john scofield: solo, ecm … hey i’m playing more guitar again, the electric is all pedaled and amped up beside my desk always. so sco, the greatest living jazz and all-time dad rock guitarist has to come along and show me what i’d be trying to do if i had any sort of chops (this is not the first time either). doing funny wobbly sounds for accompaniment and even misstomping the looper. this record sounds almost tentative at times ... sco’s never really much evolved his style, but these days he plays a bit rawer and he’s at peak inspiration again. thank you, sir.
aldous harding: warm chris, 4ad … three great records in a row makes for a pretty select circle of songwriters? you can say this one loses a bit of steam around the middle, or it ponders, because yay the funny voices are back again and for added perspective. the set is full of lyrical earworms. all i want is an office in the country.
vanessa rossetto: the actress, erstwhile … it’s called the actress, but it’s firmly author-driven music, where found sounds, staged sounds, and played sounds are composed rather than collaged together from a pre-existing life of their own. this sits eloquently between hörspiel und konkrete musik and if i were german radio i’d commission the hell out of her.
qasim naqvi, wadada leo smith, andrew cyrille: two centuries, red hook … smith and cyrille are going as strong as ever and have been involved in a lot of great music lately, naqvi is from dawn of midi and probably hasn’t recorded a single listenable note in his life but it doesn’t matter because he’s being masterfully engaged with, whether he does analog bubbles or ambient droney stuff, to the point where his contributions sound sharp and contemporary.
josephine foster: godmother, fire … this is by far my favorite record from her, i like the voice but the backing is usually non-descript. here the synths make all the difference. they are unabashed synths, really shameless presets used enthusiastically but still it’s all really tasteful and light and that contradiction gives her a new punch.
rirette, tanzprocesz … this shouldn’t work. it begins abstract and then moves into a kind of post-industrial doom folk with drone and booming floor toms that makes me afraid of somebody mentioning a band name as reference or possible ideological baggage... but as the very french female singer puts her voice thru a heavy tremolo it’s clear this strikes a specific balance. so these must be nice people, are they nice people? we quickly move through more shady genres, electronic film music, maybe asmr, then it’s over, a short poppy ep, perfect really.
arturas bumsteinas: so-called space, sloow tapes … more found sounds, this time clearly a collage dripping with history and there’s sufficient space to let the snippets of these (it says) theatrical recordings breathe enough that the cuts teleport listeners from one mood to the next. yet the title suggests heaps of meta-awareness. music is gone in the air and spaces are lost in the sounds staged within them. i am not a witness.
doug mccombs: vmak..., thrill jockey … more guitar music. this just came out so my liking might still fluctuate. it’s both sparse and luscious sound-wise, adding guest elements to the music for a better narrative flow while the electric rings out like a good amp and select boutique pedal and the playing is direct and free from an annoying amount of idiom, except in the end where it gets tortoisey only more tasteful and of course he’s allowed to do that.
charles mingus: the lost album from ronnie scott’s, resonance … this counts since the music’s not officially been released before. it’s not even top-tier mingus, i guess, though a different drummer (and pianist) work great and bring fresh tensions and sillinesses. there’s bad musical jokes and some noodling especially from faddis, but mostly there’s huge energy and depth of communication, they don’t make music like this anymore.
angelo bignamini: anna, staalplaat … kind of the higher-concept end of used tapes overdubbed with slices of life and practice sessions. no musique concrete here even where it sounds like it, because this guy blue-eyedly believes in whatever made the sounds. and the wonky tape (fifth generation dictaphone dub? how does one even get this lo-fi today) make for a rather nostalgic mood. as the liners say, all plans end up on the beach.
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