This past Saturday, guitarist Glenn Jones was on NPR’s Weekend Edition promoting his new album The Wanting (out on Thrill Jockey). The upshot of the Jones piece was that he had “stepped out of John Fahey’s shadow.” It’s true that Jones collaborated with Fahey, and is a fellow traveler to Robbie Basho, Jack Rose, Stephen Basho-Junghans and other “American Primitive” acoustic folk string-slingers. But once you hear him, you’ll likely think that his shadow itself looms plenty large.
The Wanting is Jones’s solo debut on Thrill Jockey, although we certainly expect from this relationship than a single release. A point of nostalgia for me: it was recorded in an intimate space: a fourth floor apartment in Allston; a Boston suburb that was my stomping grounds in grad school. While I didn’t hear Jones during my time there, I did get to hear many a stimulating solo guitar set at Beantown coffeehouses and bars. But nostalgic connections or not, the musicality and versatility brought to bear on The Wanting is undeniable. Jones plays all of the instruments himself: acoustic steel string guitar, six-string, 10-string and bottleneck, and 5-string open-back banjo. The tunes are originals, but they contain soulful resonances and folk-inflected affinities that make them seem timeless and, quite quickly, fondly familiar.
Check out the video clip and MP3 below: it will likely make you want The Wanting. Better yet, catch Jones live on his upcoming tour (dates follow).
Oct 14 Boston, MA Villa Victoria
Oct 16 Chicago, IL The Hideout
Oct 17 Iowa City, IA The Mill
Oct 18 Dubuque, IA Monk’s
Oct 19 Bloomington, IN Russian Recording
Oct 20 Lexington, KY Collexion
Oct 21 Louisville, KY TBA
Oct 22 Knoxville, TN The Pilot Light
Oct 23 Asheville, NC Harvest Records
Oct 24 West Columbia, SC Conundrum Music Hall
Oct 25 Atlanta, GA TBA
Oct 26 Atlanta, GA Grocery On Home
Oct 27 Chapel Hill, NC The Nightlight
Oct 28 Takoma Park, MD Potts-Dupre Schoolhouse
Nov 1 Brooklyn, NY Zebulon
Nov 3 Easthampton, MA Flywheel
Nov 5 State College, PA Schlow Centre Region Library
Sat Nov 5 Chicago, IL – Empty Bottle*
Sun Nov 6 Detroit, MI – Magic Stick Lounge*
Mon Nov 7 Toronto, ON – Horseshoe Tavern*
Tue Nov 8 Montreal, QC – La Sala Rossa*
Wed Nov 9 Cambridge, MA – TT The Bear’s*
Thu Nov 10 Brooklyn, NY – Music Hall*
Fri Nov 11 Philadelphia, PA – Kung Fu Necktie
Sat Nov 12 Raleigh, NC – Kings Barcade*
* w/ Birds of Avalon
White Hills tours in support of release this Fall. Maybe they’ll bring their mix of drones, post-psych guitar work, and kraut rock signatures to a venue near you!
UPCOMING FALL TOUR
Sep 3 Brooklyn, NY Aviator Sports Complex w/Psychic Paramount, Pictureplane
Sep 8 Vancouver, BC The Biltmore Cabaret w/Sleepy Sun
Sep 9 Seattle, WA Nectar Lounge w/Sleepy Sun, Kinski
Sep 10 Portland, OR Ash Street Saloon w/Eternal Tapestry, Pierced Arrows
Sep 14 San Francisco, CA Rickshaw Stop w/Carleton Melton
Sep 15 Long Beach, CA Alex’s Bar w/RTX, Heavy Cream
Sep 16 Los Angeles, CA Nomad Art Gallery w/Sleepy Sun
Sep 17 San Diego, CA Soda Bar
Sep 30 Den Bosch, Netherlands W 2
Oct 1 Leuven, Belgium Het Depot
Oct 2 Cologne, Germany Underground
Oct 4 Vienna, Austria Arena
Oct 5 Feldkirch, Austria Graf Hugo
Oct 6 Stuttgart, Germany 1210
Oct 7 Weimar, Germany Werk
Oct 8 Cottbus, Germany Burning Earth Festival
Oct 9 Berlin, Germany White Trash
Oct 10 Hamburg, Germany Molotow
Oct 11 Bielefeld, Germany AJZ
Oct 13 Olten, Switzerland Quote D’Or
Oct 14 Wurzburg, Germany Cafe Cairo
Oct 15 Darmstadt, Germany 603
Oct 17 Savignano Sul Rubicone, Italy Sidro Club
Oct 18 Rome, Italy Sinister Noise
Oct 19 Quero, Italy Piettro Alternative Sound
Oct 20 Martigny, Switzerland Les Caves Du Manoir
Oct 22 Maastricht, Netherlands Musikgiterij
Oct 23 Birmingham, UK Supersonic Festival
Oct 24 London, UK Corsica
Eleventh Dream Day’s Riot Now!, their first LP in nearly five years, is out on Tuesday via Thrill Jockey. The band’s also playing a handful of upcoming dates, including an appearance at SXSW.
Here’s a teaser track from the LP, the brash neo-alternative anthem “Satellite.”
No matter you method of music consumption – vinyl, CD, or digital – Tuesdays, happily, still mean the same thing: there’s new stuff our to be heard. And today (1/24) is a particularly big day for record releases.
One recording I’m eagerly anticipating is Golden Worry,Thank You’s new LP for Thrill Jockey. Check out the video for album track “Birth Reunion” below.
After nearly a decade of silence, experimental electronica act Oval has returned in 2010 with a vengeance; and, with a spate of new releases. Although it was once a collective, now Markus Popp retains sole responsiblity for the proceedings. Earlier in the year, he released an EP entitled Oh! Today, its longer cousin, the 2xLP O, sees its much anticipated release. Add to that a second EP, Ringtone II, that’s being offered by the label for free download here.
O retains some of Popp’s previous proclivities – glitchy technobeats, strummed string sounds, drones, textural juxtapositions, and repeated-note ostinati. What’s brought to bear here most overtly is an interest in pithy forms. Indeed, the second half is called “Ringtones,” and consists of 50 miniature compositions. One can imagine more than a few experimental electronica buffs installing one of them on their smartphone stat! What’s more, there’s a relaxation of one the more extreme aspects of glitch: the avoidance of pulse seems a bit less pronounced. Rather Popp seems content to flirt with metric obfuscation, but in an overall rhythmic scheme that also embraces at least occasional phrasal regulation.
Thus, on O, Popp has created music that still has an experimental edge, but seems willing to seek rapprochement with a wider range of techno/electronica styles.
Circa twenty years since its founding, Tortoise releases its sixth full length recording, Beacons of Ancestorship. The band’s first LP of new material since 2004′s It’s All Around You, Beacons also follows The Brave and the Bold, an eclectic collaboration with William Oldham on a multifaceted selection of pop covers, and 2006′s lovingly curated career-spanning boxed set A Lazarus Taxon. The members of the band have also been busy touring together and separately inhabiting a plethora of side projects and other musical outfits. Thus, while the five-year wait is understandable, one’s glad to see this project come to fruition. Beacons of Ancestorship is a rare beast for a mature effort. Strongly identifiable as Tortoise’s, it shows the group mindful of its legacy while simultaneously pushing at their musical boundaries.
In and of itself, this is remarkable; Tortoise’s polystylistic approach to music-making has, from its inception, encompassed a wide variety of amalgams and juxtapositions. But from the album-opener, we are reminded that the postmodern, post-rock, jazz-meets-minimalism catchalls that the press has long employed to try and pin down the band have always fallen woefully short of fully descriptive. After an undulating drum ‘n bass duet intro, with a killer riff introduced in the bottom octave, “High Class Slim Came Floatin’ In” unfolds section after section as fragmentary episodes; a mélange of IDM club signatures, minimalist reiterations, polymetric rhythmic assemblages, and liberal doses of motoric, edgy synth loops, proggy string pads, and rock guitar riffs alike. The one constant amidst the kaleidoscopic changes: the evolving beat structure is still visceral enough to keep your head bobbing throughout. The coda wears its Reich on its sleeve, with phase-like shifts modulating insistent arpeggios into an incandescent shimmer.
“Gigantes” also weaves its way through an impressive assortment of polystylistic material; similarly, rhythmic underpinning allows for a host of distantly related sections to coalesce. Less successful in this regard is “Yinxianghechengqi,” where the use of juxtaposition blunts some of the more powerful buildups of the piece. Still, its thunderous walls of sound demonstrate an affinity for avant exploration that can take the group on thrilling musical excursions. “deChelly” is a all-too-brief example of delicate soundscaping.
The impressively fluid and virtuosic “Prepare Your Coffin” and “Penumbra” are somewhat reminiscent of the outstanding fusion of jazz and progressive rock found on David Sancious’s albums in the Seventies. Riffs played in guitar and bass, doubled in octaves, ornately metered yet constantly propulsive drumming, intriguing chord progressions and extended keyboard voicings, and soaring guitar solos placed up top. Both fusion and prog have been much-maligned over the years – post-rock’s continuation of their confluence has been as well – and the zesty yet airy arrangements of “Coffin” and “Penumbra” suggest that the detractors of these genres have, at best, painted with too broad a brush.
“Northern Something” is one of the cuts that pushes against the aforementioned boundaries of Tortoise’s language. Edgy, reiterated riffs and a militaristic drum refrain create a bellicose (perhaps current events-inspired?) ambience. “Monument Six One Thousand” adds Middle Eastern-inflected rhythms into the equation, pitting their undulating flexibility against brash quarter notes articulated as piquant rhythm guitar downstrokes. “Minors,” stands in stark contrast to these two. A carefully shaped, elegantly rendered piece, its funky rhythmic underpinning sidles up to lyrically deployed solos, affecting harmonies, and the album’s most winning melodies.
An excellent installment, well worth the wait, Beacons of Ancestorship is easily the best material Tortoise has released since 1998′s TNT.
Entries (RSS)