I received this beautifully laid out package in the mail containing the cassette of Figures of Devotion 2020 album Rhapsody in Travel. Included with the cassette were several gorgeous photos of unmarked land and cityscapes. According to the scant info card it is noted that these songs were composed and recorded in Texas, Wisconsin, Utah …
FIGURES OF DEVOTION – RHAPSODY IN TRAVEL (HURT COLLECTION, 2020) Read More »
The Portuguese experimental artist finds a home on Orange Milk Records, but his unique style establishes him as a bit of an outlier of that acclaimed label. It’s evident even from the cover art that Luis Pestana is traveling on a slightly different road from his labelmates on the trailblazing Ohio-based Orange Milk imprint with …
The new album from the New Jersey-based composer/musician/educators – like all his music – a highly ambitious work and may be his magnum opus. Until the next one. It’s impossible to write about Chris Opperman – composer, pianist, trumpet player, music professor – without mentioning Frank Zappa. An avid fan of the late musician, Opperman …
CHRIS OPPERMAN – CHAMBER MUSIC FROM HELL (Purple Cow, 2020) Read More »
The latest album from the New York City-based guitarist, composer and improviser is full of stark vocals and fractured, atonal guitar wizardry, resulting in a fascinating and adventurous listening experience. I’m sure the world is almost as sick of “2020 is a shitshow” analogies in arts reviews as they are of 2020 itself, but bear …
ANDREW SMILEY – LOOMING AS LIGHT TORN (SELF-RELEASED, 2020) Read More »
Greh Holger is a busy man. Between the Noisextra podcast that he hosts alongside Mike and Tara Connelly and his label, Chondritic Sound, the guy has his hands full. You could be forgiven for forgetting that he is also the sole force behind the industrial-noise act, Hive Mind. “Elysian Alarms” is the first release of …
HIVE MIND – ELYSIAN ALARMS (DIFFICULT INTERACTIONS, 2020) Read More »
The Nevada-based outfit Wizard Colors lets loose with an extended track full of noise, chaos, and surprising warmth. The official purpose of “0 1N20 BURN1N6 S9ACE 0,” the recently released track from noise duo Wizard Colors, is actually delivered in the form of a question: “How many hours of guitar droning and synth swelling does …
Wizard Colors – 0 1N20 BURN1N6 S9ACE 0 (Slow Start Records, 2020) Read More »
The inventive trumpeter smashes more boundaries with an album that takes jazz into exciting and multifaceted territories. You can even smell it. In the age of pandemic and quarantine, live music performances are one of many aspects of everyday life that have been largely sacrificed. Fortunately, many artists continue to write, record and release …
STEPH RICHARDS – SUPERSENSE (Northern Spy, 2020) Read More »
After hanging up the indie rock band In Golden Tears, Patrick Behrens has recorded a solo project from his Southern German home called Grey City – a fitting moniker for his hometown of Hamburg, Germany. Now dubbed Slowlife, Behrens’ immediately engaging lo-fi tracks bleed with a wistful sense of nostalgia for a place that we …
On Structura, a new EP from Toronto based artist Shanika Maria – aka Shn Shn – creates a compelling and hypnotic collection of songs that contemplates hope and identity at a crisis point. A queer, black creator straddling worlds between ambient music, experimental beat-making and avant-pop songwriting, Structura offers a deep reflection of embracing multiple …
On their fourth album, Steve Gunn and John Truscinski continue to create mesmerizing, cathartic noise full of rich textures. Put a guitarist and a drummer in a room together to improvise and the possibilities are endless. Unfortunately, it can sometimes lead to aimless and uninspired noodling. Then there’s Gunn-Truscinski Duo. What they accomplish in the …
GUNN-TRUSCINSKI DUO – SOUNDKEEPER (THREE LOBED RECORDINGS, 2020) Read More »