The best new albums this week
Our writers recommend the albums to sit up and take notice of this week
ALBUM OF THE WEEK
Jordan GCZ – My Brain’s Brain (Minimal Detroit)
It’s not surprising some artists approach the grid-like structures of sequenced electronic music like they’re building a brick wall. Since the advent of Chicago house and Detroit techno minimalism has been a defining quality of so much club music – the simple ensemble of a drum machine and some synthesisers moving in a danceable formation. As genres have subsequently emerged, so too formulae have been established for less imaginative producers to follow, dropping patterns into place where they’re ‘supposed’ to go to achieve a particular mood or effect.
When things get interesting though, especially when considering a more outboard, hardware-oriented approach to techno, is when an artist approaches the studio as an instrument to be explored. It’s a jazz-informed attitude in contrast to the rigour of classical musicianship, for example. To make it hot, you have to have a strong foundation of skills and knowledge, but you’re also not constrained by tradition to meet a specific end result. When your chosen instrument is as open-ended as a wired-up network of sound sources, effects units and a mixing desk, the possibilities become vast. Jordan Czamanski embodies this attitude in electronic music, working with a virtuosic flair which makes it sound as though he’s positively merged with his studio until the gap between the man and the machine is no longer discernible.
Czamanski first displayed this gift as one half of Juju & Jordash alongside Gal Aner. The two came to attention with their releases on the fledgling Dekmantel label as house and techno were emerging from the digital daze and the analogue revival was gathering pace. As everyone scrambled to get busy with retro rhythm boxes and wobbly keyboards, these two were already talking a fluent machine language all of their own, their chops as musicians more than standing up to their technical skill. The live, instrumental dimension of their craft came into even sharper focus with the advent of their live sets and collaborations with Move D in Magic Mountain High and with Jonah Sharp as The Mulholland Free Clinic. Anyone who has spent any time noodling around with analogue synths and drum machines will attest to the fact it’s quite incredible they have always been able to start from a blank canvas in front of a crowd and immediately create excellent, purely improvised music.
Through his Patreon channel, Czamanski is providing people with insight into his studio practices and digging deeper into his ideas around improvisation, and it provides a valuable window into the way his music comes together. On his solo releases as Jordan GCZ, Czamanski continues this overarching thread of electronic improvisation with an impulsive streak which might sometimes veer towards rhythmic techno, or (as on the excellent Lushlyfe records) could equally jettison off into ambient, psychedelic waters. Oftentimes, you get treated to a compelling fusion of the two.
And so we come to Czamaski’s latest release – his debut solo album My Brain’s Brain on Terrence Dixon’s Minimal Detroit label. Czamanski and Dixon worked together on the Outnumbered 12” in 2020, offering up some leftfield techno explorations pulled from a week of studio sessions. You can hear why these two artists from distinct backgrounds (Czamanski an Amsterdam-based Israeli Jew, Dixon a Black American Detroit native) share an affinity, as both their oeuvres test at boundaries within techno and shirk convention without ever making a point about it. Dixon’s tendency for dissonant melodic sequences chimes with Czamanski’s own modal chord progressions, while the drums tend to slither and slide like serpents rather than marching towards predictable energetic peaks and troughs.
My Brain’s Brain is a bewildering release in some ways. Each track flows into the next as though passing by different islands in an alien archipelago. At one turn freewheeling Rhodes will be barking out over delirious contortions of sparkling pads and wandering bass, while elsewhere a sizzling locomotion from a drum machine carries elegant chord flourishes and nimble arp lines. If the latter sounds like a conventional approach, the feeling in the music is most certainly not.
At all times there’s a giddiness steering the vibe, tapping into the essence of techno as interstellar music for sci-fi fantasizing. When the record moves so freely between different structures without losing that shimmering, futuristic energy, it makes for something so much more exciting to the mind than a conventional approach to techno. It’s the aural equivalent of reading a comic book about the mysteries of other galaxies or listening to a radio play about an alien invasion, giving you a richly evocative impression that encourages your own imagination to fill in the gaps.
OW
Jenny Hval – Classic Object (4AD)
Jenny Hval on 4AD? Don’t mind if I do. Hval’s work has always been thought provoking (see 2016’s ‘Bitches Blood’, a concept album about blood, menstruation, schlock horror and Virgina Woolf). During lockdown, she found herself reflecting on what it means to be an artist without the art. If you boil it down, she explains, you’re left with “just me”, but what does that mean?
And it’s this idea that she explores on ‘Classic Object’, her eighth long-player. A published novellist, Hval wanted to tell simple stories – sometimes about her life, sometimes not, and as on the autobiography-meets-nurses-reciting-French philosophy tale of ‘American Coffee’ sometimes both. But, as she points out, a song isn’t just words. “The reason we have melodies is to step into the dark and jump off cliffs,” she offers. “And that’s what we do in life too. These jumps – like in ‘American Coffee’- detail what it feels like to experience things.”
Musically Hval draws on her inner 80s pop star here (her Master’s thesis centred on the work of Kate Bush). She talks about how during the pandemic she felt like art had no value other than as comfort, which is thread she’s explored before. Her second album, 2013’s ‘Innocence Of Kinky’, was also written during a time of crisis and looked at the relationship between violence and capitalism in the wake of the Oslo car bombings and Anders Breivik’s attack on a Norwegian summer camp. This album, you’ll be pleased to hear, is lighter in tone.
While all these strands make Hval a rich and fascinating artist, when you drop the needle on the record what’s actually in store? Well, it’s a triumph, you can hear why 4AD wanted in. The stand out, ‘Cemetery Of Splendour’, could have come straight off Bush’s left field ‘Hounds Of Love’ b-side, its warm, melodic rhythm and ‘Cloudbusting’-like spoken word interlude giving way to a field recording of churruping night bugs for the last two minutes. Coming a close second is the soaring chorus of ‘Jupiter’, which crashes around you like waves until, again, the track dissolves into experimental territory with a lengthy outro of atmospheric pulsing synths.
A record of many layers that serves up much to think about as well as enjoy. This is Jenny Hval after all.
NM
Various – Yeraz: Past Present & Future Armenian Sounds From Los Angeles To Yerevan (Critique)
Contrary to how apparently easy they seem to come together, archival compilations of this scope are hard to achieve, especially when they’re done for charity. LA-based label Critique are masterclass-makers at this kind of facade, though. They make culture-specific compiling look like a cakewalk. Their latest example, which came out last year but now gets a re-run through the Juno rolling stock, is ‘Yeraz’, an exploration of both past and modern Armenian electronic music.
Laying down the ‘transcendent’ spirit of Armenian culture to record, there’s a strong Armenia-US interplay on this comp, as many of the artists featuring are of Armenian descent, but based in LA. Still, however, Yerevani artists fully occupy the B-side, laying just as strong claim to Armenia’s homeland.
Etherwave, drone, techno, acid, guitar twang and ethereal vocals all pulse away on full display throughout, and are canopied by beds of analog electronics. The most common thread between each track is that of Western styles through a cross-cultural Armenian lens: on the first two halves, you’ve got everything from minimal theremin dirges to wibbly techno tracks. The latter in particular is best embodied by ‘Suspended In Time, By The Sea’, a pan-Asian take on breaksy bleep techno courtesy of new club circuit mainstay Lara Sarkissian. Strangely, the youthful dance feel of Sarkissian’s music blends well with the modern folk influences of the two tracks hers is sandwiched between; Armen Ra’s ‘Crane’ is a lonely aria for piano and voice, and Bei Ru’s ‘Port Sayid’ is an intimate blend of Krust-style beats, Latinesque fingerstyle guitar, and emotive strings.
The B-side is as moving, but not in the way you might expect. KamavoSian’s ‘Masiv Calling’ is our choice bit: a gargantuan big room techno tune worthy of inclusion in any huge stage-hogging DJ’s USB stick. But despite the track’s functionality, it’s still a great example of a dance track that can do good bits on the emotive front too, with verbed-out chord progressions capturing Armenia’s sense of pride through sheer massiveness.
The funds for Yeraz are funneled to Kooyrigs, a non-profit organization providing aid to the Armenian homeland, particularly for women. To read more about Kooyrigs, visit: www.kooyrigs.org
JIJ
Drug Church – Hygiene (Pure Noise Records)
With an unmatched tendency towards both abrasion and melody, Los Angeles/New York based post-hardcore punks Drug Church have made a name for themselves based upon their outlier status.
Since their 2011 debut, ‘Paul Walker’, it’s been hard to ignore their refusal to fit into a particular category of the scenes they swim on the periphery of; uniting elements of gritty NYC hardcore adjacent riffage with hazy, jilted pop-rock.
This sonic uncertainty that peaked intrigue on 2018’s exceptional, ‘Cheer’, has now snowballed into the nuanced, purposeful mess of ‘Hygiene’. This fourth full-length showcases a band moving far beyond any preconceived notion of themselves, instead channeling each of their dynamic influences into a project with so many trace elements yet no source of anchor.
While cuts like the snarly, ‘World Impact’, might be more reminiscent of their familiar formula, anthems such as lead single, ‘Million Miles of Fun’, are equal parts vindicating and perplexing with their subtle combination of muted aggression pushed under walls of shimmering pop-punk.
Cynical, world-weary frontman Patrick Kindlon speak-croons, ‘Newsflash, I need news less’, tapping into our shared state of perpetual dread while never veering into preachy territory. These are frustrated, honest and relatable anecdotes from a voice that has no desire to be endearing, charming or engaging yet ultimately becomes all of these through the gravel voiced honesty belted out consistently under warring waves of reverb, echo and delay.
‘Detective Lieutenant’ and ‘Premium Offer’ are the two definitive standouts, with the band finally giving into the post-punk mannerisms they’ve been flirting with for years. The dream-pop despondency of the former recalls The Cure at their most aggro, while the latter echoes Title Fight’s ‘Hyperview’ era with its hardcore, post-punk and shoegaze qualities all blurring together in angsty bliss.
Continuing the endlessly impressive roster of projects Pure Noise churns out on a regular basis, ‘Hygiene’ not only serves as Drug Chruch’s finest moment to date, but potentially one of the most dynamic albums from their label in quite some time.
ZB
SUR – Dog Daze (Sleeping Giant Glossolalia)
Mirror Universe Tapes here unveil a reissue of limited tape release from the band Sur in collaboration with fellow imprint Sleeping Giant Glossolalia…
We reviewers often don’t expect to write these kinds of flagrant sentences, but when the music is this good and matches the grandiosity of the words, we feel it’s justified! Emerging from the endless online backlog of spirit-seeking, psychedelic tape releasers (a subculture that has risen in prominence over the last 10 or so years), Mirror Universe Tapes might just be one of the OGs of this largely net-based scene. Originally a headsy shoegaze, experimental and spiritual post-punk music blog born out of South Carolina, they’ve since relocated to Brooklyn, and are now a fully fledged tape label, proud to source, mix, master and dub all of their releases in single, heads-down sittings.
The best music wafts from the fringes of DIY, so we’ve always had trust in SUR, the band they sieved out from the melting pot that was the Brooklyn music scene back in 2013. But despite our trust, little is known about them save for their fast, lo-fi, punk-shoegaze aesthetic – the sonic expression of anger washed out by indifference. In other words, like its first incarnation, this second press of the 8-track album ‘Dog Daze’ can’t quite decide if it’s enthralled or furious – from the gothic, screamy, analog wash of the opener ‘Shadow Puppet’ to the neck-wringingly spectral ‘Shut Up’.
Assuming its lo-fi haze isn’t playing too many tricks on us, we hear vague talk of “broken dreams” in the lyrics, and matchingly, any teasing of an emotive melody is almost always upended by jarring discordance. Mathy guitar arps abound on tracks like ‘Jail’ and ‘Jaywalk’, recalling everything from Deathcrash’s slowcore, the Modern Lovers’ vocal neediness, and Minor Threat’s hardcore punk. Although, unlike them, it’s almost certainly not straight-edge. This is punk drowned in fountains of alcohol, spiritual spirits, blackout psychedelia…
JIJ
Muslimgauze – Farouk Enjineer (Kontakt Audio)
1997 was peak Muslimgauze in terms of output. Although the back catalogue of Bryn Jones stretches all the way to the mid-1980s, it was the following decade that really saw him break into consciouses beyond the most specialised of specialist listeners, helped in no small way by the forward march of electronic and dance music’s more experimental waves, and the unstoppable rise of electronica as a post-club aural feast.
By this point in time, the artist had also embraced a ‘power noise’ thematic style, building arrangements gradually from often abstract sounds, colliding those elements together in strange sonic experiments and somehow developing an arrangement that are at once obtuse and difficult to grasp, but also deceptively accessible because the ingredients combine to make tunes that feel more familiar than they actually are. Take ‘Tantric Grip’ for example, a percussion-heavy outing that feels rooted in tradition but, when you start to pick it apart, is constructed from unarguably wild parts. ‘Under Saffron’ takes that to another level again, while efforts like ‘New Iraq’ offer a blueprint for what downtempo breaks that can start parties should really sound like. Well ahead of its time, perhaps it still is today.
MH
Yīn Yīn – The Age Of Aquarius (Glitterbeat)
Following their warmly received 2019 debut ‘The Rabbit That Hunts The Tiger’, Dutch five-piece Yīn Yīn have clearly been to Synths R Us where they also discovered there was a massive sale on samplers, drum machines, and free cosmic vibes with every purchase. The infectious eastern-tinged funk grooves of ‘The Rabbit’ are all still in place, but on ‘The Age Of Aquarius’ it’s all gone XL.
Hailing from Maastricht, Yīn Yīn pivot around songwriters Yves Lennertz and Kees Berkers who have honed their groove as a prolific live act. Melting electronics and live instruments, they feed off audiences and pour it all into a sound that keeps people moving. Want that in recorded form? You got it.
Opener ‘Satya Yuga’ is the sound of this all-new Yīn Yīn machine firing up – all blips and beeps, ululating vocal sweeps and various machines waking from their sleep. It comes on like the opening moments of ‘Welcome To The Pleasuredome’. The blistering disco inferno of ‘Chong Wang’ with its YMO flecks, is quite the statement, while ‘Faiyadansu’ mashes up a Turkish vibe, samples of a Thai language teacher and comes on like the theme tune to a lost 60s spy flick starring Michael Caine.
Goodness me, ‘The Age Of Aquarius’ is like a left hook to chops. Dancing chops at that.
NM
Just Friends aka JF Crew – Hella (Pure Noise Records)
Hailing from Dublin (California, not Ireland), Just Friends have made a name for themselves with their unique, often bizarre and unashamedly pop, funk and ska sensibilities, whilst operating as active members of the emo and punk scenes.
2018’s ‘Nothing But Love’ made serious waves in the underground, so much so that Pure Noise Records opted to sign and re-release the project on a much broader scale, which also saw the collective expand their touring schedule immensely, opening for acts such as The Story So Far and Mom Jeans.
In the case of the latter, Mom Jeans would say farewell to their original bassist and welcome frontman and founding JF Crew member Sam Kless to the fold. With touring limited over the past two years, Kless got to work on new albums from both projects, with the third Mom Jeans full-length ‘Sweet Tooth’ dropping a mere few weeks before ‘Hella’.
While there’s a notable decrease in the brass section this time around, ‘Hella’ aims to encapsulate and explore the funkiest aspects of the band’s core sound, almost encouraging listeners to look beyond the multi-instrumental arrangements for something more sporadic, simple and pure.
With the focus shifted even more so onto frontwoman Brianda “Brond” Goyos Leon’s vocals, her and Kless bounce off each other with the animated ease of a couple belting out pop and hip-hop classics at their favourite karaoke night. The groove-laden opener, ‘Love Letter’, sets up the endless barrage of feel-good funky pop-punk the group have made their speciality, while features from the likes of underground legend Lil B on ‘Stupid’ or indie-pop megastar Hobo Johnson on album highlight, ‘Basic’, are indicative of the vast reaches of the JF Crew charm.
Exploring emo-trap motifs on the dreamy, ‘Bad Boy’, or giving into their Barenaked Ladies tendencies on the 90’s ska-pop standout, ‘Fever’, this new record is proof of Kless’ commitment to his first project. Not merely fobbed off in favour of joining a far more prominent act, ‘Hella’ serves as somewhat of a power-grab, reminding the scene of just how dynamic, danceable and downright loveable the Just Friends Crew can be.
ZB
Undeath – Lesions Of A Different Kind (Prosthetic Records)
The death metal scene is arguably one of the most malleable sub-genres of extreme music, especially when looking into its geographical textures.
While Europe has served as possibly the most vital provider of boundary pushing tech-death over the past three decades, giving us everything from Decapitated to Necrophagist to Ad Nauseam, there’s no denying the American stranglehold on the brutal side of death metal.
Since the iconic inception of Cannibal Corpse back in 1988, the vicious, slamming, relentless, pummelling blueprint has remained locked in place. It’s when newcomers find methods of breathing twisted, death-centric life into the scene, that the staying power of the genre becomes apparent.
Along with Gatecreeper, Undeath are easily one of the most intrinsic acts in the resurgence of American brutalised death metal. With their second full-length, ‘It’s Time...to Rise from the Grave’, dropping in April, the band and their labelhome of Prosthetic Records have reissued 2020’s visceral debut, ‘Lesions Of A Different Kind’.
When the instant classic label is thrown around upon release, it can deter some while invoking hyperbolic rhetoric or expectation in others. Two years since its release, however, ‘Lesions…’ holds up as possibly one of the best introductions to the scene, and a project far beyond the scope of an a group with such limited tenure.
From the abrasive beatdown chugs of ‘Shackles Of Sanity’ to the sickly grooves of fan favourite, ‘Acidic Twilight Visions’, Undeath staked an immense claim with this first effort, one which only promises to be built upon in grim fashion come the release of their sophomore project next month.
ZB
On their 2016 debut album, ‘Belfry’, Italian doom metal act Messa made themselves known. Combining elements of gothic ambience, drone, jazz and 70’s fuzzed out psychedelic rock, the groundswell of hushed whispers grew quickly within the underground.
With vocalist Sara Bianchin’s lush, ethereal lilting over the haunted dirge like soundscapes, there’s no denying an almost gothic take on Stevie Nicks’ more wiccan meanderings in and outside of Fleetwood Mac.
2018’s sophomore effort, ‘Feast For Water’, saw the veil lift from its somewhat claustrophobic predecessor, allowing the more melodious tendencies to creep closer to the fulcrum of their design.
In the four long years since, the group have toiled away on their most delicate and dynamic project yet. ‘Close’ revels in a place of emotive detachment, despondent urgency and frustrated peace.
The hypnotic repetitions of ‘Dead Horse’ chug a wall of fuzz from nothingness to utter engulfment, while the mammoth near ten-minute, ‘Pilgrim’, wars with its own contradictory states of being, never feeling comfortable whether residing in the bleak and chaotic or the dreary and morose.
‘Close’ is a culmination of previous incarnations of sound and vision, utilising all strengths to craft pieces indebted and indifferent to what came before. Doom metal rarely, if ever, sounds this meticulous, gentle, trippy or jazzy. Arguably Juno’s metal album for non-metal fans of 2022 this far.
ZB
This week’s reviewers: Jude Iago James. Neil Mason, Zach Buggy, Martin Hewitt, Oli Warwick.