving the piece to furious conclusion of unison playing. It's a knockout. Maintenance Music follows, by Dana Lyn and inspired by Ukeles, brooding but tense for the first few minutes, then turning to playful skittery interactions between the players. That's the other thing: all of these works are short, with the longest nearing nine minutes and shortest under three, making for a nicely balanced listening experience. In fact, it may be the perfect shuffle play string quartet album. And you don't have to engage with the liner notes to enjoy it, although this is one case where they do make it more fun.

Padma Newsome of The Clogs portrays the Australian desert through the eyes of Aboriginal painter Albert Namatjira in Simpson's Gap, using sonorities that Aaron Copland would have found well suited to the American prairies. It's a broadly tuneful work that hides layers of pain and struggle beneath the surface. The Haring Escape by sax player Daniel Cords (no relation to BR's own Nicholas Cords) is suitably cartoonish in depicting the liberation of Haring's populist drawings from the stuffy environs of private collections and galleries, bringing to mind the ingenious musical engines of Raymond Scott. Aoife O'Donovan, a singer-songwriter, took her inspiration from William Faulkner for Show Me and conjures up song-like passages infused with the melodies of the American South. It's pure charm. 

My first reaction to Dig The Say, Iyer's James Brown homage was "oy," based on the clunky title alone. But damn if he hasn't gone and done it, convincingly translating James Brown's methods to the world of the string quartet. It's simply delightful - and slightly hilarious - to hear cellist Eric Jacobsen expertly play a Bootsy Collins bass line. As Iyer says, Brown's "...groove-based music features complex polyphony, expressive virtuosity, and a ritual-like intensity," all successfully captured here. Dig it. Iyer's description of JB's music could also be used for Greg Saunier's work with Sean Lennon in their improvisatory duo, Mystical Weapons. However, his work here is one of the more mediative pieces on the Almanac. Titled simply Quartet, Parts One & Two and inspired by Christian Wolff, a composer closely associated with John Cage, it features long, plangent lines and such clarity that it's almost as if the quartet was reduced by half. 

Saunier's work segues nicely into Morris Dance (for choreographer Mark Morris) by Iverson, which, as you would expect, features some parodic moments, most notably an oh-so-deep cello cadenza. The piece ends with a little singing, which is a nice touch and sets up the next piece, Exit, by BR's violinist Colin Jacobsen, which features Shara Wordon on vocals. He gets away with two muses, using words from Kandinsky poems while drawing on the "inquisitive nature" of David Byrne. It's a tuneful, circular work with as much singing and clapping as string playing. I've always enjoyed Jacobsen's contributions to BR's repertoire, and Exit, part of a song cycle called Chalk And Soot, is a striking new direction for him.

Five-Legged Cat by Venezuelan performer Gonzalo Grau, is almost as funky as Dig The Say. Besides the merengue rhythms of his homeland, Grau also looks to Chick Corea for "colors, textures and accents," and his work has all those things in spades, as well as being wonderfully entertaining and atmospheric. Christina Courtin, another young singer-songwriter who also plays violin, is quite self-deprecating about Tralala, seemingly almost regretful about choosing Stravinsky as her muse. Not to worry - there's a lot to be said for Tralala's folky playfulness and episodic nature. She works some dance rhythms in as well, which I'm sure old Igor would appreciate. 

Glenn Kotche, who's already having a bang up year, contributes Ping Pong Fumble Thaw. Electronic composer Jens Massel provides the catalyst and the title, with the piece moving quickly through four movements. Not surprisingly, it's a very percussive string ensemble we hear, with plenty of pizzicato and woody sounds. As with many of the Almanac's compositions, you should not restrain any toe-tapping while enjoying Kotche's miniature symphony. 

Finally, we come to Bill Frissell's entry, John Steinbeck, which grew out of the reams of music he composed for a commission from the Monterey Jazz Festival. It eventually became the album Big Sur and was composed there, not far from the settings for many of Steinbeck's stories. If your familiar with Frissel's guitar-scapes on from his own records or on albums for John Zorn's Naked City or many of Hal Willner's productions (check out Marianne Faithfull's Strange Weather), you will find the ambient textures of his brief quartet familiar. It serves as a contemplative coda to all that came before, ending what is certainly Brooklyn Rider's greatest accomplishment so far. Unlike a five-legged cat, they don't put a foot wrong on The Brooklyn Rider Almanac. 

None of the composers on the Brooklyn Rider album (or its members, for that matter) were even born in 1946 when the Juilliard String Quartet was founded. Naturally, it has replaced all of its members since then while maintaining a tradition of deep involvement with the music of its time with a strong focus on American works, while also bringing its own perspective to the classical repertoire. While there are likely several JSQ recordings that can be referred to as landmarks, perhaps none more so than the 1991 release of what was at that time Elliott Carter's complete string quartets, Nos. 1-4.

Well, as It happened, the irrepressible Carter wrote a fifth quartet, publishing it in 1995. Considering that he was productive until his death in 2012, just a few weeks short of his 104th birthday, I'm somewhat surprised it was only one more! Now the JSQ has reissued those four extraordinary performances along with a new recording of String Quartet No. 5. Don't toss out the older release too quickly, however: it included a definitive recording (with Christopher Oldfather on piano) of Carter's not insubstantial Duo for Violin & Piano, which was composed between the 3rd and 4th quartets and has now become somewhat of a digital orphan. In any case, of the first four quartets let me just say that if you've been following the string quartet's journey from Mozart and Haydn through Beethoven, Bartok and Shostakovich, you need to know these works. It may in fact be the only American cycle that can hold its own in that rarified bunch. 

Carter certainly did not let the side down with the 5th, delivering a fragmented and playful 12 movement piece that also displays the absolute limits of counterpoint and how interacting individuals can make up a whole. Still a landmark recording, it's almost as if Mt. Rushmore grew a fifth head - not something that happens every day and well worth celebrating.

Umezaki's (Cycles)

The shakuhachi is such a distinctive sounding instrument, with its breathy tones, non-western scale, and inherent drama, that it is often used to provide "world music" touches to film scores and pop songs. Of course, in Japan, there is a centuries old tradition around the bamboo flute, with all sorts of social and political shadings to its history. Kojiro Umezaki, a shakuhachi virtuoso as well as a composer, seeks to insert it into the arena of avant garde music by combining it with electronics and western instruments. While he has performed with the Silk Road Ensemble since 2005 and has had his works on albums by Brooklyn Rider and others, (Cycles), released last month, is his most complete statement yet.

Anyone put off by the term avant garde, shouldn't worry: Umezaki is a natural communicator who not only seeks to connect with cultures but with people. The first piece, (Cycles) America literally features his adopted country from coast to coast, incorporating recordings of both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans along with the voice of Walt Whitman. Surrounded by glitchy but warm electronics and plush vibraphone tones and influenced by Dvorak's New World Symphony, it's an intriguing introduction to the record. 108, the much longer piece that follows, dives head first into more distant waters, combining Umezaki's flute with a Korean drum (janggo), Indian bells (manjira), and a truly ancient Iraqi harp, the Santur. The quartet improvises within a predetermined structure and the result is a captivating conversation with contemplative spaces and dense ensemble work. While it is as polyglot as any of those Silk Road records, it avoids the crowd-pleasing crossover sounds that thrill the PBS set.

I heard Umezaki perform his version of the traditional Japanese folk song Lullaby from Itsuki in a River to River concert a few years a ago and it was a haunting beauty then as now. His performance is flawless, restrained yet still connected to the emotions of the homesick nursemaid from the song. There is less restraint in "...seasons continue, as if none of this ever happened...", which he also performed at that concert. Consisting solely of shakuhachi and electronics, it is a devastatingly effective elegy for the earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan in 2011. Sad yet shot through with hope, it is a signal accomplishment for Umezaki as composer and performer.

For Zero is a luminous, short piece with vibraphone, percussion and gleaming electronics. Notes accumulate...then dissipate - it's lovely. The last piece, (Cycles) what falls must rise, features Brooklyn Rider in addition to Umezaki's flute and electronics. It is actually the same recording that Brooklyn Rider released on their Dominant Curve album in 2010, but "starts/ends at a different point in the structure of the piece" - a remix, if you will. The new version starts abruptly with two plucked notes on the cello (from around 4:05 in the earlier version) and then launches into a keening section, which also has an elegiac feel. There's emotional resonance here as well as a more intellectual pleasure in listening to the breathy, bending notes of the flute combine with and then deviate from the silky glissando of the strings. The synthetics add an unsettling air, whether from a low drone or a stuttering bit of static. There's a marvelous moment of resolution near the halfway point when the static gets taken up by the cello and all of a sudden there are longer melodic lines with an almost Gypsy quality. Umezaki's approach to the instruments is nearly orchestral here, as if each instrument were its own section. It makes one wonder what he would do with a full orchestra as his palette. Based on this gorgeous, rewarding collection, there is no end to where he can go.

Excursions & Recursions: Nicholas Cords

You are standing between two mirrors. You turn to face one and are confronted with infinitely repeating reflections of yourself: this is one kind of recursion. Another type is when there is a picture on the cover a book showing someone holding a book, which has a picture of the same person holding the same book, and on and on, ad infinitum. In math and technology recursions are also related to fractals, in which the part is identical to the whole at any scale. Recursions is also the name of the debut solo album by violist Nicholas Cords.

That's a lot of mental baggage to put into the title of a record. Perhaps it is Cords's way of nudging his listeners to the realization that the music within is, despite spanning centuries and continents, self-similar. His selections certainly make full use of the viola's dark-hued tones and rich timbre. The music is emotional, sometimes almost anguished, and often filled with broad strokes rather than virtuosic details - although the playing is flawless, as you would expect from a member of both groundbreaking string quartet Brooklyn Rider and Yo Yo Ma's globe trotting Silk Road Ensemble. Recursive though it may be, there is nothing repetitive about this album.

The opening track, Heinrich Biber's Passacaglia, has a haunting, almost medieval air, despite being composed in 1676, and leads perfectly into Port Na BPucai (the music of the fairies), a traditional Irish theme arranged by Cords. In barely 14 minutes we have traveled from Baroque Salzburg to a timeless Irish past, finding commonality of feeling between the two. The Biber piece is part of a larger work, the Rosary Sonatas, which details the life of Mary in 15 settings but if there is any irony in setting it beside "fairy music," you won't find it here.

British composer Edmund Rubbra's Meditations on a Byzantine Hymn 'O Quando E Cruces' from 1964 follows, and another theme emerges, that of translations and transcriptions. The Biber work, after all was originally written for violin and the Irish tune is often played on the uilleann pipes. Like Biber, Rubbra draws on the monophony of medievalism before moving into some decidedly un-hymn like dance rhythms, sometimes plucked or strummed in an almost off-kilter fashion. This is no intellectual exercise, however - there is a mood of exploration that carries you through.

Armenian folk tunes are the basis for Alan Hovhaness's Chahagir (1945), one of only two American works on the album. There is no cheap exoticism contained in the piece; rather it is a passionate essay that fully respects the composer's Armenian roots. Cords's playing is fiery, but always in control.

The next piece, Five Migrations, composed by Cords's himself, totals just over seven minutes yet is the heart of the collection, drawing together all the themes and variations contained within. An overview:

1. Timegate (:51) Multitracking allows Cords to play a spacy melody over his own ostinato.
2. Stilted Reverie (:48) Combines scrapes, drones and an eastern-tinged tune.
3. Anachronism (2:07) A subtle glitchy undertone supports a song of shadowed sunshine.
4. Labyrinth (:56) Fractured plucking and strumming adds up to a neat little machine of sound.
5. Landing (2:21) The most obviously recursive work here, this is like a folk song in the form of a round and is reminiscent of Penguin Cafe Orchestra.

Five Migrations is an exciting and detailed piece, full of intriguing possibilities. The last section segues naturally into Stravinsky's brief Elegie (1944), which is somber and reflective, providing an apt antechamber for the closing piece, Paul Hindemith's Sonata for solo viola, Op 11, #5 from 1923. Astringent, sometimes almost angry, Hindemith's music here seems to be pointing out something that is glaringly obvious to him but unseen by the rest of us. There is some very dense writing in the sonata, with the occasional flashy run, and Cords dispatches the many challenges with bite and flair. This is a fairly early work by Hindemith, composed before he was 30, but Cords finds a through-line and a maturity of conception that other recordings seem to have missed. It's not an immediately welcoming composition, but repeated listening reveals much to engage with.

Hindemith's final movement is called In Form und Zeitmass einer Passacaglia, which loosly translates as "in the form and correct timing of a passacaglia." Not only is this yet another instance of a composer drawing on and translating from another time and place, it also snaps us right back to where we started, with that earlier Germanic passacaglia.

The word "passacaglia" derives from Spanish words meaning "to walk the street," but what Nicholas Cords has given us on Recursions is no mere stroll but a full-on excursion through times, time, and places. Book your ticket.

Recursions is released March 12, 2013 on In A Circle Records. Catch Nicholas Cords and Brooklyn Rider in a free concert on May 5th.

 

Best of the Rest of 12: Composed & Contemporary

The world of composed, orchestral, instrumental and avant garde music is a wonderful rabbit hole to explore - and explore I did in 2012.

Go Jonny Go
Even with Radiohead on a massive and brilliant world tour, guitarist and composer Jonny Greenwood somehow managed to put out two records in 2012. The first, a collaboration with his lifelong hero, Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki, features a kind of call and response between the two musicians. Penderecki's Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima is a signature work of the 60's and inspired Greenwood's Popcorn Superhet Receiver, which was also used in his score for There Will Be Blood. 48 Responses to Polymorphia takes off from Penderecki's Polymorphia, which was based on the brainwaves of people listening to the Threnody.

While it is certainly gratifying to see Greenwood realizing his ambition to work with his inspiration, as someone who is deeply engaged with musical modernism and the avant garde, I don't think Penderecki necessarily represents the best of the 20th Century. While Kubrick's use of his music in both 2001: A Space Odyssey and the Shining was highly effective, that may actually be a result of something lacking in the music when listened to on its own. That said, everything on the Penderecki/Greenwood album is expertly and passionately presented and is certainly worth a listen.

I have no such reservations regarding Greenwood's score for The Master, the latest Oscar bait from Paul Thomas Anderson. Greenwood shows his greatest command of instrumentation and texture yet on pieces that have spontaneously inspired my own emotional narrative to accompany them. He also slots in period songs seamlessly, such as the impossibly lush Ella Fitzgerald recording of Get Thee Behind Me Satan. It's Greenwood's most satisfying and accomplished soundtrack and he seems poised to join the greats of cinematic music. It's disappointing that he will once again go unrecognized at the Oscars. Like Mahler, his time will come.

New Music Cavalcade

Old favorites Brooklyn Rider, crowdsourced the production of their latest album, Seven Steps, and I was happy to pledge my support. It featured two great new compositions, the group-composed title track, and Christopher Tignor's wonderful Together Into This Unknowable Night, contrasted with Beethoven's String Quartet in C-sharp Minor, Op. 131. I'm no purist, but despite my early enthusiasm, in the end I remained unconvinced by their rendition of the latter. It seemed somehow less than the sum of its parts, although there were some fascinating parts. However, the new pieces make Seven Steps a worthy addition to their catalogue.

I discovered the fascinating Line Imprint on a trip to DC and picked up one of of their limited edition releases, Seth Cluett's Objects Of Memory. Like a lot of their releases, Cluett's work exists at the intersection of ambient music, minimalism, and sound art. This means that you sometimes can barely hear anything - but you want to. Further investigation required.

Over the summer, my daughter and I were lucky to attend Missy Mazzoli's River To River concert, which featured two pieces from her opera, Song From The Uproar. While the recording can't quite match the primal power of seeing Abigail Fischer sing the lead role in concert accompanied by Stephen Taylor's haunting projections, it's still an absorbing, dramatic listen, and shows further evolution in the work of this exciting young composer.

Mazzoli's work also featured prominently in Maya Beiser's "CelloOpera" Elsewhere, which premiered at BAM last fall. While not a complete success, it was a further demonstration of Beiser's outsized talents as a performer. Her playing is also flawless on her latest album, Time Loops, anchored by Michael Harrison's Just Ancient Loops, an absorbing and emotional new composition. The takes on the Bach/Gounod Ave Maria and Arvo Pärt's Spiegel Im Spiegel do not do much for me, but the album ends strongly with Harrison's Raga Prelude and Francisco Nunez's substantial and varied Hijaz, featuring the Young People's Chorus of New York City. Here's hoping Beiser's next recording is Salt, the Mazzoli section of Elsewhere, with Helga Davis, the astonishing vocalist who sang the premiere.

2012 saw the death of Elliott Carter, who was still composing as he neared his 104th birthday. Alisa Weilerstein released her take on his concise and explosive cello concerto just days before Carter died and, with the able assistance of Daniel Barenboim on the podium, this is likely a definitive recording. In pairing it with the Elgar concerto and Bruch's Kol Nidre, both of which have been recorded dozens of times, Decca seemed to be more concerned with business matters than musical ones, however. Here's a tip:  because the movements are short, you can download just the Carter from Amazon for under $7.

For All Seasons
Vivaldi's The Four Seasons is a warhorse if there ever was one - but it's given new life in Max Richter's "recomposition," featuring the stylish violin playing of Daniel Hope. It received a rapturous reception when performed late in 2012 at Le Poisson Rouge, and rightfully so. Encompassing minimalism, ambience, and paying homage to the dance rhythms of the original, Richter's piece more than stands on it's own.

Transcending FatCat
The estimable FatCat label (Breton, etc.) initiated a new subsidiary last year, 130701, to focus on "post-classical" music and as a first shot across the bow released the excellent Transcendentalism EP. Featuring gorgeous and adventurous new music from Dustin O'Halloran, Hauschka, and Johann Johannsson, it's an exciting introduction to their aim to bridge the gap between post-rock and contemporary classical.

Sax Stories
Matthew Silberman seems to see "jazz" not just as an opportunity for blowing his horn but as a method to creating a mood and telling stories through sound. His debut album, Questionable Creatures, features an unusual two-guitar line-up and fulfills that mission to a tee. Special mention to Tommy Crane, bringing the heat on drums.

The Best of 12 So Far

I've probably said it before,  but this has already been a banner year for music. The rough draft Best of 12 Playlist I have going already has more than 20 items and I know there's lots more good stuff to come.

There's no reason to give more details about the eight albums I've reviewed so far this year (here and here) but I will say that after living with releases from Breton, Brooklyn Rider, Leonard Cohen, Field Music, Hospitality and Sleigh Bells for several months, only the Leonard Cohen has not demanded much listening. While I'm glad Old Ideas is out and Cohen is still active I just haven't felt compelled by it. The others are all still jockeying for position for that year-end countdown, especially Breton's outstanding debut album.

However, if I had to do a top 10 today, it might look something like this:

1. The Walkmen - Heaven With their sixth album of original songs, Hamilton Leithauser and co. have taken yet another great leap forward. I don't know if Leithauser went to the crossroads and sold his soul to Robin Pecknold, but touring with Fleet Foxes seems to have rubbed off on him and he is firmly one of the great American singers now. Producer Phil Ek has cleared away the wonderful haze of previous records and created a crystalline space for Leithauser to engage in some of the most open-hearted singing of his career. With a set of dynamic and dramatic songs that seem to tap into some ancient through-line of human tradition, this may be their most affecting collection yet. "My gun still shoots and my bird still sings/These tricks are tricks I learned from the king," Leithauser sings on Song For Leigh and who am I to argue?

2. Breton - Other People's Problems and Blanket Rule (EP) Catch them live if you can - they'll be back in NYC in September.

Early orders of Fear Fun came with a bonus CD-R of demos

3. Hilary Hahn & Hauschka - Silfra I've already written extensively about this collaboration in my guest post on The Glass but suffice it to say that this beautiful set of pieces brings some brand new colors into the world. They've inspired some great visuals as well.

4. Father John Misty - Fear Fun In which the man called J. Tillman blossoms into a new persona, joins forces with super-producer Jonathan Wilson and unleashes a barrage of fractured (and sometimes hilarious) Americana. While I'm curious and only slightly concerned about how Fleet Foxes are going to replace him, I am loving this record. Who could deny the wit and wisdom of a guy whose "reality is realer" than yours? And the live show? Non pareil.

5. Quakers - Quakers It was obvious from many of the sounds on Dummy that Geoff Barrow and his Portishead compatriots were hip hop heads from way back. But that didn't make it obvious that Barrow, along with co-Quakers 7-Stu-7 and Katalyst, would come up with a rap classic holding 41 (!) tracks of beats, rhymes and life. Featuring a hand-picked selection of word slingers from both sides of the Atlantic, the short tracks keep it all very fresh and full of surprise. All the voices have something to offer, be it a turn of phrase or a passionate delivery (usually both), but Jonwayne, now also signed to Stones Throw, may be the most likely to blow up big with his debut album. While you're waiting, download a head-nodding mix tape or two from his website.

6. Patrick Watson - Adventures In Your Own Backyard His last album, Wooden Arms, firmly established Watson as an otherworldly singer, a distinctive songwriter, and a sound-sculptor par excellance. Performing with the the Royal Concertgebeouw Orchestra was a very natural extension of his work, and you can't say that for every Canadian dude making a record these days. Perhaps informed by that experience, Adventures... adds a new sense of the epic to his already emotion-filled universe. I don't always agree with the All Songs Considered folks (actually, quite rarely), but when they called his SXSW performance a religious experience, I believed them 100%. Catch Patrick Watson live on July 6 - it's free so no excuses if you're in town.

7. The Darcys - Aja One could be cynical and say that for an obscure Canadian band, covering one of the greatest records of the 70's (hell, the 20th century - let's face it) is a naked bid for attention. But considering the fact that few have tried covering Steely Dan, especially their later work, and most have failed in the attempt, this would be a beyond-quixotic career move. One reason people founder on the shores of the Becker-Fagan archipelago is that they get hung up on the musicianship of their enterprise while ignoring the spectacular songwriting in evidence, full of dark themes and indelible characters. The Darcys are all about the songs, exploring that pitch-black sensibility with a jagged but slinky sound and a seductive near croon. The drum sound is often different on each song but the delightfully nasty guitar is a finely honed weapon in their arsenal that proves surprisingly versatile. While the vocals fall slightly short on Peg, which famously almost sent Michael MacDonald around the bend, this record is a triumph that stands solidly on its own while also deepening one's engagement with Steely Dan's original achievement. Surely you're curious - download it for free.

8. Killer Mike - R.A.P. Music A protege of OutKast, Michael Render has been hoeing his row for quite a while, starting with the near-great Monster in 2003. Since then, his output has been somewhat scattershot, featuring indifferent beats and overused lyrical concerns. Last Year's Pl3dge was a move in the right direction, with an often gleaming production and more emotionally engaging lyrics. Now he's hooked up with Brooklyn's own El-P and come up with what must be the greatest producer-rapper combo since Alchemist and Prodigy dropped Return Of The Mac. While he still has a filthy mouth (and mind) Killer Mike is also furiously intelligent and less shy about unleashing his more cerebral side on songs like Reagan and Ghetto Gospel. This is one for the ages - welcome back Killer.

9. Hospitality - Hospitality

10. Brooklyn Rider - Seven Steps

Bubbling Under

Fenster - Bones This German-American hybrid has come up with a charmingly ramshackle sound to set their solidly-constructed songs. This gives the album title a nice double-meaning, referring both to the skeletal production and tunes that stand solidly on their own.

Seth Cluett - Objects of Memory This is the 48th in a series of releases from the LINE imprint featuring the work of "international sound artists and composers exploring the aesthetics of contemporary and digital minimalism" and it is a wild ride, although ambient to the point of recessive. Each disc is a limited edition of 500 so I feel lucky to have stumbled on it while trolling the record stores of DC. Looking forward to further listening, both to this and other items in their catalogue.

Peaking Lights - Lucifer I was going to include their last album 936 in my What I Missed department but then this came out and it's easily their best record. Slightly less rough-hewn than their earlier work but in no way slick, this hypnotic dubbed out stuff is joyfully odd. Who knew Wisconsin had this in it? Fans of Perfume Tree, get on board.

Bon Iver - iTunes Session While this not essential and certainly doesn't replace the live show, it's a good document of the band sound Justin Vernon has been touring behind since the second album came out. It's also nice to have his cover of Bjork's Who Is It. If you're a fan, you'll want it.

Old Stuff

Little Willie John - Complete Hit Singles A's & B's He was James Brown's favorite singer, waxed the first recording of Fever, and delivered 16 top 20 hits on the R&B charts from 1955-1961. In short, the diminutive William John was a huge part of the landscape of popular music for a solid span of time. Naturally, it all ended horribly in 1968 when he died of pneumonia while serving out a manslaughter sentence in Walla Walla penitentiary. James Brown's tribute album that same year was not quite enough to maintain LWJ's spot in the pop firmament and he became nearly forgotten, although he was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1996. The reason he had all those hits, however, was because he was THAT good and Real Gone Music have done a public service with this collection. The remastering is unbelievable, putting you right in the room with this terrific singer and his crack band. While a few of the songs are slightly cheesy, mainly due to unnecessary backing vocals, this is a fabulous reissue.

Simple Minds - X5 This bargain-priced set reminds us that before they went all "streets of Belfast" on us, these guys were one of the best of the post-punk era, with at least three albums of the five included standing the test of time without reservation. While there are no liner notes (Mojo did a nice feature on them earlier this year if you need annotation), there's a heap of bonus tracks.

Can - The Lost Tapes All albums by these krautrocking wizards contain almost equal parts astonishment and frustration and this amazing collection is no different. But the astonishing stuff is at least as good as their best work and the frustrating bits are not uninteresting. Essential and revelatory.

Personal Space: Electronic Soul 1974 - 1974 While most of these folks are deservedly neglected by history, Dante Cartegna's fascinating collection of bedroom soul is worth a listen. The Makers track has a great groove and will probably crop up in a few of my mixes, but the sad fact is, for all their ambition, not one of these performers came up with a song as good as Stevie Wonder's pioneering Look Around, which would seem to be the Kubrickian black monolith that catalysed these oddities.

On The Horizon

Prodigy's HNIC3 mix tape was quite good but the real thing comes out July 3rd and I'm expecting excellence. Killing Joke's MMXII has been getting great reviews; I got tired of waiting for a U.S. release and have the import on order. J. Dilla's mom is extending his legacy with Rebirth Of Detroit; the preview mix was scintillating so I'm anticipating the full release. The spectacular Talea Ensemble will be delivering their debut recording, premiering five works by the late Fausto Romitelli - my breath couldn't be more bated. I'm also a proud pledger of new music from Luscious Jackson and Holly Miranda - looking forward to what they come up with.

A Couple I Missed

Nicolas Jaar - Space Is Only Noise This limpidly beautiful and mysterious record would certainly have been on my 2011 top ten had I heard it in time. Though it seems I was the last to know about the precocious Mr. Jaar, I'm spreading the word just in case.

Superspies From Outer Space On the planet Umour, a religion has formed around Donald Fagan's Kamakiriad, Ken Nordine's word art and Matt Helm movies. Thanks to producer Kol Marshall, known for his work with the likes of Ministry and Mercyful Fate, we now have a window onto the Umourian world in this witty, jazz-inflected collection.

Whatchu been listening to?

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