Guitarist Elijah McLaughlin sets aside his 12-string for an electric guitar on this outstanding new collaboration with visual and sound artist Caleb Willitz, plus a clutch of midwestern head music ringers. The result is an endlessly inventive, restlessly mutating work of improvised music, which moves between jazz, psych, post-rock, ambient and Americana. But more than that, it is also a love letter to the Chicago experimental music scene.
Author: Justin Gage
The Lagniappe Sessions :: Chet Sounds
Last fall saw the release of the Sydney, Australia based DIY artist Chet Sounds’ sophomore LP, Changes Happen to Everyone, Everywhere. At a dozen tracks, it’s a lo-fi glossy and groove-laden trip across 70s-am pop, yacht rock, private press outsider folk, library funk, and Rundgren-esque psychedelia. For this installment of the Lagniappe Sessions we catch up with Chet (Tucker) as he works his way through a grip of disparate favorites, ranging from a mid-60s fantasy sit-com theme, to reinterpreting Judee Sill and the undisputed majesty that is Procol Harum’s “A Whiter Shade of Pale”.
Winged Wheel :: Big Hotel
Winged Wheel was already a supergroup of sorts. With the band’s second LP they’ve gotten even super-er. Big Hotel brings the whole gang back together: Cory Plump (Spray Paint, Expensive Shit), Whitney Johnson (Matchess, Damiana), Fred Thomas (Tyvek, Idle Ray) and Matthew Rolin (Powers/Rolin Duo). But it also adds two serious ringers to the mix — Sonic Youth’s mighty sticksman Steve Shelley and Water Damage’s similarly mighty Lonnie Slack.
Jack Name :: Fabulous Soundtracks
Fabulous Soundtracks isn’t a concept album per se, but it’s structured like a series of “soundtracks” for 10 distinct real life experiences. Each refracted through Jack’s mind and his senses, these commonplace occurrences come out the other side like a shimmering dream.
Michael A. Muller :: Mirror Music
Mirror Music is billed as a solo record, but Balmorhea’s Michael Muller is fully in collab mode here, drafting some of the best in the biz to help him craft a collection of hauntingly gorgeous sonic landscapes.
Broadcast :: Spell Blanket – Collected Demos 2006-2009
Long-rumored since the death of the inimitable Trish Keenan in 2011, the “final” Broadcast album has materialized as Spell Blanket, a megalithic collection of songs and sketches culled from Trish’s extensive archive of 4-track tapes and MiniDiscs recorded during the group’s post-Tender Buttons period (2006-2009). Its 36 tracks mostly nestle somewhere between that unadorned masterpiece and the rough-hewn assemblage of Mother Is The Milky Way, though it fully showcases the myriad of facets—aside from their earliest, dreamiest era—that made the group so special.
Jackie West :: Close To The Mystery
With a glowing aura, Close To The Mystery’s twelve tracks cycle through with dashes of dreamy Julee Cruise balladry, the rugged glamour of early Roxy Music, and the artful experimentation of Arthur Russell. A loaded treasure of soulful art pop.
The Aquarium Drunkard Show: SIRIUS/XMU (7pm PDT, Channel 35)
Via satellite, transmitting from northeast Los Angeles — the Aquarium Drunkard Show on SIRIUS/XMU, channel 35. 7pm California time, Wednesdays.
34.1090° N, 118.2334° W
Miles Davis: Four More from Brazil, 1974
50 years ago this month, the Miles Davis octet traveled to Brazil for three-night stands in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo – a stretch of gigs featuring the same personnel that recorded the Dark Magus live set at Carnegie Hall earlier that spring. While Dark Magus documented guitarist Dominique Gaumont’s incendiary first night with the band, the tapes from Brazil capture Miles’ well-oiled three-guitar lineup in full flight; Gaumont layering waves of feedback between flights of Hendrix-inspired indulgence, Pete Cosey supplying gobs of heavily modulated riffs and theatrics, and rhythm ace Reggie Lucas abandoning the steady throb of the wah-wah to solo at will.
Ferlin Husky :: Boulevard of Broken Dreams
A lost record from 1957, Ferlin Husky’s Boulevard of Broken Dreams would be right at home on the jukebox at The Bang Bang Bar from Lynch’s Twin Peaks. These are transmissions from the dark side of mid-century Americana, echoing across forgotten county line roads and empty chrome diners.
Jahari Massamba Unit :: YHWH is LOVE
If Jahari Massamba Unit might have felt like just another side project four years ago for the prolific beatmaker and the loop-juggling rhythmist, it now seems like they have tapped into rich, unexplored territories in their own musical trajectories.
Cornelius :: Sketch For Spring
If the title strikes you as a twist on the classic Durutti Column track, mission accomplished. A nod to his favorite guitarist Vini Reilly, “Sketch For Spring” is the topical new single from avant pioneer Cornelius. Like the benchmarks of a classic Durutti track, the airy and intricate instrumental was originally designed as background music for an entertainment complex in Tokyo.
Jessica Pratt :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview
Here in the Pitch is a gorgeous slice of baroque pop, but also something gnarlier and more complicated. Recording for the second time at Gary’s Electric Studio in Brooklyn and employing a full band, Pratt’’s realized a lush, baroque 1960s pop sound akin to Vashti Bunyan’s work with Andrew Loog Oldham, Dusty Springfield, even Petula Clark.
Chris Cohen :: Damage
Chirs Cohen returns with “Damage”, the first single from his new album Paint a Room, with Tortoise’s Jeff Parker credited for the arrangements and experimental saxophonist Josh Johnson on the horns.
Cara Beth Satalino :: Little Green
Following the release of 2019’s Gazing Globe, Outer Spaces eased into hiatus while Satalino and partner Chester Gwazda pursued some serious life changes. Changing states, physical ails, a global pandemic, and the resulting mental exhaustion gave birth to a series of stripped back acoustic tunes. Over the next few years those ideas gradually flourished into the ten songs that make up Little Green—a showcasing of Satalino’s artistic foundations, while laying her experience bare for the listener’s immersion.