#dusted magagzine

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Listed: Joseph Allred

Photo Credit: Susanna Bolle

Joseph Allred grew up in Tennessee and currently lives in Boston, where he’s found good company with acoustic musicians such as Glenn Jones and Rob Noyes. Like them, he makes music that can easily be tagged as American Primitive guitar, a category that Dusted’s Bill Meyer invoked in a 2019 review of two Allred cassettes that were issued on the Garden Portal label: “Of all the musicians who convened in Takoma Park, MD last year to attend The 1000 Incarnations of the Rose festival, Joseph Allred hews closest to American Primitive guitar’s mystical spirit.”

But Allred has also made music that has little to do with that approach, and is not even played on acoustic guitar. A quick survey of the seven vinyl albums and virtual basketful of tapes and downloads that Allred has released on Feeding Tube, Garden Portal, Melliphonic, and Scissor Tail Records since 2013 will turn up songs played on piano and harmonium, banjo instrumentals, and sound collages made from cell phone recordings as well as sonically rich and emotionally commanding acoustic guitar soli. Meyer also reviewed Allred’s newest release, Michael, out on Feeding Tube, noting that “his grasp of the essence of American Primitive guitar, which is that music is not just an idiosyncratic reordering of certain influences… that are played on a steel-stringed acoustic guitar, but an articulation of one person’s uneasy relationship to the wider world.”

Mike Gangloff – “The Other Side of Catawba”

Ten Years Gone : A Tribute to Jack Rose by Mike Gangloff

This song was Mike’s contribution to Buck Curran’s 10 Years Gone tribute to Jack Rose that came out last year. In addition to being a moving tribute to his friend and musical co-conspirator, it points to the mystical, dirge-y side of the Appalachian fiddle tradition that I’m particularly fond of, evoking more than a bit the keening wail of graveside bagpipes.

Powers/Rolin Duo — St

St by Powers / Rolin Duo

A lovely ecstatic drone folk album from these lynchpins of the Columbus, OH cat-instagramming scene. Shimmery, rumbly, at once earth-planted and heaven-turned. 12-string guitar paints color washes like the album’s watercolor sun-scape cover and hammered dulcimer fills to the brim with echo, sometimes sounding on the verge of being blown apart by its own reverberation. It’s been providing a much-needed meditation and catharsis lately.

Ostad Elahi — The Sacred Lute: The Art of Ostad Elahi

Nur Ali Elahi was a Kurdish musician, mystic, jurist, and philosopher born in Iran to the Yarsani religious leader Hajj Nematollah. Despite showing a prodigious talent for the tanbur and being recognized as a master musician at an early age, he never played music in a professional performance setting, preferring to use the instrument, which accompanied him throughout his life, as part of a personal spiritual practice. The tanbur has an airy, ephemeral sound often described as dry or even ascetic, but it uses a rolling right hand technique that creates seemingly unending hypnotic swirls of notes.

Buck Gooter — Finer Thorns

Finer Thorns by Buck Gooter

I met Billy Brett and Terry Turtle about 10 years ago when the band I used to play in shared a spot with Buck Gooter on the lineup of a Harrisonburg, VA basement show. I thought of Suicide and Big Black with some primal Ramones-tinted sludge seeping through the cracks, but it was ultimately something uniquely weird in the best possible way. I didn’t get to know Terry as well as I wish I could’ve before he died last December, leaving Finer Thorns as his last album, but he was a special person and a true outsider art savant. I wish Billy the best as he carries the Buck Gooter flag forward on his own.

Stanley Brothers — The Complete Columbia Stanley Brothers

My dad sang in a gospel quartet and I used to poke fun a bit by asking if it hurt his feelings that most of the gigs they got were at funerals. Maybe because I’ve experienced a lot of loss in the last decade or so I understand the special place gospel music has around death for some of us, but I think it can call us to start building a heaven on earth just as it imagines a place where our departed friends and lovers watch over and wait for us. These recordings made between 1949-52 are some of the finest gospel and bluegrass to be found and have been my medicine for homesickness and world-weariness.

Arvo Pärt — Für Alina

I did a transcription of this piano solo for a tape that came out on Michael Potter’s Garden Portal label two years ago and found my first experience with transcription deeply rewarding. Für Alina is a quiet, introspective piece, arranged to slowly unfold and then fold back up and consisting of two voices that move together against an occasionally sounding pedal tone. When I arranged it for guitar, one of the alterations I needed to make is that I put the two voices in the same octave, whereas on the piano they’re played an octave apart. Pärt intended the dedication to “Alina” as a consolation to a mother who had recently been separated from her daughter, so distance is a theme of the piece, but I found it especially poignant that the tension between the two voices seems much more pronounced when they’re put closer together.

Julian Bream — Dances of Dowland

The recently departed Julian Bream was a giant of classical guitar but his anachronistic lute playing technique and use of an instrument with some modern amenities earned him the ire of the more authenticity-minded lutenist community (apparently a fairly ornery bunch). I don’t recommend caring too much about the difference between the right hands of a classical guitarist and a dedicated lutenist, and I still love this album of Dowland renditions for the lute. Bream is a particularly good candidate to bring out the drama and flamboyance that can be extracted from the music, and it’s always a treat to hear the joy and mastery he brought with him to whatever era or instrument he happened to be playing.

Popol Vuh — Spirit of Peace

Music can be weaponized and used to challenge oppressive structures in overt and destructive ways, but in the hands of those like Florian Fricke, it creates spaces for self-transcendence and communion with the Divine, which builds the foundation necessary for successfully transfiguring those structures or building new ones. It allows us to enlighten and empty ourselves, to become conduits for Divinity and activate it in the world. Like much of Popol Vuh’s music, Spirit of Peace speaks from soul to soul.

Alan Sparhawk — Solo Guitar

I’ve been experimenting with an electric guitar a little after having gone two years or so without plugging in at all and using some of that time to think about what the electric guitar excels at or might be uniquely capable of. Alan Sparhawk’s Solo Guitar came out the year after he had a well-documented breakdown that led to the cancelling of a 2005 Low tour and an eventual hospitalization, and this album stands out to me as a testament to how bleak and alienated the electric guitar can sound. It’s also a reminder of what made me put the electric guitar down for so long to begin with. It’s a beautiful album, but sometimes I can’t help but hear audio renderings of hellscapes Alan must have been fighting through.

Dorothee Soelle — The Silent Cry: Mysticism and Resistance

Dorothee Soelle was a German Protestant theologian who came of age against the shadow of Germany’s horrific deeds during World War II. She spent her professional career as an outspoken critic of the Vietnam War and Cold War arms race, patriarchal renderings of God, and a perversion of Christianity she called “Christofascism.” The Silent Cry stands as one of her most important and widely read works. She imagines an imminent, politically engaged mysticism, one equally at odds with the violent, patriarchal exploitation enacted by capitalism, and other-worldly mysticisms that refuse social analysis.

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Listed: Nick Jonah Davis

Photo Credit: Andy Joskowski

Nick Jonah Davis lives in Derbyshire, England, which is a place where evidence of older editions of England is always easy to find. Successive eras likewise coincide in his music. Davis plays acoustic and electric guitars, drawing on both American and English folk and instrumental traditions. He has worked with like-minded folk, such as C. Joynes and Sharron Kraus, and is also an established guitar teacher and provider of therapeutic musical interventions. He’s been recording the occasional solo record since 2009, and in 2016, Dusted’s Bill Meyer had this to say about House of Dragons: “the Nottingham-based guitarist isn’t living in bifurcations of the past, and he isn’t asking us to either. Rather, he invites the listener into a world bounded by the resonance of his tunings and the vividness of his evolving melodies.” Thread Recordings is about to release a swell new LP, When the Sun Came, and Davis has compiled a list of sounds made by some of his favorite associates.

Even for solo guitarists, music is a collaborative, social thing. For this list I’ve picked some music by artists that I’ve collaborated, recorded or gigged with over the last decade or so. Members of the NJD home team.

Kogumaza — “Ursids”

WAAT048 Split 7" w/Hookworms by Kogumaza

When I lived in Nottingham, Kogumaza were my favorite band in town. They play deep, droning riff-based cosmic guitar music which draws on their backgrounds playing with local heroes like Lords, Rattle and Bob Tilton. They’ve also done their homework, having sat in with heavy hitters like Glenn Branca, Damo Suzuki and Boredoms. This tune was recorded in Nottingham, with Nathan Bell of Lungfish sitting in on bass. I was the assistant engineer on this session, and remember getting a pleasing headful of Katy Brown’s kick drum as we set up the mics. Mind-manifesting stuff.

Ex-Easter Island Head — “Large Electric Ensemble Third Movement”

Large Electric Ensemble by Ex-Easter Island Head

Liverpool’s Ex-Easter Island Head are a revelation. They repurpose electric guitars through a variety of extended techniques, with unprecedented, nourishing results. I was lucky enough to play a couple of shows as a member of their Large Electric Ensemble, a 12-guitar band powered by 1 drummer and multiple Arts Council pizzas. I learned a lot from them in terms of playing guitar with craftily-deployed allen keys and bolts. Living proof that people can and do make genuinely beautiful, ground-breaking music without being all precious and up themselves about it. Good lads.

C Joynes and the Furlong Bray — “Sang Kancil”

The Borametz Tree by C Joynes & The Furlong Bray

Joynes and I have been fellow travelers in the solo guitar realm for many years now. We’ve probably seen more of each other’s gigs than anyone else alive. I was really pleased to be invited into the making of the Borametz Tree album. Not exactly sure how you’d describe my role on that project, but it involved some bass playing, some refereeing and, in the case of this piece, heading into my cellar with Nathan Mann to process some sounds through my echo units. I really love this bizarre, swirling piece of music. It defies description and I really can’t see how it could have happened under any circumstances. Power to the Furlong Bray.

Jim Ghedi — “Bramley Moor”

A Hymn For Ancient Land by Jim Ghedi

Jim popped up a few years ago, around the same time as Toby Hay, and has been a sure source of decent sounds ever since. Jim’s initial, masterful solo guitar work has bloomed out into an exploration of both traditional folk and his own songwriting. Having sat right next to him when we played together in my village a couple of years ago, I can confirm that he has a huge, resonant chest voice. Luckily, he always commits to his guitar just as fully, as you can hear on this jaunty instrumental on which I played some weissenborn. Nathan Mann pops up again playing percussion on this one, small world…

Cath and Phil Tyler — “King Henry”

The Ox and the Ax by Cath and Phil Tyler

I first met Cath and Phil at the legendary Sin Eater festival, a 3-day weekend of fine underground music and excellent ale at an isolated pub in Shropshire. Almost everyone on this list played there actually. This is folk music as it should be played, plain and flinty with a complete focus on the song. Understatement goes a long way in this music and, I suspect because of this, Phil is one of the most criminally under-rated guitarists around. There’s a little part of me that lives for Cath’s jaw harp break at the end of this one.

Toby Hay — “Now in a Minute”

New Music For The 12 String Guitar by Toby Hay

Toby has a special place in my heart for lining me up an annual show in a cafe at the wonderful Green Man festival for the past several years, meaning my family could go for free. Here’s a near-perfect example of a miniature acoustic study from his album New Music for the 12 String Guitar. The guitar in question was custom-built for Toby by Roger Bucknall of Fylde guitars. Fylde put out the word that a label was looking for a young guitarist to make a record on a custom-built Fylde that they would commission, and I immediately suggested Toby. He rose to the occasion. Reckon he owes me a handmade guitar though; I’ll give him a nudge one of these days.

The Horse Loom — “Silver Ribbon”

The Horse Loom by The Horse Loom

Steve Malley played in post-punk bands back in the day, gigging alongside the likes of Fugazi. He later picked up a Fylde guitar and went down an acoustic rabbit hole where his love of British folk and flamenco come to the fore. The DIY-or-die roots of his playing flash an occasional fin. After we met I persuaded him to come down to Nottingham and let me record his first album in First Love studio. He did the whole thing in a day and it’s awesome. This is my favorite instrumental from that collection.

Sharron Kraus — “Sorrow’s Arrow”

Joy's Reflection is Sorrow by Sharron Kraus

I started playing shows with Sharron as we were both UK artists on the Tompkins Square label at the time, so it kind of made sense. She’s a bit of an institution in psych-folk circles and eventually I began playing on her records and at live shows, which has been a real joy. This tune features some heavy drones and an occasional splish of my lap steel. It’s classic Kraus — mournful, insightful, immersive. If you want to hear someone with a bigger brain than yours talking about the weirder side of life, check out her Preternatural Investigations podcast.

Haress — “Wind the Bobbin”

Haress by HARESS

Haress is centered around the twin electric guitar work of Liz Still and David Hand. Located in downright gorgeous rural Shropshire, they ran the Sin Eater Festival and still put out essential music on Lancashire and Somerset Records. I reckon they’ve helped me out more than anyone over the years, releasing House of Dragons on vinyl and always setting me up a show when I need one. This gorgeous piece features Nathan Bell again, this time on trumpet. Those Nathans do get around.

Burd Ellen — “Chi-Mi-Bhuam”

Chi Mi Bhuam by Burd Ellen

I first saw Debbie Armour singing with Alasdair Roberts, a good start. When I went up to play in Glasgow in 2018, I asked if she’d like to open up my show at the Glad Café, which she did, alone except for a borrowed harmonium. I was mesmerized, I think everyone was. Too good for a support slot. Here’s a Gaelic vocal piece which demonstrates exactly who we’re dealing with here, a profoundly talented and committed artist with a lifelong immersion in traditional music, using it as a springboard into something entirely her own.

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Barre Phillips – Thirty Years In Between (Victo)

In the spring of 2017, bass doyen Barre Phillips recorded an album for the ECM label. The intimation of the resulting intimate studio recital was a full circle end cap to his activities as a solo artist over the past half-century. Music on Thirty Years In Between overlaps that time span and makes explicit that any implied curtailment of Phillips’ solo proclivities does not extend to concerts. It’s welcome reassurance for anyone worried that he might shutter that outlet, too.  

Separated by three decades, two performances find Phillips expounding eloquently on his bull fiddle from different Canadian stages. Each concert is titled after the initial piece in its program with Ahoy! a new release and Camouflage a reissue of a 1989 Vancouver recital. Consistency in concept and execution is striking between them, with Phillips pulling liberally from his figurative toolbox to engage his instrument on all fronts from scroll to tailpiece. If there’s a difference, it’s in the relative polish and consonance of the earlier recording.  

Phillips shapes similar architectures for both settings, ranging through seven and six originals, respectively. Extended techniques expectedly abound, but they’re threaded around deeply satisfying bouts of less ornamental pizzicato and arco. “You There, On the Hill” makes stunning use of seesawing bow strokes that release gauzy overtones as vapor trails. Control of pitch and texture match deployment of dizzyingly fast dexterity at the improvisation’s midpoint, opening up into dolorous drones by the end.  

“A Quake’s A’ Coming!” offers a cascading maze of aggressively plucked and strummed tone clusters. Even at peak density of digital activity, every gesture and impact is audible as an independent entity, strung together in a pulsating chain that playfully mimics the seismic activity announced by the title. “Abate? Arise?” zeroes in on the tensile properties of percussed strings with Phillips slapping and scraping both body and fingerboard to create brittle, chugging patterns layered spatially by delay.  

Solo expression is integral to an improviser’s art whether through rehearsal or performance. Phillips’ specialist notoriety rests in part on both his obvious longevity and acumen at applying virtuosic classically canted tactics to improvised means. He was a pioneer and remains a provocateur in plying his instrument in extended settings sans accompaniment. These two dates abundantly demonstrate why and how that distinction continues to hold.

Derek Taylor  

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Listed: Three Lobed Recordings

For 20 years, Three Lobed Recordings has explored the outer reaches of psychedelic music, presenting Bardo Pond’s heaviest, most improvisatory albums, documenting the American primitive revival via recordings of Jack Rose and Daniel Bachman, listening to emanations from space-age folk troubadours like Wooden Wand, Sunburned Hand of the Man and Matt Valentine and generally pursuing the beauty of experiment, wherever it occurs. To celebrate these past two fruitful decades, label founder Cory Rayborn lists ten of the albums that define Three Lobed (and, necessarily, leaves out others equally valid and interesting). We look forward to lots more in the decades to come.

Personal Choice Cuts from the TLR Catalog (in no particular order, 9 of which might be different if you were to ask me tomorrow).

Gunn-Truscinski Duo — Ocean Parkway (2012)

Ocean Parkway by Gunn-Truscinski Duo

Every time I listen to this album, especially the title track, I feel transported. Long ago my college roommate Jon Nall articulated a test for transcendent songs, for the ones that impact you no matter how many times you hear them. He summed those all-time tracks up as the ones where the hairs on your arms uncontrollably stand up every time you hear them. While every track on this album does it for me every time, throwing me into a sort of uncontrollable head nod and body sway, I am always fully taken away by the entirety of the title track and Steve's swirling guitar build over the entire eighth minute punctuated by the ecstatic tones he hits at 9:06. Yow. The feeling I get from this album is why the label exists.

Various Artists — Eight Trails, One Path (2012)

Eight Trails, One Path by Various Artists

Record Store Day is tough. I love the attention and cash it puts into the hands of independent retailers but hate how commodified it has become over time by the powers that be / majors who see it as an excuse to pump out a bunch of junk that will end up being shelf warmers and ankle weights on those same retailers they claims to be supporting. The first few years when most of the titles were truly from and by indies it was a lot of fun. That was the feeling that led to wanting to put out an RSD title in mid-2011 (an illness I’ve since overcome). Originally conceived as a joined pair of split 7"s, it morphed into a triple 7" and then to a full length album. I wanted to showcase different approaches to solo guitar work and set out to ask a lot of my favorites. I also wanted to put together a special package which was fleshed out with help by Casey Burns on graphics, Grayson Haver Currin on words and Jeff Mueller on printing. I’m still amazed at the interlocked nature of all of the contributions to this one, from Six Organs’ spiritual sibling to “Ascent” in the form of “Stranded on Io” (a track that is a wordless tale all within itself) to the circular beauty of David Daniell’s “Housewarming” and everything else on here. I really love this record.

Tom Carter — Long Time Underground (2015)

Long Time Underground by Tom Carter

Late in 2013 I was chatting with Tom about what shape a record should take. He wanted to go to Black Dirt and get a good, clean capture of what he had been working on with Jason Meagher. TLR is always onboard with a Black Dirt election. Fast forward several months and family TLR was visiting some friends in Vermont around the same time Tom was in the area. We met up and he handed off the masters for a double LP. While we knew that the mix of Tom’s playing, Tom’s writing and Jason’s engineering was going to be magical but we had no idea of the exact form or how insanely potent the album was going to be. Damn. Seriously, just listen to this stuff and absorb that these are all single takes, no overdubs. Haunting and celebratory all at once.

Daniel Bachman — The Morning Star (2018)

The Morning Star by Daniel Bachman

It is pretty fun to watch the arc and path that Daniel’s writing, recording and performing have taken over the last 15 years. From powerhouse steamroller to the intersection of musique concrète and acoustic drone, his current location could maybe have been seen in his early recordings but you likely would have lost most of those dice rolls. The Morning Star speaks to me in so many ways but the stunning bookends of “Invocation” and “New Moon” always hit like a ton of bricks. What is amazing is how Daniel can turn these album cuts into live performances. I saw “New Moon” several times while Daniel was in the process of touring this 2016 self-titled album, always transfixed by it live — the album version loses none of that potency. On the other hand, Daniel re-created “Invocation” at the 2018 Three Lobed / WXDU Annual Ritual of Summoning to stunning effect.

The Michael Flower Band — self-titled (2008)

The Michael Flower Band by The Michael Flower Band

An audio / aural bomb blast, a kosmik rearrangement of the space/time directly around the listener. This take no prisoners statement from Mick Flower (guitar) and John Moloney (drums) is a deep slice for catalog enthusiasts. Just tune into “Balinese Falsehood” and try to not get fully lost. Years ago I described this as “biker psych for the third eye rider” and I’ll stand by that statement fully today.

Wooden Wand and the World War IV — self-titled (2013)

Wooden Wand & the World War IV by Wooden Wand & the World War IV

Picking between Wooden Wand titles is hard for this particular enthusiast but if forced I think I have to push the needle towards the intense Crazy Horse vibes of this studio corker. Surrounded by the “Briarwood” band, perhaps the most telepathic folks with whom Toth has ever played, the results are electric and transfixing. Will I kick myself tomorrow for not picking Clipper Ship? TBD...

Meg Baird & Mary Lattimore — Ghost Forests (2018)

Ghost Forests by Meg Baird and Mary Lattimore

I don’t remember when it came to me, the fact that there wasn’t a deliberately ground-up collaboration between Meg and Mary in existence. I had to ask them if that was purposeful or a gap that was truly something that we should remedy, a question where I had my fingers crossed the entire time. They were both really into the concept, it just took the triangulation of busy satellites to make all of our desires into reality. The results are as sturdy, sheltering and invisible at the edges as the album's title, facts that we are all the better for each time we wrap ourselves in this particular fabric. An all-timer.

Jack Rose — The Black Dirt Sessions (2009)

The Black Dirt Sessions by Jack Rose

I had the good luck and fortune to get to know Jack back in the Pelt days and watch his transition from that ensemble into the singular player and performer that he was for the last eight years of his too short life. Watching a Jack set was always a tiny miracle. I remember him calling me one day, telling me that he had gone to record with Jason Meagher and he had a record that he would really love for me to put out if I was interested. Not only was I most most certainly interested, but I was amazingly humbled and flattered that this friend who I also considered a modern master had recorded something specifically for me without even discussing it with me first. That level of trust was the gift and magic of Jack. If he believed in you that belief gave you all of the power you needed to make anything reality, you were suddenly bulletproof. Every track here is a stunner but “Cross the North Fork” always pulls me in, dares me to turn my attention anywhere else. Rest in power, friend.

Chuck Johnson — Crows In The Basilica (2013)

Crows In The Basilica by Chuck Johnson

Every track on this perfectly constructed and sequenced album is flawlessly beautiful but “On A Slow Passing In Ghost Town” is one of the top 10 tracks in the entire TLR catalog in my estimation. Exactingly and properly composed, performed and recorded.

Bardo Pond — Peri (2009)

Peri by Bardo Pond

The love of Bardo Pond was the seed that initially drove me to create a record label. Their single-minded determination to seek audio truth was apparent to me ages ago and so very inspirational. I ate up everything — the releases, the live shows, the live recording — and I hung on every note. The band had a lot of really, really great tunes that they had been working on between 2001 and 2003, the period between their departing Matador for ATP Records. I could never shake the power of several of the tracks from this era that sort of got abandoned to the shifts of time. After several conversations with Michael Gibbons two albums were born from that period and from some other exceptionally potent tracks. Batholith was the first of these two albums and Peri, the second. Both are so very special to me, the fruit of knowing folks needed to hear these compositions. When writing here I have to pick Peri today as it closes with “Silver Pavilion,” an all-time Bardo Pond thesis statement of sorts.

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Listed: Tim Stine

Photo by Santiago Covarrubias

If a musician’s test is the ability to project an individualized sound, guitarist Tim Stine has passed the test. Stine moved to Chicago a dozen years ago after growing up in North Dakota and studying in Minnesota and Ohio, and since then has followed the city’s pathway to relevance by working as a concert series organizer and an astute sideman as well as an idiosyncratic presence on his instrument. His winding compositions don’t fall easily into either the straight ahead or outside camp, any more than his playing falls into the trap of gratuitously flashing technique. On Stine’s two most recent records, the trio date Fresh Demons (Astral Spirits) reviewed here by Tim Clarke and the quartet session Knots (Clean Feed), he develops his melodies patiently, but spikes them with reversals, dissonances and tempo change-ups that’ll keep you leaning forward just to catch where he’ll go next.

Michael Gregory Jackson — Clarity

Michael Gregory Jackson is one of my acoustic guitar heroes. Compositionally, I don’t think we have much in common, but I have been poking around with his improvisations for years. This record is my favorite of his, and features Oliver Lake (who I also love to listen to), Leo Smith and David Murray. I was introduced to this album by some older musicians in Chicago, whom I respect very much.

Experimental Sound Studio — The Quarantine Concerts

Lots of great stuff coming out of ESS since the pandemic started. It has made me feel connected to music (again) in a way that I haven’t felt since this all began. Please tune in and donate if you can.

Summer Walker — “CPR”

I love modern R&B. Summer Walker has all of the stuff I like about 80’s classics (she has a light Sade vibe), but is of course very modern too. Her Last Days of Summer recording is my favorite pop music of the last 3-4 years. Nobody better ask me to do an R&B record, because I’ll do it in a second. (I know that won’t happen).

“Justice in June” — A resource compiled by Autumn Gupta with Bryanna Wallace’s oversight for the purpose of providing a starting place for individuals trying to become better allies

A friend sent this to me recently, and I’ve found it very helpful. This is a Google Doc that was put together by friends of friends, and it’s arranged by how much time you have to spend each day to educate yourself on how to be a better ally. It’s 15 pages and plenty of links, and even weekly plans. There are books recommended and talks and other things, but what I can appreciate most about it is that they have also included action items. Who to call, who to write, and what to do? Here is a great place to start, if you haven’t already.

Rob Mazurek and Jeff Parker Duo — Live @ Serralheria, Sao Paulo on Dec 17th, 2013

I’ve spent a lot of time with these two individually and as a duo too. This is a beautiful snippet from a performance in Brazil from 2013. This hints at so, so many styles of music and sound. I don’t care what kind of music it is. What have these two done and still do for Chicago music? There’s no telling. Also, shoutout Rob’s Octet Galactic Ice Skeleton, with hero John Herndon on drums, and Jeff’s The Relatives, my favorite Chicago guitar record.

The Melvins — Ozma

What can I say? I’m from North Dakota and there’s a lot of metal and metalheads. When a kid turns 15 in North Dakota, they are issued a copy of Lysol and Houdini. I love those recordings too, but didn’t find this one until much later. It’s everything I love about them, but better. The sort of crappy recording quality adds to its ‘it'. DRUMS!

Jon Hassell — “Last Night the Moon Came Dropping its Clothes in the Street”

Modern trumpet/sound master making deeply creative music in his 70’s at the time this was filmed. I first heard the ECM album that this tune is from right when it came out 10 years ago, and it hasn’t left my mind the whole time. Sometimes I can get dragged down by the influences I hear in music and here, I do not care at all, I just want to hear this. Fourth world music.

Joe Lovano — Rush Hour

A friend played this for me recently. Gunther Schuller arranged and conducted everything on here. I love his arrangements on the John Lewis album, The Modern Jazz Society Presents a Concert of Contemporary Music. My mother is a choral conductor and I’ve long been fascinated with the use of voice compositionally. It’s perfect here. especially on “Prelude to a Kiss.” This whole album feels like a dream. Lovano plays like how I think I play when I’m dreaming.

Luther Vandross — “A House is not a Home”

This is vocal mastery. Everything about it is perfect. I cry every time I hear this. There is no vocal pop music that hits harder than this. No autotune, not a bunch of production bullshit. His band (on his most famous records) would record the track and then Luther would come in and sing along and do the take. Check out this interview with Nat Adderley Jr. and Marcus Miller about their experience with him.

Paul Desmond (with Jim Hall) — “Easy Living”

There are a bunch of these records, and I’m sure you’ve heard at least a few of them; Bossa Antigua, Desmond Blue, Easy Living, and Glad to be Unhappy are my favorites. The link above is “Easy Living,” from the record of the same name. I can understand if you don’t like this — or lots of other things on this list — but it speaks to me. This has calmed me in ways I didn’t expect to be needed to be calmed over the years.

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Listed: Jeffrey Silverstein

Jeffrey Silverstein is a songwriter living in Portland, Oregon. He has been making music for over a decade. Prior to relocating to Portland, Silverstein released music with Brooklyn-based duo Nassau and Baltimore’s Secret Mountains. You Become the Mountain is his second solo album, inspired by the Pacific Northwest, meditation, long-distance running and Silverstein’s work as a special education teacher. Reviewing it for Dusted, Jennifer Kelly observed that “You Become the Mountain explores the conjunction of the natural world and whatever’s beyond it, in slow blossoming instrumentals that carry you out of the moment into a calm meditative space.”

Staple Singers – Freedom Highway

I’d initially caught wind of the Staple Singers via The Last Waltz and praise from Dylan and Levon Helm, but diving into their catalogue of soul, folk, gospel and R&B has been one of the most rewarding listening and record-collecting experiences. I started with a re-press of their 1959 debut Uncloudy Day and have spent so many slow weekend mornings listening to Pops’ signature tremolo guitar and the pure vocal arrangements of Mavis, Pervis, and Cleotha. A defining album of the Civil Rights Movement, Freedom Highway is one of the most powerful live recordings and performances I’ve ever heard. Recorded at Chicago’s New Nazareth Church in 1965, hearing the congregation react to this music is soul-stirring.

George Harrison – All Things Must Pass

I could yammer for days about how big of an impact this record plus George’s playing have had on me. The packaging for the 3-LP set is gorgeous. It’s a record that grounds you and sets you back on the path. Hard to argue with contributions from Billy Preston and Eric Clapton. More recently I’ve come to appreciate the pedal-steel work from Pete Drake. Been listening to a lot of Pete Drake, Red Rhodes and Buddy Emmons recently. “Wah-Wah,” which might have the greatest riff of all time, being written on the day he left the Beatles, is also one of my favorite pieces of George trivia. Really nice demo version of “All Things Must Pass” here.

Jerry Garcia – Garcia

My interest in the Dead has grown quickly over the past 4-5 years. I think the best way to get into ’em is to find our own way in. Jerry’s first solo release Garcia from 1972 served as a really nice entry point for me. I just cannot get enough of “Bird Song” and these versions of “Deal” and “Sugaree.” This album also sent me down a path of listening to more of the Jerry Garcia Band and his work with Merl Saunders. Definitely a record that keeps on giving.

Vetiver – Tight Knit

It’s no secret I’m a big fan of all things Andy Cabic/Vetiver. This record holds up over a decade later. No skips, phenomenal songwriting and band. “Rolling Sea” is one of the best album openers and “Another Reason To Go” is the deepest groove. Watching them live around the time this record came out made me realize how important having the right players behind you can be. If I had to narrow down my record collection to only three, I’m 100% this record would make the cut.

Akron/Family – self-titled

Discovering the music of Akron/Family rewired my brain. I miss seeing them live more than anything but am glad to have their albums to soften the blow. This record captures so much of what I appreciate about music and I have the same “holy shit” moment every time I return to it a few times a year. It’s the record I point to over and over when people ask me what my influences are. Listen to this album immediately, please.

Ted Lucas – self-titled

This is a record I want everyone to hear at least once in their lifetime. It stopped me dead in my tracks the first time I heard it. Grateful to the folks over at Yoga Records for making it more widely available. You MUST also hear the Blind Boys of Alabama doing “I’ll Find A Way (to carry it all).”

Hailu Mergia – Wede Harer Guzo

This is my go-to Sunday morning album. Originally released in 1978, I still have never heard music that comes close to sounding like this. Spellbinding and tremendously grounding.

Norma Tanega – “Walkin’ My Cat Named Dog”

Steve Gunn turned me on to this record. Norma Tanega was an American folk and pop singer-songwriter, painter, and experimental musician. An unmarried queer woman born of immigrants, Tanega’s hit single “Walking a Cat Named Dog” landed her on the billboard top 100 chart and a slot on American Bandstand. Tanega’s music would go on to be covered by the likes of Art Blakey, Barry McGuire and contemporary artists including Yo La Tengo and Thee Oh Sees. After releasing her second and final solo LP, Tanega moved back to California where she worked as a public school teacher and focused on painting and making experimental music using earthenware instruments. Stunning arrangements, guitar playing, and lyrics.

Peals – Walking Field

Beautiful record from William Cashion (Future Islands) + Bruce Willen (Double Dagger) This record pushed me towards more instrumental/ambient music. I love records that can establish mood quickly and this one does just that.

Bobby Charles – self-titled

Tracked at Bearsville Studios and co-produced by Rick Danko, this album is a collection of laid-back Americana with enough of Charles’ Cajun influence to keep things interesting. Sometimes referenced as a “lost” record of The Band, Garth, Levon, and Richard all made contributions. Sung in his signature drawl, Charles has an uncanny way of making the simplest joys in life the most interesting on songs like “Let Yourself Go,” “Grow Too Old,” and “Tennessee Blues.” A reissue is now available via Light in the Attic.

[dustedmagazine]

John Coltrane – My Favorite Things Graz 1962 (Ezz-thetics)

There is no new John Coltrane music. His extant oeuvre is finite, cut short after the saxophonist’s life ended in the summer of 1967. The guiding variable now is not one of output, but rather access. A remarkable amount of Coltrane’s catalog remains in print and available, but there is also a sizeable section of the larger recorded sum that has yet to receive properly sanctioned circulation. Much of that latter body of work is in the form of studio rehearsals, but there are select few concert recordings that also fall into this category. My Favorite Things Graz 1962 documents part of one such performance by Coltrane’s Classic Quartet, recorded for posterity by Austrian radio and the province of opportunistic bootleggers ever since.

The disc’s four selections complement an earlier compilation on the Ezz-thetics label containing the rest of the concert and released under the title Impressions. Swiss producer Werner Uehlinger took the liberty of resequencing the set list across both discs in the interest of altering the dramatic perspective of the music. Listener opinion toward this decision and practice may vary, but there’s no denying the primacy and immediacy of the performance, which benefits from a meticulous recent remaster by audio engineering ace, Peter Pfister. His ministrations breathe renewed life into bassist Jimmy Garrison’s contributions, which graduate from muffled throbs to warmly discernable webs of pizzicato facility and agility. 

The improvements are striking on the opening sprint through the Coltrane original “Mr. P.C.” still showing source tape age and imperfections but bolstered with brightness and depth not previously present in earlier unlicensed iterations. Flanked by Elvin Jones splashing and crashing cymbals, McCoy Tyner’s fissile solo gives way the leader’s rigorous vertical improvisations. This was a time with Coltrane was coming to terms with growing conflicts between his commercial and artistic aspirations. Brevity and concision were not watchwords he constrained himself to in concert. His solos here and elsewhere in the set are statements in impassioned, justifiable excess as an extended series of high velocity choruses erupt and immolate from the bell of his tenor. Jones eventually answers with an appropriately volcanic drum solo. 

A relatively brief but poignant stroll through the ballad “Every Time We Say Goodbye” leads to sequential mammoth renderings of significant signposts in Coltrane’s repertoire trajectory, “Bye Bye Blackbird” and “My Favorite Things.” The former was a staple in the concert songbook of Miles Davis when the saxophonist was in his band. Coltrane’s first large scale commercial breakthrough came with the studio version of the latter. The band devours both tunes voraciously and together they clock to over three-quarters of an hour. Once again, the refurbished sound uncovers welcome revelations in both individual contributions and interplay. If only it were possible for Pfister to apply his restorative powers to other Coltrane concerts, the saxophonist’s legacy would be expertly served.

Derek Taylor

[dustedmagazine]

Ishq — Digital Nature (I7x)

Digital Nature by Ishq

A huge door, opening somewhere in space on nothing and everything, closes with a deeply resonant boom, its gears and hinge gigantically foregrounded. It ushers in the fourth release on the wildly prolific Matt Hilliar’s I7x label, a 16-part suite rife with his modern but dreamily antiquated brand of exploration.

I7x is only one of the several labels releasing Hilliar’s work under a host of names. There is something elemental, even archetypal, about the way Hilliar, here going by Ishq, chooses sounds, something that blends ancient and modern, even in the relatively recent realm of electronic music, where obsolescence occurs with stunning rapidity. Check out the sinewy, razor-sharp but somehow lush oscillating drone in the ninth section which, in turn, becomes a backdrop for some charmingly R2D2esque chatter around the stereo spectrum. The second part sports a few beautifully old-fashion airy synthesizer sweeps in the service of another crystalline drone but only after a slowly moving plane cinematically fills the soundstage. More sweeps and drone permeate the third section, but what sounds like a guitar loop of some sort provides harmonic complexity. There is nothing either ancient or “primitive” about the all-encompassing sonorities pervading the sixth section, and to label them as drone would be to sully their immaculate surfaces. Samples are manipulated in a way that foregrounds their changing characteristics but also the procedure itself. All of this places the music delightfully outside of time and even of its internal references, like the voice of 2001: A Space Odyssey’s Hal 9000 later on in the album.

The unifying factor in Ishq’s multivalent sound worlds is that sense of travel. He never employs drone as a separate entity; it ends up being a kind of soundtrack, whether to timbral shifts or to the reverberantly disembodied voices that float in and out of earshot. Nature sounds are given momentary prominence, like what I take to be an expertly recorded whale surfacing for air, but they vanish into a landscape alien to them. The musical elements are often graduated, existing on subtly morphing volume levels rather than following the huge Romantic arcs favored by other purveyors of controlled voltage and samples. It might be best to describe this album especially as a series of states in which the permeability of inhabitant sonic objects is put on display. The juxtaposition of natural and electronic sound is thoroughgoing all the way into the final section, where everything fragments in favor of largely acoustic instruments and voices in bursts of activity reminiscent of a shattered dream on the verge of ending. Here again, the ancient/modern dialectic is in play as stark and slowly simmering sine tones give way to the voices that usher out the music in slow fade. It is a fitting conclusion to a travelogue that engenders contemplation at every turn.

Marc Medwin

[dustedmagazine]

Joe McPhee – Black is the Color (Corbett vs. Dempsey)

Preparing for posterity has long been part of Joe McPhee’s plan. Early in his career, the griot from Poughkeepsie picked up the prescient practice of having his musical activities recorded. Decades later, friend and producer John Corbett would tap McPhee for said tapes and bring into being an entire archival wing of the elder improviser’s commercial discography. Black is the Color is the latest entry to the ledger, collecting concert recordings by three nascent McPhee ensembles between 1969 and 1970. The pivotal Nation Time sessions were on the near horizon. McPhee, self-taught on saxophones, had only been playing the instruments for a relatively short time with frenzied facility and was already a formidable free improviser. 

A teaching gig at Vassar College led McPhee to connections that allowed the first (second chronologically) concert’s offing. Operating under the collective moniker of Contemporary Improvisational Ensemble (CIE), the quartet includes vibraphonist Earl Bostic, bassist Tyrone Crabb and drummer Bruce Thompson. Other selections from the performance were released on an earlier box set also on by Corbett vs. Dempsey imprint. The set here includes a blues improvisation and three covers, two of which would decades later become songbook staples in the touring set lists of another McPhee project, Trio X.  

McPhee jockeys between tenor, soprano and trumpet, fielding the first on a soulful reading of “God Bless the Child” that starts sans sidemen in the opening minutes and is made even more thrilling for focus. Sensuous sorties through “Afro Blue” and “Naima” are similarly bold and focused, showing off an obvious Coltrane fealty not so much in sound as in concentrated spirit, and a lengthy blues improvisation spotlights the brooding side of McPhee’s trumpet in its first half. Bostic makes for a receptive and responsive colleague, his mallets loosing luminous clusters that hover and circle around the leader’s more nakedly ecstatic playing. Crabb and Thompson are less memorable in their contributions but are still solid in sustaining momentum from their respective corners. 

Ten months earlier, with confrere Craig Johnson at the recording console, McPhee fronted another quartet under the CIE banner with Crabb and Thompson both on board and saxophonist Reggie Marks serving as horn foil. The quartet opens with a collective improvisation that builds from the bass ostinato of “A Love Supreme” before turning in a rendition of the folk ballad “Black Was the Color” that feels almost archetypal in its adherence to energy music effusiveness. “JuJu for John Coltrane” again pays copious respects to the ghostly Ganesha in the room with flaring, combustive tenors flanked by bass and drums sturm und drang and a late game Crabb solo that folds in friendly nods to Jimmy Garrison’s flamenco fixation. 

Vocalist Ocatvius Graham is the wildcard on the final date with Crabb hoisting electric strings and joining pianist Mike Kull and drummer Chico Hawkins. The foursome lights a fuse on free funk fireworks adjacent to those immortalized on coming Nation Time with hip-swiveling covers of James Brown’s “I Don’t Want Nobody” and Wilson Pickett’s “Blues for the People.” The results are not as potent a powder keg as what would shortly follow, but it’s still fun hearing them run the specific strain of voodoo down.  

Derek Taylor 

[dustedmagazine]

Kidd Jordan/Joel Futterman/Alvin Fielder – Spirits (Silkheart)

Persisting financial realities in improvised music all but demand the pursuance of side hustles for even its most accomplished artists. Kidd Jordan is a lifelong educator who also raises thoroughbred horses. The late Alvin Fielder was a licensed pharmacist and Joel Futterman is a self-published author. The three men started playing music as a trio in 1994, though the beginnings of Jordan and Fielder’s creative associations trace back two decades prior through mutual ties to Louisiana. Spirits is the sort of project that is ripe for the “lost” signifier so popular amongst the music marketing set. Professionally recorded in a New Orleans studio, it still has the spontaneity of concert hit in terms of improvisational immediacy and sustained energy.

“Opening” has the carbonated fizz of a palate cleanser with the three players finding shared footing on a snaking ecstatic riff from Jordan and Fielder’s forceful, but nuanced mallets. “Serenity” is absent drummer, leaving tenor and piano to a dialogue populated with cerulean-shaded shapes and structures. Even at this comparatively early stage of their partnership, Futterman and Jordan are synched to a shared syntax acquired from, but not beholden to, the argot of first generation fire music. “Double Strike” brings Fielder back into the fold and the trio sparks conflagrating comet trails over a quarter-hour. Futterman trades stomping, cascading key clusters and cavernously resonant chords for avian Indian flute late in the game, joining Jordan’s altissimo peals in a spate of spiraling aerial jousts. 

A solo piano feature, “Ripples” feels slightly rote in comparison to the earlier conversations as bright and frenetic display of impressive, but also obvious digital dexterity. “Start-Stop” is the first of three concluding pieces differentiated on paper by paired directives. It’s Futterman’s turn to take a breather as Jordan limns the sort of eruptive vamp he used to revel in with kindred horn players like the late Fred Anderson, over a choppy sea of cross-rhythms churned up by Fielder’s commanding sticks. “Run-Drop” pairing Futterman’s soprano with more diffusive percussion minus Jordan fares less well, but the fourteen-minute “Start-Continue” takes the program out with the trio reengaged at full, ebullient muster translating the album title into reverent concerted sound. 

The trio ceased when Fielder passed away last year. Fortunately, a modest catalog survives for posterity on Silkheart and several other labels. Dilatory to the tune of a quarter-century, this disc still augments that esteemed company.

Derek Taylor

[dustedmagazine]

Whit Dickey & Kirk Knuffke – Drone Dream (No Business)

Drone Dream isn’t Whit Dickey and Kirk Knuffke’s first dance together. The drummer and cornetist met under similar studio circumstances several years ago for a session released under the auspices of the Clean Feed label. This time the commercial conduit is the Lithuanian No Business imprint and it’s an equally apposite fit for the spontaneous investigations that are their parlance. The title of the earlier outing colorfully emphasized the duo’s shared skill in lacing segments of silence through their dialogue. The old musical adage arguing parity of importance between what is played and what isn’t echoes regularly in the give and take between their instruments. 

Packaged as a limited-edition LP (per No Business standard), the album partitions neatly into three improvisations per side. “Soaring” sets trajectory in both title and content as Knuffke blows curvaceous tones over a string of snare rolls and cymbal accents that incrementally gains volume and velocity. A sudden dual downshift resets direction and the piece concludes at a porous lope halted by a final furtive blast of brass. “Weave 1” debuts Dickey’s painterly brushes and Knuffke’s natural wah-wah effects. Its immediate sequel covers adjacent ground with sparely deployed sticks and legato brass shapes that mix melody with melancholy before turning ominous with tom-tom rolls and open bell growls. 

Another improvised dyad dominates the album’s second side in “Legba Sequence Dream 1 & 2.” Dickey sets up fields of percussive texture with mallets, gongs, and cymbals as Knuffke blows billowy vapor trails that fluctuate between airborne musings and sharper-edged cries. Dickey dials up the rhythmic density in the final minutes as if invoking the African spiritual entity indexed in the title. “Oblique Blessing” returns a sense of comparative calm with Knuffke once again spooling what feels like Mobius Strip of melody over a swirling terrain of struck cymbals and drum skin. The feeling that these two could continue their clairvoyant colloquy indefinitely pervades even after stylus and vinyl groove part ways.  

Derek Taylor

[dustedmagazine]

Listed: Jeffrey Alexander, Dire Wolves

An ever-mutating group, Dire Wolves (Just Exactly Perfect Sisters Band) describe their activities as “a sound of ecstatic improvisation.” They explore the confluence of psychedelic rock and free music, rambling through kosmiche rhythms and formless jazz, sometimes during the same spontaneously-created piece. Band leader Jeffrey Alexander previously participated in Black Forest/Black Sea and The Iditarod, and has played with Jackie-O Motherfucker for several years. With both a new Dire Wolves album (reviewed here) and a new solo release this summer, it’s a fine time to get his set of “ten musical things that have made me what I am, I think”:

Warner Brothers loss leaders comps

Especially The Big Ball, which was the first one I got, had a huge impact on my pre-teen brain. Grateful Dead, Joni Mitchell, Pentangle, Pearls Before Swine, Neil Young, Captain Beefheart, Tim Buckley, Jethro Tull, Incredible String Band, wow the list goes on and on. As a little wannabe-punk obsessed with all things SST, these collections expanded my ears to folk and classic rock, and continue to inform my record buying and listening habits to this day, some 40 years on.

Pearls Before Swine and Tom Rapp—For the Dead In Space

For The Dead In Space by Various

More specifically, Pearls Before Swine and Tom Rapp. I went down this rabbit hole in a major way in the ‘80s and ‘90s. Sometimes things just get under your skin, I guess. Delicate and truly psychedelic. I collected everything I could find and even recorded my own cover versions. Then I decided to ask others to do the same: projects that I worked on for years, and one of the things I’m most proud of. I turned my friend Marissa onto PBS and recorded her version of this track (her debut release) as part of these tribute albums.

Kate Bush—Hounds Of Love

A friend of mine in high school art class gave me a cassette of Hounds Of Love when it was first released. We listened to it while sculpting and painting that entire semester. I still have that same piece of plastic, although it sounds like it’s been underwater lately.

Lau Nau—Painovoimaa, valoa

I met Lau Nau on my first tour of Finland in 2004. She crafts some of the finest music of our times, deeply personal and hypnotic with subtle textures. I’m amazed and honored that she has been part of Dire Wolves these past few years.

Spires That In The Sunset Rise—“Wide Awake”

I first stumbled upon them at a camping music festival on a Wisconsin farm, also in 2004, and I was simply floored! I ended up releasing 3 of their albums (and 2 Ka Baird solo discs) on my now-defunct record label. Haunting and timeless music, played with perfection. Like Laura, Taralie and Ka are incredible improvisers with excellent ears and I’m equally amazed and honored that they have also recently been collaborating with Dire Wolves. We are not worthy.

WHFS

I can’t forget the radio station that I grew up with in Maryland. Totally free-form, deep cuts, far-out progressive. Improvisational radio is just like playing improv music – it doesn’t always work, but when it’s ON there is nothing better. I listened to this station every single day and on headphones on my newspaper bike delivery route. WHFS absolutely warped my brain, no question! And in the early ‘90s I even took a job as the M-F graveyard shift overnight DJ on Jake Einstein’s new station WRNR, after he sold HFS.

Flo + Eddie—By the Fireside

Speaking of radio, I have to include Flo + Eddie. Their ‘70s show By The Fireside was an amazing hodgepodge of sounds; they cut off records indiscriminately, were obviously totally wasted and having a ball. And just look at them here on German TV! Freaks living the dream.

Alice Coltrane—Journey In Satchidananda

The best. I return to her albums probably more than any others: profoundly moving. And of course Pharaoh Sanders wow!

Urdog—”Zombie Cloud”

I moved to Providence, RI in 1997 and stayed for ten years. I feel very lucky to have been part of an extremely special time/space for some incredible happenings/art/music/adventures. So many wonderful artists came to study at RISD and Brown and many moved into cheap, busted Olneyville warehouses, put on masks, and the rest is history. Urdog – a trio of guitar/farfisa/drums – was one of the best of the lot. I had the privilege of traveling with them across Europe in 2005, playing with bands like Sunn, Boris and Träd Gräs.

Träd, Gräs och Stenar—Gardet Fest, Stockholm 1970

Speaking of which – yes of course! Träd, Gräs och Stenar. Everything I love about about choogle and kosmische and free-spirited groove all rolled into one. My absolute favorite is their set at the Gardet Fest, Stockholm 1970. Here’s a great Swedish documentary (TGoS feature at the end of part 1 and into part 2).

The Dead—Hampton Coliseum, Hampton, VA, 10-9-89

Finally, I must mention The Dead, again. I traveled in a campervan across the country for several years on that trip. Here’s a Dark Star from Hampton VA in 1989. It was the first DS in many years (and my first), not to mention Drums>Space>Death Don’t (holy wow) but this video is especially great for me to actually view, as I was in the tapers section watching my levels. But we were all on another planet. After the Attics encore (again, wowow) the venue put up the house lights and the crowd refused to leave. Howling! Grateful Dead combine everything for me - trad folk, blues, jazz, improv … transportive ecstatic music, totally in the moment. Like I said earlier, when it’s ON...

[dustedmagazine]

Gooooose — Rusted Silicon (SVBKVLT)

Rusted Silicon by Gooooose

Gooooose is the experimental electronic solo project of Han Han, who also constitutes one fourth of Shanghai band Duck Fight Goose. The latter’s rock music suggests a concern with production value, maybe, but really doesn’t hint at any interest in — let alone gift for producing — the kind of glistening beats served up on Rusted Silicon, which range from jungle-inflected breaks melees to meticulously unfolding alien sound worlds. 

“Plasma Sunrise” opens the album with bolts of overdriven bass as rides and snares gather on the horizon, indicating this daybreak is going to pour over us like a bucketful of nails. When the storm arrives, drilled percussion stabs blend into the bass as surprisingly warm pads rise in the background. “Integer” maintains the chopped jungle theme, a manipulated voice counting from one to 10 over a splatter of breaks punctuated by tuneless funk horn stabs. The result is face-stomping breakcore delivered with a just-fucking-with-you attitude reminiscent of Kid 606 tracks of yore.   

From there, the album abandons its jungle/breakcore references and moves into less genre-referential, more deliberate territory.  The polymetric interplay of woody stick hits and shuddering kicks that opens title track “Rusted Silicon” calls to mind Nkisi’s recent 7 Directions; but the pacing here is more downtempo than techno, and rather than focusing on percussion the track revolves around Han’s genuinely pretty, alternately-tuned melody as it builds to an affecting swell. A field recording of actual geese begins “Along the Synthetic River I” before tense percussive gestures intrude.  Pads overtake the drum storm around the three-minute mark, transforming the track from clattering rave music to a pulsing, Vangelic cloud.  Glassy synthetic keys and bells lend IDM playfulness to closing track “Lab White,” juxtaposed once again with speaker-tearing kicks. Alongside remixes by Samuel Kerridge and Nahash, Iranian luminary Zabte Sote melts “Lab White” down into sparkling granular sheets of sound that fittingly expand upon the textures peeking around the corners of Gooooose’s beats elsewhere. Throughout, the low end is sufficiently augmented that even Rusted Silicon’s drifting or quizzical moments have punchy immediacy, and the mix rattles and pops with distortion.  

The theme here is corrosion or decay in the digital domain, though the album avoids the dark, dire atmospheres (or pure noise) this might suggest, mostly opting for inviting but unexpected melodies above radically processed percussion. Thanks to careful pacing, many of Rusted Silicon’s tracks feel like the gradual unveiling of an unfamiliar scene, or burgeoning awareness of transformation. Gooooose seems to suggest that as the digital world begins to show its cracks and tarnish, we’re bound to find ourselves somewhere deeply strange.  

Peter Taber