Dust Volume Nine, Number Seven
Chuck Johnson
Is it hot where you are? Has it been raining a lot? Is there smoke in the air? It's been the weirdest, most disturbing summer, and you might think it would make music irrelevant. But no, this is Dusted, and we continue to listen and judge and write about records even at the end of times. So here's another Dust. Enjoy. We hope there will be one next month, too, but let's see what happens, eh?
Contributors include Jennifer Kelly, Bryon Hayes, Jonathan Shaw, Chris Liberato, Ian Mathers, Patrick Masterson, Jonathan Shaw, Andrew Forell and Tim Clarke.
Omar Ahmad โ Inheritance (AKP)
Inheritance by Omar Ahmad
Omar Ahmadโs music follows dance pulses through thickets of memory. A glitchy beat sinks into slippery textures of synthesizer, piano, strings and field recordings; the music moves but in a haze of memory, as the sounds of women, children and running water flashes and subsides. Omar Ahmad is a Palestinian-American electronic artist and DJ currently based in Brooklyn and in this first full-length, he explores identity (ethnic and otherwise) through a scrim of memory. These glowing ambient compositions donโt hammer the point homeโrather they gently suggest and evoke a dual western/Arabic identity. The baby in โGessoโ says โDaddyโ in English but is answered in another language. The cut โusraโ whose name translates as โhomeโ or โfamilyโ incorporates a ululating non-western vocal alongside the pristine electronic modernity of synths. โSham Oasisโ has, perhaps, the most concentrated array of Middle Eastern sounds, a jangle of not-guitars, the thud of hand drums, a shaker, but it also twitches and glitters with space-age electronic sounds. The songs have lovely, idealized, luminous textures that donโt belong, exactly, to any single culture, yet they are warm and beautiful enough to make it feel like home anyway.
Jennifer Kelly
Animal Piss Itโs Everywhere โ S-T (Half a Million)
Animal Piss, It's Everywhere by Animal Piss, It's Everywhere
This loose and goofy country ramble obsesses over Jesus and intoxicants, sometimes but not always in the same songs. Indeed these bleary sing-alongs seem best suited for Sunday morning with the sun streaming in on the tail end of a one- or two-day bender. Theyโre exhausted but full of good feeling, played on muscle memory and love of the game. โJesus Got Under My Skin,โ for instance, ramps up the roadhouse boogie in a stunned and stoned narrative about finding oneโs saviorโand then trying to ditch him. โNakedโ slouches and twangs in a righteous chorus of โNakedโฆassโฆmanโฆblues.โ Thereโs considerable talent on hand, however casually it is deployed, from a confederation of Western Mass freak folk regulars. A guitar-heavy line-up features Anthony Pasquarosa, Clark Griffin (Weeping Bong Band, Pigeons), Shannon Ketch (Bunwinkies) and Andy Goulet on pedal steel (Winter Pills, Lonesome Brothers etc.). Rob Smith from Rhyton and Mouth Painter plays drums and Jim Bliss (of various Matt Valentine projects) sits in on bass. โIโve found sucksess, sucking at success,โ croons the singer, making a point; this band of miscreants achieve their aims without coming within a hundred miles of commercial palatability.
Jennifer Kelly
Aunty Rayzor โ โNinaโ (Nyege Nyege Tapes)
Perhaps the hardest song I heard over the last month opens with an almost demented pogoing and a video staring straight at the sun with an airplaneโs corpse and a silhouette on the wing fixing her hair before she struts into your life and all over your ears. If you donโt already know Bisola Olungbenga aka Aunty Rayzor, Nyege Nyege Tapes has done a fine job ensuring youโll want to hear everything the Nigerian has to say after one listen through of โNina,โ the lead single from Septemberโs Viral Wreckage. Veering between red hair and blonde amid rusty MiG-21s, Rayzor takes the hard-nosed rhythm from Berlin-based beatmaker Debmaster โ just listen to the way that kick rumbles on the low end โ and matches it step for step to powerful effect. You donโt need Nyege Nyegeโs effusive description of the forthcoming full-length to gather we have another formidable female rapper waiting in โ or is it on? โ the wings to embarrass the boys and prolong womenโs global chokehold on the genre that little bit longer. Only a fool or an incel could complain.
Patrick Masterson
Aware โ Requiem for a Dying Animal (Glacial Movements)
Requiem For A Dying Animal by AWARE
Alexander Glรผck, who records as Aware, specializes in producing a haunting tributary of ambient sound that aims to cause unease. His music is ghostly, chilling, and morose. It evokes loneliness yet, like most good stories, contains a faint trickle of hope. His compositions encompass vast swathes of tone peppered with microscopic flecks. These resemble large chunks of metamorphic rock that Glรผck has fused into rich, veiny patterns. These polychromatic constructions tell stories of isolationism and hardship interspersed with hopefulness and joy. They reflect our speciesโ interconnectedness with a natural world that simultaneously seeks to nurture and destroy us, as we in turn seek to exploit its bounties. With his music, Glรผck seeks to find an equilibrium, a stalemate between us and our environment. He will likely never solve this riddle, but Requiem for a Dying Animal is a fruitful step on the journey toward his goal.ย ย
Bryon Hayes
Blight House โ Blight the Way (Syrup Moose Records)
Blight the Way by Blight House
Blight House makes the kind of death metal-infused grindcore that aims for utter absurdity: absurdly heavy riffing; absurdly fast drum-machine blips, blats and thumps; absurdist, so-stupid-theyโre clever semiotics. Itโs hard not to laugh (or at least ruefully chuckle) at the puns in the bandโs name and in the title of this new record. Song titles are even dumber and sometimes even more funny: โDismembers Only,โ โBible Belt Baby Buffet,โ โWalpurgis Date-Night.โ And so on. But as is generally the case with records like this, itโs hard to know where the joke ends and the band begins. If itโs all done for laughs, then why is the music executed with such apparent seriousness (n.b., for a less overworked version of a grindy gag act, see this)? And if weโre supposed to hear at least some of Blight Houseโs stuff with a dash of gravid sincerity, then please, band, send instructions on how to pull off that bit of cognitive jiu-jitsu. Or on second thought, maybe donโt. Itโs probably better for everyone involved if we just accept the low-brow yucks to be found in songs like โAcephalophilia III: Hopelessly Headless for Youโ for what they are, and take the tune at its word. If you think about this sort of edge-lord-adjacent, meme-driven cultural production too hard, you may end up in the writersโ room for Ron DeSantisโs next campaign commercial. Headless and heedless, thoughtless and fecklessโblight the way into our collective, idiotic future, dudes.
Jonathan Shaw
Buffalo Nichols โ The Fatalist (Fat Possum)
The Fatalist by Buffalo Nichols
Buffalo Nicholsโ Carl Nichols has a fine gravelly voice, an unfussy skill with the pick and the slide and the swagger that turns songs of suffering into songs of defiance. In other words, heโs a bluesman of the first order and unusual, these days, in that heโs not 100 years old or a suburban white guy. Yes, Buffalo Nichols is on a mission to reclaim the blues for the folks who invented itโblack peopleโand this very fine album makes a pretty good case for the rightness of his cause. How so? Well, to begin with The Fatalist is mostly acoustic, relying on the speed and accuracy of Nichols fingers rather than a floor sized pedal board; there are no endless wah wahโd solos, no feedback freakery. His vocal delivery matches up, too, quiet but intense, an on-pitch growl that pulls you in and holds you there. Thereโs a simplicity in the playing and arrangements that underlines the power of these song. Listen, for instance, to the eerie magic of slide, the elemental punch of kick drum on the Blind Willie Nelson cover, โYouโre Gonna Need Somebody on Your Bond.โ Or the winding melancholy on โThe Long Journey Home,โ which frolics funereally in banjo and fiddle tones. He brings in the Philadelphia singer and songcatcher Samantha Rise on โThis Momentโ for a duet, her voice warm and resonant, his hoarse with emotion, a violin twining around the both of them in a dizzy mesh of sounds. A subtle album, but a good one.
Jennifer Kelly
Cyberplasm โ First Emanation (Iron Lung)
First Emanation (LUNGS-262) by CYBERPLASM
Electro-punk dissonance melds and mixes it up with anarcho-freak industrial noise on this new EP from Olympia-based Cyberplasm. The band doesnโt seek to exorcize the ghost in the machine so much as conjure it, feed it with nerve impulses harvested from your frontal lobes and then unleash it on our various political and informational systems. Chaos ensues. Maybe itโs liberatory, maybe it just wants to raze all signs of institutional power. Too damn bad if your sense of security or self-worth gets in the way โ and in any case, the music is perversely enjoyable. Check out the d-beat scree of โSpit from Fluidโ or the foreboding, crust-infused โSecond Mind.โ The EPโs ten minutes flash by in a series of burned-out synapses and frying amplifiers. Cyberplasm makes underground music that captures the grit and weirdness of lawless subterranean spaces, virtual and material. Itโs exciting stuff. It feels dangerous. Punkโs not dead.
Jonathan Shaw
Decoherence โ Order (Sentient Ruin Laboratories)
Order by DECOHERENCE
If you have been following Decoherenceโs coruscating, cosmic circuit through the 21st century, you wonโt find much to be surprised by on Order, the bandโs new LP. Itโs 40+ minutes of pounding, pyrotechnic industrial metal, thoroughly blackened and shot through with enough harsh noise to burn off your eyebrows. The pace is a little slower, vocalist Derek Jacobsen (who appears on Decoherence releases as Tahazu, an anglicized version of the ancient Sumerian word for battle) sounds like another layer of gristle is occluding his vocal cords, and the compositions of musicians Stroda and Prior are marginally less engaged by melody than many of those on the bandโs previous LP, Unitary (2020). If youโre into this sort of thing, none of those small changes is a bad thing. But while Unitary represented a profound development when contrasted with the bandโs first several releases, Order feels like a consolidation โ a band summing its aesthetics and refining its songwriting sensibility. Which suggests an interesting question: How much order do we want in metal music? This reviewer likes it when Decoherence embraces the chaos denoted by its band name. Check out โAn Unconfined Systemโ on this new record. Play it very, very loud. Order? Not so much.
Jonathan Shaw
DrekkaโThe Water of Life (Orb Tapes)
The Water of Life by Drekka
Michael Anderson, the artist who records as Drekka, made these four long-form meditations for a live performance in Indianapolis in 2015, loosely basing his mix of primitive and electronic sounds on the sci fi classic Dune. All four cuts evolve slowly out of hiss and static (the first one is even called โStasis and Staticโ), a buzz like live power wires in the foreground, the faint ghosts of bells, altered choral voices rising up occasionally to mysterious ends. You could, of course, construct an imaginary Dune world out of these sounds, its vast deserts and obliterating sandstorms, its mystic addiction to spice, but it would take some active listening and imagining on your part. The title track assists, somewhat, submerging drips of liquid in the rumble of wind flapping through sails, and the nearly human chants that rise as if from a distance out of the noise. Thereโs a lot of activity here, a scramble to rattle bits against each other, the click and ching of various percussive elements. And through it comes the hum of dawning revelation, just hovering notes rising, but seeming to reach some inscrutable insight out of the noisy scrum.
Jennifer Kelly
The Finks โ Birthdays at Solo Pasta (Milk!)
Birthdays at Solo Pasta by The Finks
Courtney Barnettโs recent announcement that her label Milk! Records will be closing down at the end of the year means that The Finksโ Birthdays at Solo Pasta will be one of the labelโs final releases. This feels fitting for a label that has quietly released some understated gems over the years from artists such as Tiny Ruins and Mess Esque. The Finks, led by Oliver Mestitz, create the kind of intimate, loosely woven songs that thrive on the obvious ease between the players, as if youโre listening in to a front-room jam session in which everyone is warmed up and starting to develop their instrumental parts into a lively, organic whole. Mestitz leads the way with his quiet, congested voice, as if heโs perpetually getting over a head-cold, often accompanied by the complementary vocals of Sarah Farquharson. The rhythm section, piano and guitar are wonderfully restrained, the woodwinds muted and sinuous, with everything unfolding patiently. At their best, such as on โMarco Poloโ and the instrumental โEgo Slump,โ The Finks tap into something truly gorgeous and radiant.
Tim Clarke
Frode Gjerstad / Kalle Moberg / Paal Nilssen-Love โ Time Sound Shape (PNL)
Time Sound Shape by Gjerstad / Moberg / Nilssen-Love
If youโve been tracking Scandinavian free music for the past few decades, you might think you know what record sounds like when you hear that Frode Gjerstad and Paal Nilssen-Love are on it. After all, theyโve been playing together since the latter was a teen and the former was trying to lure promising players into the out-jazz life, and theyโve made a fair number of steaming recordings in that time. But they havenโt made anything quite like Time Sound Shape. Recorded at the Gamle Aker Kirke, Osloโs oldest edifice, in 2021, it may be completely improvised, but it takes its cues from circumstance, space and opportunity, and those cues point the music in a very different direction. The old stone churchโs resonance amplifies Nilssen-Loveโs all-gongs set up into a massive sonic presence, and accordionist Kalle Moberg conspires with the percussionist to create a solemnly orchestral breadth of sound. Gjerstad, alternating between alto sax, alto flute and Bb clarinet, sharpens the action with short, anguished cries. This is the biggest sound that three guys can make without the assistance of electricity.
Bill Meyer
Gerrit Hatcher โ Solo Five (Kettle Hole)
Solo Five by Gerrit Hatcher
Gerrit Hatcherโs learned well. Instead of waiting for fortune, the Chicago-based tenor saxophonist makes things happen. He plays in town quite often, tours econo and self-releases music on his own label, Kettle Hole Records. The title of this album (a real, glass-mastered CD, unlike the blue-faced disappointments so often sold under that name on Bandcamp these days) attests to his devotion to solo performance. It takes practice as well as physical prowess to command the quivering presence and driving force of his tone, which might remind some of Dave Rempis. Each of the albumโs seven tracks makes an assertive statement, but not always a big, loud one; windy textures can be as compelling as rippling notes.
Bill Meyer
James Howard โ Peek-a-Boo (Faith and Industry)
Peek-a-Boo by James Howard
James Howardโs debut is all stardust and stopped time. For some reason, Iโm reminded of that scene in Buffalo โ66 where Ben Gazzara, in surreal Sinatra-in-a-tee-shirt mode, croons his father-in-law-y feelings to an entranced, doe-eyed Christina Ricci. Except that Howardโs voice is closer to the dreamy, chill side of Roger Waters (see โSt. Tropez'' and โWotsโฆ The Dealโ). And his songs are about things like meeting up with your drug dealer on the scenic outskirts of town and raising your children to fear nuclear annihilation. The high point of Peek-a-Boo might be โThe Reckoning,โ where Howardโs fingers tiptoe up the fretboard like a kid on Christmas Eve on his way to peek at his presents, and cymbals splash like someone on tranquilizers falling into a pool. But really the whole record is a gem and feels like one big, wonderful, floaty, pill-powered dream.
Chris Liberato
Chuck Johnson โ Music from Burden of Proof (All Saints)
Music From Burden Of Proof by Chuck Johnson
Chuck Johnson has long been a master of eerie pedal steel atmospherics, building shadowy cloudscapes out of shifting, resonating guitar tone. Here he turns his grasp of sonic mystery to cinematic ends, composing music both guitar-based and not for the HBO series Burden of Proof. If youโre familiar with Johnsonโs solo work, the opening โBurden of Proofโ will catch you up short with its Bach organ cantata ominous-ness, its densely arranged chamber strings. It sounds not at all like the silvery dream narratives of Balsams or The Cinder Grove; it gathers up in stirring crescendos of emotional turmoil. โThe Night of the Disappearanceโ fits more neatly with what you might have heard before from Johnson. It floats lingering traces of bending guitar sound over a slow lattice of electric keyboard. But setting aside expectations of what Chuck Johnson should or shouldnโt sound like, there is quite a lot to appreciate here: the glittering rhythms and bare-bones bass plunk of โInterrogation,โ the swelling synth tones of โRuth Ann,โ the bright cerebral keyboard cadences of โThe Note.โ Not having seen the show, I canโt tell you how the music works (or doesnโt) to support mood or plot points, but here on the record, itโs subtle and varied, and occasionally, as on โMore Surrealโ has the slow moving contemplative grace that distinguishes Johnsonโs best work. Heโs making art and likely getting well paid. Good for him.
Jennifer Kelly
Hรฉctor Lavoe โ La Voz (Craft Latino)
After arriving in New York as a teenager, Puerto Rican singer Hรฉctor Lavoe became a key figure in the popularization of salsa during the 1960s and 1970s. As part of the Fania label roster that included Willie Cรณlon, Rubรฉn Blades and Celia Cruz, Lavoe released nine albums beginning with his 1975 debut, the aptly named La Voz. Produced and arranged by Cรณlon, the album foregoes much of the instrumental pyrotechnics of his contemporariesโ records to focus on Lavoeโs voice and improvisational talents. Opener โEl Todopoderosaโ (The Almighty) features frenetic percussion, piano vamps and blasts of brass which, good as they are, have no chance distracting from Lavoeโs caramel smooth tone and timbre. The clarity of his voice carries the emotional weight of โUn Amor de la Calleโ even as the horns weep behind him. On the joyful, faster numbers his call and response with backing vocalists Cรณlon, Blades and Willie Garcia drive the songs forward but thereโs plenty in the background to grab the ears. Witness the off-kilter piano and trumpet solo in โRompe Saragรผeyโ or the percussion and horn breakdown in โMi Gente.โ Whether youโre a salsa fan or not, this is an opportunity to hear one of the great vocalists in his prime with a killer band and irresistible songs. Whatโs not to love.
Andrew Forell
Natalie Rose LeBrecht โ Holy Prana Open Game (American Dreams)
Holy Prana Open Game by Natalie Rose LeBrecht
It would not be accurate to describe Natalie Rose LeBrechtโs new record as a mix between La Monte Young/Marian Zazeelaโs (who sheโs studied with and assisted) cosmic minimalism and the Dirty Threeโs more spacey, searching efforts (that trioโs Mick Turner and Jim White both play on Holy Prana Open Game), but even in its inadequacy the comparison points towards the kind of rarified air the record is floating amidst. Itโs kind of wild to remember that โAmokโ here is a radically transformed (one might even say, ahem, improved) cover of the Atoms For Peace song, itโs so of a piece with the other five pieces that make up the album. Whether itโs the more open excursions of โOpenโ and โPranaโ or the gentle lilt of the opening โHome,โ this suite soars into inner space immediately and rests there contentedly.
Ian Mathers
Gabe โNandez โ โLouis XIVโ (POW Recordings)
Anyone paying attention to Jeff Weissโ POW Recordings has been able to surmise how enthusiastic the label head has been about the hushed husk of New Yorker Gabe โNandez, and Gabeโs returned the favor in kind with polyglot explorations of the inter- and intrapersonal alike, most recently on Aprilโs Pangea, plus a feature alongside fellow East Coast tome spitter Billy Woods on last yearโs Aethiopes. The one-off โLouis XIVโ finds Gabe talking kingly killings and heartbreak over a sublimely paired beat from Tel Aviv producer Argov (he of โVenus in Mercuryโ that preceded this) and kitted in a Burberry coat amid Londonโs Abney Park cemetery. A low-slung, high-intensity performance, โLouis XIVโ is self-evident, a perfect portrait of what makes โNandez so lethal (and appealing) as a rapper. Anyone with an affinity for bars ought to appreciate it.
Patrick Masterson
Jim OโRourke โ Hands That Bind OST (Drag City)
Hands That Bind (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) by Jim O'Rourke
Any word of a new Jim OโRourke release is justifiably greeted with excitement, especially when that release is via Drag City. However, Hands That Bind isnโt a continuation of the glorious singer-songwriter fare OโRourke has perfected on albums such as Eureka, Insignificance and Simple Songs, but rather the soundtrack to a new film by director Kyle Armstrong. The instrumental atmosphere is aligned with many of OโRourkeโs Steamroom explorations, which heโs made available in a steady stream via Bandcamp: slow, sparse, mostly abstract synthesizer soundscapes. The difference here, given OโRourke is responding to a visual medium, is deeper grounding in the creation of an immediate evocative mood. Shimmering synth textures evoke the chittering of crickets and wide-open expanses of countryside, punctuated by percussion and the reassuring thrum of upright bass. Then, suddenly, a detuned piano or dulcimer will cut through the mix, raising an eyebrow of concern, as if uncertainty is looming on the horizon. The drama of this simple juxtaposition creates an addictive tension that sustains this elegant suiteโs runtime.
Tim Clarke
Rat Heart โ โFlashing Lights Freestyleโ (Shotta Tapes)
Rat Heart - Flashing Lights Freestyle by Shotta Tapes
One of Kanyeโs most indelible beats is herewith given a kind of Jai Paul-like treatment via Mancunian Tom Boogizm, who runs the Shotta Tapes label thatโs known best for the free-for-all experiments of his increasingly visible Rat Heart alias. Weโre a far cry from Northern Luv Songs 4 Wen Ur Life's a Mess, obviously, which threw all manner of spaced-out, instrumental guitar hypnotics at the wall only to see it all stick in a manner most Dusted faithful would find familiar โ but this isnโt a total left turn for Tom given weโve also seen stuff like the Actress-esque 'A Blues' come out in the last year. If you donโt know where to start with him, this serves as a good point of entry for his more beat-driven material, the vocals submerged just that little bit too much beneath the fluorescent, once-ubiquitous backing beat of the Graduation staple. Nobodyโs asking for a return to 2007 (that I know of, anyway), but itโs enough for a moment to remember the music once outshone the hubris of its creator. Some of us might call that moment simpler.
Patrick Masterson
La Sรฉcuritรฉ โ Stay Safe! (Mothland)
Montreal quintet La Sรฉcuritรฉ combine insouciant new wave and funk driven post punk on their debut album Stay Safe! Itโs a lane thatโs been driven before by bands like Romeo Void and Au Pairs, but they bring an infectious energy to bear. Singing in French and English, lead vocalist รliane Viens-Synnott moves from the ironic detachment of Debora Lyall to indignant recrimination, shaping her voice to inhabit each song.ย Atop Kenneth Smithโs propulsive drums and Fรฉlix Bรฉlisleโs elastic bass lines, guitarists Melissa Di Menna and Laurence Anne Charest-Gagnรฉ add chunky chords and sibilant solos. Although you can spend time picking the influences, the songs are uniformly good. The dispassionate sprechgesang of โLe Kickโ with its motorik drums and Au Pairs guitar licks, the mocking tone of the Devo like โWaiting For Kenny,โ the groove of โSerpentโ which sounds like an amalgam of โSnakes Crawlโ and โToo Many Creeps.โ The rhythms are tight, the guitars slash and chime in equal measure, the quintet all contribute synths, percussion and backing vocals to their stories of toxic men, relationship ups and downs and daily grind of existence.
Andrew Forell
Jumping Back Slash, Bลซjin โ โOrder of Changeโ (Future Bounce Ltd.)
Would you believe this started as a piano-based folk ballad? Maybe not if you only heard the first half of the first single from a promised forthcoming album due in November. But what originated as a song with a โfolklike Kate Bush flavor to itโ morphed into a Janus-faced split of a dancefloor-filling first half that runs Brit-turned-South African Jumping Back Slashโs bass-heavy club deconstruction right through Cape Town native Bลซjinโs delicate but firm vocal before turning into a lush, orchestral outro much closer in spirit to the original idea. The balance works both ways for Bลซjin, who tightropes across the transition clear to the other side. What else this LP has in store remains to be seen, but itโs a promising first dispatch for those who err on the side of futuristic pop sounds.
Patrick Masterson
Whose Rules โ Hasler (777 Rules)
Hasler by Whose Rules
If youโve got any sort of weakness for airy, breathless, pristine indie pop, may I suggest Whose Rules, the solo endeavor from a busy Norwegian producer named Marius Elfstedt. This first album, Hasler, touches ever so lightly on sonic territories staked out by Elliott Smith: a wistful tenor warble wrapped around softly inevitable tunes. You might even catch a whiff of the Sea and Cakeโs breezy artfulness. Yet while the songs arenโt weighted down, theyโre not exactly scrubbed bare either. Elfstedtโs producer background shows through in shifting, transparencies of overlaid sound: guitars, synths, percussion frame delicate melodies but donโt overwhelm them. The music wafts by in a flavored cloud, but thereโs a good deal of nourishment in its ethereal mix. I like โStoneโ with its scrabbly guitars, its rainy/sunny moods, its sudden swells of synth that could easily be horn lines. Thereโs a bigger, brassier song in here somewhere, but for now itโs hiding shyly, reticently in a private corner of Elfstedtโs imagination.
Jennifer Kelly
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