Perfume by Wand

Perfume by Wand.
Bandcamp Link: Perfume

This album starts off with a couple songs that put me off kilter. Classic Psychedelic vocals, a la Incense and Peppermints, languidly floating over a rhythm section that could be from a Green Day song. It’s an odd combination, like the rhythm section is playing to a beat twice as fast as the vocalist.

There are a couple more normally organized songs, and a couple more that revisit the agitating contrast between the rhythm section and vocals, but my favorite is the last, “I will Keep You Up”. It’s a sort of sweet, yet powerful, Brit-pop-ish anthem, in the Primal Scream vein, that gets me choked up a bit. I’m getting soft, I guess.

A great album that keeps you guessing and rewards multiple listens.

#Wand #Perfume #TodaysCommuteSoundtrack

V. by Wooden Shjips

V. by Wooden Shjips.
Bandcamp Link: V.
A little bit like Meat Puppets and a little bit like Kelley Stoltz, Wooden Shjips are a home town, San Francisco band.

Fuzzed out bass and rhythm guitar. Echo-ing lead guitar. Repetitive drumming. Chanting, sing-song lyrics. Definitely, Meat Puppets influence happening.

Somehow just the right thing for my jet lagged mind. Appropriately psychedelic. Plus, they’re playing some shows, Huichica and The Chapel, in the relatively near future.

#TodaysCommuteSoundtrack #WoodenShjips #V #TheChapelSF #Huichica

Failed Celestial Creatures

Failed Celestial Creatures by David Grubbs & Taku Unami.
Label Website: Failed Celestial Creatures

Guitar Duets which take their inspiration from short stories by the Japanese author Atsushi Nakajima.

One extended song, one medium song with vocals, one medium song without vocals, and a few short songs. 
The extended song which opens the album is the eponymous “Failed Celestial Creatures”. It starts very quietly, (almost too quiet for a commute soundtrack,) and as the dialogue between the two guitarists builds, likewise it gains in volume, culminating in a burst of feedback interplay at around the 15 minute mark that wouldn’t be inappropriate on an Earth album.

The second song, “The Forest Dictation”, includes a poetic recitation about forest creatures that takes a bit of a turn towards the macabre and the philisophical.

The four pieces which close out the album, “Threadbare 1-4” are little gems of shimmering guitar interplay.

The following included quote also seems to be of import to the music in question. “Before becoming disciple to the Buddhist pilgrim Xuanzang in the novel Journey to the West, Shā Wùjìng was cast out of heaven, exiled to earth, and transformed into the river monster Wujing, one of the thirteen thousand monsters in the River of Flowing Sand, plagued by philosophical questions and doubts: ‘I am a fool.’ ‘Why am I like this?’ ‘I am a failed celestial being.’” 

#FailedCelestialCreature #DavidGrubbs #TakuUnami #TodaysCommuteSoundtrack

Solo Contra

Solo Contra by John McCowen.
Bandcamp Link: Solo Contra

I happen to think the Contra Bass Clarinet is the king of all instruments. An octave below the Bass Clarinet, it is one of the lowest instruments in the semi-normal range of orchestral instruments. Though, not a particularly common instrument.

Also, there is a style of metal Contra Bass Clarinets where the tube is bent into an oval. It looks totally steam punk and its mechanisms are ridiculously complicated.

In any case, this is an album of pieces for solo contra bass clarinet.

In these pieces, Mr McCowen treats the instrument more like a didgeridoo than using the typical methods. Which is to say, he is manipulating long tones using breath, embouchure, and the shape of his vocal cavity. He creates overtones, plays up harmonics, and in general messes with the pre-conceptions of what a serious orchestral instrument should sound like.

It’s pretty great! Well, if, like me, your idea of a good time is harmonically complex drones, it’s pretty great. I suppose, for some people, it might sound like the SF Bay Foghorns. But, who doesn’t love to listen to the foghorns around the bay?

I have long lusted after the calla lilies which grow profusely in our neighborhood. But, it seemed silly to spend money on something that grows everywhere. Finally, last summer, I broke down, picked up some Calla tubers which had come loose in a neighbor’s front yard and brought them home. I planted them in dirt and, amazingly, they have flowered in their first year. Just, FYI, it can be a little hard to tell Calla tubers from small dog or cat poop, which also seem to reproduce profusely in our neighborhood yards and on our sidewalks.

#JohnMcCowen #SoloContra #TodaysCommuteSoundtrack #Zantedeschiaaethiopica #CallaLily

Universalists

Universalists by Yonatan Gat.
Bandcamp Link: Universalists

When this album started, I wasn’t sure if I had put on the right thing!

It first reminded me of something Socalled might put together with samples and live music.

It seems like what they’ve done on this album is to take elements and samples from different sorts of folk music, from Klezmer to the indigenous people of North America, and used it to inform the tracks.

Listening more, it really reminded me of what the band Can was doing with their Ethnological Forgery Series. Well, if Can was a 21st Century eclectic surf guitar band. In any case, many of the collage elements do remind me of the sort of high jinks Holger Czukay got up to on his 1990s albums like Der Often ist Rot and Rome Remains Rome.

In fact, they find some of the very specific guitar sounds and techniques that Michael Karoli used on those albums for a couple of the shorter, more collage-ey tracks.

I don’t know if this is an intentional tribute to Czukay and Can or if it is a sort of convergent evolution.

In any case, a great new album from a great band.

#YonatanGat #Universalists #TodaysCommuteSoundtrack

Conquistador

Conquistador by Dylan Carlson.
Bandcamp Link: Conquistador

Dylan Carlson is the main guy behind the heavy drone band Earth.

This is his first solo album in a while (he also sometimes records under the name Dr Carlson Albion). Atmospheric, scorched earth, desert maladies for your post-apocalyptic listening pleasure.

My main complaint with Conquistador is it ends far too soon. Any of these songs seem like the sort of late night studio exploration that could go on for hours, yet the album is only a half an hour long. Please, Sir, I want some more.

FYI: He’s touring this summer and will be playing solo August 09 at the Hemlock Tavern in San Francisco and on Oct 12 he will be back in SF performing “Bees Made Honey in the Lion’s Skull” with Earth. Bring ear protection.

#DylanCarlson #Conquistador #TodaysCommuteSoundtrack #MatilijaPoppies #RomneyaCoulteri

Downtown Castles Can Never Block the Sun

Downtown Castles Can Never Block the Sun by Ben LaMar Gay.
Bandcamp Link: Downtown Castles Can Never Block the Sun

I mentioned I had seen Jaimie Branch in duo with Ben LaMar Gay last year. They played some pretty out there stuff, mostly synth and processed horns.

So, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect from Mr LaMar Gay’s solo album.

Even not knowing what to expect, I was surprised.

It’s sort of an esoteric pop record with elements from, well, everywhere. Some Jazz, some Electronic, some Bowie, some Funk.

To a certain extent the record it reminds me most of is Bowie’s Low. Well, if Bowie were a deep voiced African-American man. There’s a feel of eclectic experimentation which seems similar to what Bowie and Eno were trying to accomplish, especially on Low and Heroes.

The album feels like something that LaMar Gay has been working on as a passion project in his spare time for a long time, piecing it together track by track in his garage.

It’s funny, moving, and, despite occasional dissonance, pretty easy to listen to. After listening through the first time, I immediately restarted it at the beginning to give it a second chance to sink in. It’s that kind of record.

I recently noticed this Beach Sage (Salvia africana-lutea) bush on the VA campus. It’s a pretty unassuming Salvia until it starts flowering, and then these incredibly bizarre looking long nosed brown flowers pop out.

#BenLaMarGay #DowntownCastlesCanNeverBlocktheSun #TodaysCommuteSoundtrack #Salviaafricanalutea

Rummage Out

Rummage Out by Matt Piet & His Disorganization.
Label Link: Rummage Out

Piano, two horns (trumpet and sax), and drums. kinda my ideal group composition. Free but not overly “out” improvised music.

Piet sprints with Cecil Taylor-ish in energy at times, but Mazzarella and Berman pull him back with soaring and intersecting lines of melody and harmony. Daisy rumbles beneath, a broken scree for the others to scramble across.

Live, without a net.

#MattPiet #JoshBerman #NickMazzarella #TimDaisy #RummageOut #MattPietAndHisDisorganization

Ladilikan

Ladilikan by Trio Da Kali and Kronos Quartet.
Bandcamp Link: Ladilikan

Trio de Kali is vocalist Hawa Diabaté, balafon player Fodé Lassana Diabaté, and bass n’gobi player Mamadou Kouyaté from Mali, Africa. They were brought together with the American string quartet The Kronos Quartet by Ethnomusicologist Lucy Durán. The arrangements of the songs for the groups were written by American musician Jacob Garchik.

Garchik and the Kronos Quartet make the wise choice of leaving the Trio da Kali in the driver’s seat for most of the tunes, working the quartet into the edges, adding harmony and textures to the pieces. I think, also, Garchik makes a wise move by sourcing his arrangement ideas from American musics whose roots lie in African traditions. Gospel and the blues, with a smattering of 20th Century Classical, primarily Copland.

The musical inspiration for the series of tunes came when a song Hawa Diabaté spontaneously sang to welcome David Harrington to a gathering reminded him of the great gospel singer Mahalia Jackson.

Music that is simultaneously uplifting and enjoyable. A wonderful album.

#KronosQuartet #TrioDaKali #Ladilikan #JacobGarchik #todayscommutesoundtrack #Aloepolyphylla

Money Jungle

Money Jungle by Duke Ellington, Charles Mingus, and Max Roach.

Recorded in 1962, Duke Ellington was 62 years old; Charles Mingus, 40; and Max Roach, 37. Swing was barely a memory, Bebop fading, and Rock & Roll on the rise.

Three titans of their own musics get together and attempt to reach some sort of consensus.

Ellington, the polite pugilist, dominates the sessions, both in terms of the number of compositions on the album, and dictates most of the idioms and rhythms at play.

Mingus and Roach try to stretch the forms and idioms, but usually end up coming back to the Duke’s terms in the end.

I don’t know if it is a great album, the three never quite gel, but it is fascinating to listen to them try. And also great to hear them play these compositions in such an unadorned setting, without a larger band expanding the ideas.

#TodaysCommuteSoundtrack #DukeEllington #CharlesMingus #MaxRoach #MoneyJungle