Heathen Disco Music Reviews #0023

Hey folks. To bring new people up to speed, welcome: this is a place to find some joy in new music. If this is the first place you’re hearing about this stuff, alright, that rules. If not, hopefully you’ll learn to trust these superior takes. If it’s washed, I’m not gonna hide it, but unlike my younger days I don’t think there’s a point in covering something just because of the format it’s on, and if it’s a waste of my time, it’s probably a waste of yours too.

But keep sending it and I’ll keep covering it. Cool?

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BOWERY ELECTRIC Demo DL (self-released)

With the expanded reissue of the first Bowery Electric album for Kranky landing earlier this year, we now have runway for the demos of that one, self-released by the band from recordings done in their practice space below LES cantina Max Fish ca. 1994 (along with one unreleased cut, and a very early version of the title track to their second album Beat). Having been too young/remote to have seen them live back then, I still feel confident that this is how their set would have sounded in the day. Any of the balance and temperament induced in these songs by the finished studio recording we know is replaced here by noise, texture and heat, leavening and righteous qualities that some 30 years down the road are the lasting signposts of what this generation had to offer. While I can understand these two wanting to pull away from the shoegaze moniker by the relatively late date of the album’s release – as they eventually did … right into the emerging trend of triphop – this sounds so correct by modern revisionist standards that we should feel cheated in never getting to hear this before. Massive, scorching, mournful landslides of guitar with the drums and cymbals mixed appropriately in balance, and the vocals down. Fans of Loop, Bailter Space and Lapsed-era Bardo Pond should be absolutely gagging on this one, an essential missing piece of the Bowery Electric puzzle.

KRYSSI & WEDNESDAY Ogden Garden LP (Daksina)

Surprise kosmiche reactor constructed in Western Mass by two certified operators: Kryssi Battalene (Mountain Movers, Headroom) and Wednesday Knudsen (Pigeons, Weeping Bong Band), plying the peace with guitars, synths, flutes, rhythm boxes and reverb. Lithe and ponderously heavy, the duo moves five pieces between worlds with gentle determination, going from mandatory relaxation level set (“Calm Club Charter”) to a pair of tracks that veer from determined levitation (“Mirror Heart”) to sinking, deep green amniotic sea drone (“Air Portal”). Complex, organic things seen in the woods that you can’t run from; the whole thing falls completely around you. 100 copies of this flew out the door on Bandcamp Friday and hopefully you got a seat, but digitally we will live forever, right?

EL KHAT Mute LP (Glitterbeat)

Album number three from this (for now) Berlin-based trio of Yemeni musicians, led by multi-instrumentalist, vocalist and inventor Eyal el Wahab. In a near-constant state of movement from conceptualizing these songs in an underground shelter in Yafa’a, it’s a record created through migration and conflict, with a clicking, careful, yet pounding rhythm section framing guitars, synths, cooked electronics, cut up samples, strings and homemade instruments that punch their way through the discourse. Much of it sharing space with rock music in terms of the force with which it’s played, Mute covers a lot of ground, all of it tread with masterful fusions of styles, like the reggae-infused instrumental “Alamania,” an early fave. There’s enough here to get the curious on board, particularly anyone hunting for peace punk/prog/improv outfits like The Ex or Dog Faced Hermans, but Mute is far more fried and rangy in its approach. This music advances on you like you wouldn’t believe, particularly the middle portion whipsawing on spindly legs through traditional folk, reggae, jazz, and Afrobeat, reminding me of this Japanese CD of Turkish military drum corps I heard back in college. Absolutely fuckin’ slams, no contest. A tour is rolling right now through the East Coast and Midwest; hoping to catch them in Rock Island this Saturday at Rozz Tox.

PARTY DOZEN Crime in Australia LP (Temporary Residence)

I remember a few of this duo’s albums dropping when they came through for SXSW and it was the kind of thing that needed some unpacking and peering into to see just how hard the hammer swings,  but as far as conceptual, technology-abetted acts go (this one’s largely treated sax/effects and drums) this is more on the heavy/righteous side than some sort of gimmick, and focuses on big riffs and chopshop beats to mix in with their blocks of intensity. It’s got a lot of cop show and action-comedy soundtrack energy, and while it’s not easy for this sort of thing to step out of the long shadow of Big Sax a la Morphine, that outfit never got this heavy or blasted, and I can’t remember the last time a thing like this held my attention all the way through. Worth showing up early for. No Nick Cave cameo this time but that’s alright.

CLAUDE FONTAINE La Mer LP (Innovative Leisure)

The first Claude Fontaine was a cute little trifle – let’s take someone who’s playing at French chanteuse styles and put some lo-fi reggae/dub behind her, see how that goes. It’s fine, probably something to hear during brunch, or getting it wet for people who have to make tough decisions between wanting to own it on sea salt or glacial blue vinyl. La Mer magnifies all of the wrong parts of that first record, pushing this carpetbagger and her coterie into MPB styles that already exist, and better, and by the gross, by Brazilians, and really almost anyone else. She and the crew are never going to hit Khruangbin levels of mersh, but imagine the things you’ll buy while this music plays. Tennis outfits, a new yoga mat, gold jewelry, fragrances, paella … this crew got that game sewn up.

In before the fundraising emails,

Doug Mosurock