Michael A. Muller — Mirror Music (Deutsche Grammophon)

Ten independent artists — largely from the improvised, jazz-adjacent ambient side of things — venture into Michael A. Muller’s glowing, swirling soundscapes, each finding and bringing different textures there. Muller, a founder of the Texas minimalist music collective Balmorhea, sticks to long-toned, keyboard-based instruments: a Mellotron, an Oberheim Two-Voice Synthesizer and a Rhodes organ, creating luminous auras of tone. His collaborators play a variety of instruments — guitar, percussion, voice and cello — populating these edgeless, serene sonic spaces with melody and rhythm.

Muller himself plays the guitar, and he seems to have a particular affinity for its devotees. Bay Area finger-picker Danny Paul Grody scatters sparkly chords and meditative runs across synthesizer washes that surge and swell and ebb. Without the guitar, these tones might be too unreal, too grand, too beautiful to catch, but with these slow-blooming, organic figures, the music makes sense on a human scale. Chuck Johnson is a different case. His silvery sustained pedal steel music contains its own uncanny valleys, and so he slides like a ghost between shimmering, vibrating curtains, carving aching arcs of longing into a chilled, cerebral landscape. Douglas McCombs, of Tortoise, Brokeback and Black Duck, picks a clean, reverberating, almost surf-toned melody across an oscillating, shifting, reverential backdrop; he cuts right through it, emphatic and sure.

Women artists make a mark, though mostly with their voices. Vestals float eerie, altered sighs and caresses over the clear tones of Rhodes, a piercing descant one of this disc’s most gorgeous sounds. The Polish composer and pianist Hania Rani also sings, in a whisper amid shivering ambiences, in a way that reminds me a little of Mia Doi Todd. But Clarice Jensen, who sometimes plays with Balmorhea, brings her instrument along, threading rich throbs of cello through a landscape of widely spaced piano chords.

In the mirror game, budding actors stand face to face, copying each other’s expressions and gestures in real time, in a sort of synchronized dance. Here, the interaction is more oblique, with each artist staring into a foggy reflection and finding some element of themselves there. The music that arises is hardly synchronized, but the players find a way to react and build on what the other is doing. Oh, and it’s lovely. That’s important, too.

Jennifer Kelly

I've added a third item to this archive of older musical activities. Joining Fish & Roses' Dear John and V-Effect's Stop Those Songs is Bell System, the 3rd album by Les Batteries, the (mostly) drum duo of me and the great Guigou Chenevier.

Meg Baird + Chris Forsyth, Cafe Nine, New Haven, Connecticut, October 26, 2022

True story — my first exposure to the guitar stylings of Chris Forsyth came via Meg Baird's classic 2011 LP Seasons On Earth. Which is one of the reasons that it's cool that these old Philly phriends have been touring as a sweet double-bill in recent years. I pointed you in the direction of a tape from the Detroit stop of their fall 2022 run a little while back, and now, we've got another excellent recording from the ever-rewarding Alex Butterfield Archives. Thank you again, Alex! Keep it coming.

Accompanied by guitarist Charlie Saufley and the killer rhythm section of Doug McCombs and Ryan Jewell, Meg kicks things off with a set that's heavy on her most recent (though then-unreleased) LP Furling. A good thing — that album was one of my 2023 favorites, a collection that features some of Baird's best songs yet. It's great to hear them in a live setting, with Saufley's sensitive/imaginative leads complementing Meg's keys, voice and guitar. They wrap it all up by inviting Forsyth onstage for "Will You Follow Me Home?", Charlie and Chris getting into a nice Whitten/Young/"Cowgirl In The Sand" kinda interplay.

McCombs and Jewell remain on duty for Forsyth's subsequent set, which showcases the guitarist's most recent LP Evolution Here We Come. As per usual, the sterling six-string work is the main draw — but Doug and Ryan threaten to steal the show; check out the churning groove the pair kick up on the closing "Robot Energy Machine." Unreal!

2022-11-01 - Chris Forsyth - Third Man Records, Detroit, MI

The other half of this most excellent co-headlining tour! It's been since the before-times that I've been able to see Chris Forysth live. Fortunately Detroit was part of the tour, and double-fortunately Chris was touring on an excellent new record. Absolutely incredible trio rounded out with Doug McCombs & Ryan Jewell.

They went deep, as always - enjoy.

Support Chris here!

Weak Signal – War and War (self-released)

RECOMMENDED

Loud, spacious songs out of this NYC trio's subliminal campaign to become the most heady primitive rock band in the world, ratcheting to lower gears and finding a new path. The band remains Mike Bones (Soldiers of Fortune, Cat Power) on guitar and vocals (and unstoppable tunes) and the rhythm section of Tran Huynh on drums and Sasha Vine on bass, with participation from Cass McCombs as a leg-up. Only two tracks rise above a mid-tempo saunter, though, and the second half of this, their third album, burrows into a low-slung, downtuned funeral march tempo that is heavy by nature and heavier by writ, like drop-tuned Leonard Cohen Manimal's slow growl, or Crazy Horse trudging on one cylinder at dawn (or dusk). That Johnny Thunders cover is something else. Johnny K at the dials is what's up. (Doug Mosurock)

Doug McCombs

1986 uk basketball roster

Return to statistics, team schedules, team rosters, opponents, players, coaches, opposing coaches, officials, games, assistance, Kentucky Basketball Page or search this site. With a blue-collar background and an infectious personality, Flint is well known in the college basketball fraternity for his success in both recruiting and. Second Row: Manager Robert Gayheart, Manager Tim Jackson, Manager Arch Jones, Equipment Manager Bill Keightley, Irving Thomas, Richard Madison, Robert Lock, Cedric Jenkins, Todd Ziegler, Trainer Walt McCombs, Manager Joe Mack Treas, Manager John Syers, Manager Jeff Kidder Standing: Assistant Coach Bob Chambers, Volunteer Assistant Jeff Riley, Troy. Hall, Dirk Minniefield, Mike Ballenger, Derrick Hord, Jim Master, Roger Harden, Dicky Beal, Associate Coach Leonard Hamilton, Student Manager Roger Thomas. Seated (l to r): Head Coach Eddie Sutton, Assistant Coach James Dickey, Derrick Miller, Rex Chapman, James Blackmon, Winston Bennett, Paul Andrews, Ed Davender, Assistant Coach Dwane Casey, Assistant Coach Doug Barnes, Assistant Coach Wayne Breeden Seated (l to r): Equipment Manager Bill Keightley, Head Coach Joe B. | Schedule | Player Statistics | Game Statistics | Basketball in their state in HS.ĥ players on this team were drafted by NBA teams.Ĥ players on this team played in the NBA.Īll-SEC All-SEC Freshman Team Īll-SEC 1985-86 Kentucky Wildcats Roster and Stats Record: 32-4 (17-1, 1st in SEC) Rank: 3rd in the Final AP Poll Coach: Eddie Sutton PS/G: 74.1 (70th of 283) PA/G. Baseball Academy Spring Training, players learn from some of the areas top high school and college coaches. 9 players on this team were named Parade All-Americans.ħ players on this team were named McDonalds All-Americans.Ĥ players on this team were named Mr. Tennis/Basketball/Handball Courts & Tracks.

Focused scrutiny pathfinder

#Focused scrutiny pathfinder license

Swords of Our Fathers, Copyright 2003, The Game Mechanics.Psionics Unleashed, Copyright 2010, Dreamscarred Press.Psionics Augmented, Copyright 2013, Dreamscarred Press.Psionic Bestiary, Copyright 2013, Dreamscarred Press.Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Ultimate Magic, Copyright 2011, Paizo Publishing, LLC Authors: Jason Bulmahn, Tim Hitchcock, Colin McComb, Rob McCreary, Jason Nelson, Stephen Radney-MacFarland, Sean K Reynolds, Owen K.C.Hunt, Colin McComb, Jason Nelson, Tom Phillips, Patrick Renie, Sean K Reynolds, and Russ Taylor. Cortijo, Jim Groves, Tim Hitchcock, Richard A. Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Ultimate Combat, Copyright 2011, Paizo Publishing, LLC Authors: Dennis Baker, Jesse Benner, Benjamin Bruck, Jason Bulmahn, Brian J.Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Advanced Race Guide, Copyright 2012, Paizo Publishing, LLC Authors: Dennis Baker, Jesse Benner, Benjamin Bruck, Jason Bulmahn, Adam Daigle, Jim Groves, Tim Hitchcock, Hal MacLean, Jason Nelson, Stephen Radney-MacFarland, Owen K.C.Sutter, Russ Taylor, Penny Williams, Skip Williams, Teeuwynn Woodruff. Wesley Schneider, Amber Scott, Doug Seacat, Mike Selinker, Lisa Stevens, James L. Frost, James Jacobs, Kenneth Hite, Steven Kenson, Robin Laws, Tito Leati, Rob McCreary, Hal Maclean, Colin McComb, Jason Nelson, David Noonan, Richard Pett, Rich Redman, Sean K Reynolds, F. Pathfinder RPG GameMastery Guide, Copyright 2010, Paizo Publishing, LLC Author: Cam Banks, Wolfgang Baur, Jason Bulmahn, Jim Butler, Eric Cagle, Graeme Davis, Adam Daigle, Joshua J.Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook, Copyright 2009, Paizo Publishing, LLC Author: Jason Bulmahn, based on material by Jonathan Tweet, Monte Cook, and Skip Williams.Pathfinder RPG Bestiary, Copyright 2009, Paizo Publishing, LLC Author: Jason Bulmahn, based on material by Jonathan Tweet, Monte Cook, and Skip Williams.Pathfinder Companion: Sargava, the Lost Colony, Copyright 2010, Paizo Publishing, LLC Author: JD Wiker.Mutants & Masterminds, Copyright 2002, Green Ronin Publishing.Mindscapes, Copyright 2003–2004, Bruce R.Legendary VI: Legendary Armor, Copyright 2012, Purple Duck Games Author: Marc Radle.If Thoughts Could Kill, Copyright 2001–2004, Bruce R.Hyperconscious: Explorations in Psionics, Copyright 2004, Bruce R Cordell.Advanced Player’s Guide, Copyright 2010, Paizo Publishing, LLC Author: Jason Bulmahn.

#Focused scrutiny pathfinder license

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Chris Forsyth con il nuovo album «Evolution Here We Come»

Chris Forsyth è uno dei chitarristi più talentuosi della sua generazione, capace con il suo stile di innovare la scena rock indipendente americana con album incensati da critica e pubblico. Il 26 agosto 2022 uscirà per No Quarter il suo nuovo album dal titolo Evolution Here We Come, registrato la scorsa estate a Richmond, Virginia, con un’incredibile band composta dal bassista Doug McCombs…

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Black Duck—S-T (Thrill Jockey)

Photo by Evan Jenkins

Black Duck by Black Duck

Chicago is the kind of town where it sometimes seems that everyone has played with everyone else, and indeed within and even across genres including jazz, post-rock, improvised music, folk, blues, electronics and even contemporary classical music, cross pollination proliferates. So it is not exactly surprising to see two Ryley Walker duet partners join forces with a Tortoise founder, who has himself, at times, played with both of them, and in more than one project. Black Duck might be an enduring musical undertaking or a one-off permutation of the Windy City’s considerable talent pool. Either way, it’s a winner.

To be specific, Black Duck is made up of Bill MacKay, Doug McCombs and Charles Rumback, all three of them artists whose work ranges across genres and puts them into contact with each other in a variety of contexts. Just for instance, when I went to see Meg Baird in Chicago last year, Doug McCombs was playing in her band as well as Chris Forsyth’s outfit, and Bill MacKay stood just off stage waiting to be called up by Forsyth. Rumback wasn’t there that night, but you get the idea. Bands are a fluid thing in Chicago.

MacKay’s main instrument is guitar—and his playing ranges from finger-picked folk to raging electric distortion to eerily beautiful slide. McCombs is best known for playing bass in Tortoise, for his multi-instrumental work in Brokeback and for turning up whenever musicians need help finding a groove. Rumback is a drummer with a background in jazz and a strong melodic sense; in his duets with Ryley Walker, he served as an equal partner, driving the song forward as much as the guitarist. In Black Duck, they draw on many different aspects of their respective, eclectic backgrounds, flitting freely from sun-drenched cosmic country, to driving kraut rock, to radiant, enveloping ambiences, all played so expertly that it seems effortless, though it probably isn’t.

Consider, for instance, “Of the Lit Back Yards, the trippy country daydream that kicks off the album, brushes shuffling, bass grumbling, guitar dripping unhurried sweetness. If a roadhouse bar band died and went to heaven, it might sound a lot like this. It has almost nothing in common with the driving blues vamp that powers “Delivery,” bass line licking flames around a motorik beat, and yet the two sit comfortably one track away from one other in the sequencing. What’s between them is even more incongruous, the shivering atmospheres and rolling thunder of “Foothill Daze” (oh, hey, there’s that unearthly slide I was talking about). And yet different as these tracks are, they fit together in a strange surreal way, like the soundtrack to a movie you don’t quite understand, and they are undeniably beautiful.

To my ears, “Lemon Treasure,” near the end, does the best job at bringing all these different elements together. It pulses like a locomotive. It dreams like a lotus eater. It lets notes of soap bubble delicacy bloom alongside rough-riding rhythms. It’s an irresistible groove and an opium vision, and when you think about it, who else could have made this track? These three guys, that’s who. Long live Black Duck.

Jennifer Kelly

A Tale of Red States and Blue States

Once upon a time, there was a state.

It was a large state, with vast stretches of country between its world-class cities. It had communities rich in diversity and activism and ideas – and it had a lot of resentful white people who were just plain old rich.

The richest and most resentful white people created a terrible blight they called “modern conservatism.” They set their wicked curse on the state, and then unleashed it on the nation with two Republican presidents – one lamentable, the next even worse.

There were many along the way who sounded the alarm, but there were more who ignored the danger far too long. The spell had summoned a beast. The beast was hideous and stupid. It was no good at anything except being a hateful beast. But the dark spell had done so much damage that being a hateful beast was enough for the beast to win, at least for a time.

In one version of the story, the state is called “California.”

In another, it is called “Texas.”

It’s strange to think of now, with a decade of sneering about the “left coast” and “San Francisco liberals” and blah blah blah baked into political conventional wisdom, but it’s true. The reactionary modern conservatism which held the whip hand on the backlash to the great civil rights advances of the 1960s was born in California. California voted for Richard Nixon six times: once as their senator, twice as Eisenhower’s vice president, and then three times as the Republican presidential nominee. In between those elections, Nixon of course had to win primaries. In 1968, when he was the Republican front-runner, he faced an upstart challenger who wanted to make sure he’d be racist enough to keep conservative southerners in the tent. That person was not a southerner, but the then-governor of California, Ronald Reagan, who would go on to be the next Republican elected after Nixon.

So what the fuck happened? Well, a lot of things, and I don’t want to pretend to do justice to the generations of righteous activism that pushed back against this disastrous regime. Democrats did occasionally win state-wide – notably, California elected two Democratic women to the Senate in 1992 – even though Orange County was practically a metonym for American conservatism right up until the 2018 midterms. But the turning point that seems to have gotten your average voter to turn on the Republican party for good was in 1994. Governor Pete Wilson, a kind of hard-right proto-Trump, threw his weight behind a hateful anti-immigrant ballot initiative. It passed, even though it was so deranged that it never went into effect because a federal court ruled it unconstitutional within days of the vote, because the California electorate really was that conservative. The electorate changed, almost on a dime. Mexican-American voters organized. Their friends and neighbors and fellow citizens realized that sitting back wasn’t an option. And now the Republican Party of California is a fucking joke.

This isn’t, like, the eternal winds of history blowing microscopic chips off the statue of Ozymandias. If you remember the Clinton presidency, this happened in your lifetime. If you’re a little bit younger than that, it happened in your big cousins’ lifetimes.

Part of what makes it hard to see changes like this is that the dim bulbs in our political media see everything through a horse race lens, where who gets one particular W is the only piece of information worth retaining. You win and you’re clever; you lose and you’re a dumb sucker who tried. Who gets power is really important! But if you only care about that, then you miss the really important trends.

Take the Georgia 6th, the district once represented by Newt fucking Gingrich. Its representative joined Trump’s cabinet in early 2017, at least in part because it was such a supposedly safe Republican seat, so there was a special election for his replacement. Traumatized Democrats and Women’s Marchers threw themselves into the steeply uphill campaign of former John Lewis intern Jon Ossoff. When he came up a few points short, our blue-check media betters tried to turn Ossoff into a punch line stand-in for silly #Resistance liberal losers coping with Trump by losing some more, SUCK IT, MOM! but the other, correct, interpretation is that Ossoff only came up a few points short in a district that was supposed to protect the kookiest of right-wing cranks. His campaign had functioned as kind of an ad hoc boot camp for novice organizers, canvassers, and future school board candidates who had previously been too discouraged and disorganized to take this kind of swing, and it showed Democratic party donors that the district was winnable. So when gun safety advocate and Mother of the Movement Lucy McBath stepped up to the plate in the 2018 midterms, her campaign had the infrastructure it needed, and now she’s well-positioned to be reelected because she’s doing a great job. Meanwhile, Ossoff’s organizing chops and the enthusiastic work his supporters did for Rep. McBath are a big part of why he’s in a dead heat against incumbent Republican Senator David Purdue.

That’s why I’m keeping an eye on the South this year. The presidential campaign there is interesting, but the real story is in those network effects. There’s a rising tide that threatens to make the blue wave of 2018 look like a light spring shower if things break the right way. Just look at the Democratic senate candidates. They’re a diverse group: men and women, Black and white, preacher and fighter pilot. Most are relative newcomers to national audiences, but only some of them are young. Jon Ossoff is just 33; when he was in grade school, Mike Espy of Mississippi was Secretary of Agriculture. What they do seem to have in common is that they are having the time of their fucking lives.

Here’s Espy:

Moving and grooving in McComb. pic.twitter.com/RANCRGGpX7

— Mike Espy (@MikeEspyMS)

October 31, 2020

Ossoff:

The people of Georgia are tired of having a spineless, disgraced politician serve as their Senator. pic.twitter.com/OdaYwFKzmz

— Jon Ossoff (@ossoff)

October 30, 2020

Senator Doug Jones of Alabama:

I know you’ve heard us say it before, but when you see this clip, it bears reappearing: This guy really is clueless. https://t.co/w9YOUHegCW

— Doug Jones (@DougJones)

October 22, 2020

Jamie Harrison of South Carolina:

It's debate night and y'all know I'm going to walk it like I talk it. Let's see if @LindseyGrahamSC can do the same. pic.twitter.com/TNABxsaTEO

— Jaime Harrison (@harrisonjaime)

October 30, 2020

And the bad bitch with her eye on the big prize, MJ Hegar of Texas:

It's about time Texans had a senator as tough as we are. https://t.co/8MQ8Tykmyt pic.twitter.com/bgPr5vtgdh

— MJ Hegar (@mjhegar)

October 16, 2020

Clutch those pearls, John! https://t.co/iWej8MrhtV

— MJ Hegar (@mjhegar)

October 22, 2020

The spineless bootlicker Hegar is challenging, Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn, is currently resting his dainty patoot in the seat once held by none other than Lyndon Baines Johnson. As president, LBJ would aggressively push for some of the greatest human rights legislation in American history in pursuit of what he called the Great Society. That meant Medicare and Medicaid. It meant a revolution in environmental protections. It meant PBS. And it meant telling the one-party authoritarian regime in the Jim Crow south that America was done with their bullshit, they were going to have real democracy, they were going to do it now, and if they didn’t like it they could eat his ass.

Johnson was a complicated guy and left a complicated legacy. His project required an unusual leader of courage, conviction, and unmitigated savvy, cut with streaks of megalomania and dubious mental health. No architect but Lyndon Johnson would have built the Great Society, and no place but Texas could have built Lyndon Johnson.

Then again, Texas also gave us the Bushes in the late twentieth century. It gave us a terrorist attack on a Biden campaign bus just this weekend.

That darkness is real. So is the long, grinding slog to turn on the light. Like the GA-06 silliness, Democratic efforts in Texas get laughed at as some quixotic waste of resources by arrogant flops. In fact, the past few years of high-profile statewide elections in Texas have been on a pretty clear trajectory. In 2014, Wendy Davis, a state senator from Fort Worth who captured widespread progressive attention with her heroic filibuster of a 2013 state abortion ban, ran for governor. She lost by the ~20-point margin you’d expect in a year where Republicans everywhere did really well, but it was a vitamin B-12 shot to a perpetually overwhelmed state Democratic party. The 2016 Clinton campaign, when it was (correctly!) on the offensive before FBI Director Comey decided he would really prefer a Trump presidency, invested heavily in its Texas ground game. It was always a long shot, but even after the Comey letter and the Texas-specific sabotage by the Russian Internet Research Agency, Texas Democrats cut Trump’s margin there down to single digits. That is to say, they recruited the volunteers and taught the skills and raised the cash and registered the voters to carry the ball way down the field. And in the 2018 midterms, El Paso representative Beto O’Rourke built on all that energy to fight Senator Ted Cruz to a near draw. O’Rourke didn’t quite make it, but he did help a lot of downballot Democrats over the finish line and forced Republicans to light a few oil drums of cash on fire to save a seat that they had always assumed would be safe.

That growth has been possible because of a ton of hard work and persuasion, but it’s also been possible because there was so much untapped potential. As progressives have argued for years, Texas was less of a “red state” than a non-voting state. I’m not a person that usually has a lot of patience for people not bothering to vote, because the people who get to be loud about that are whiny, privileged assholes who can afford to be flip about the right to vote. But there are a lot of people who find it hard because they absolutely do know the weight and importance of voting, because they or their mothers or their grandfathers were beaten and terrorized to keep them away from the polls. They might make the same mouth-noises as the selfish dilettantes about how it doesn’t matter and they’re all corrupt and blah blah blah. But a vote is a tiny little leap of faith. It’s at least a skip of hope. And it hurts to know the weight and importance of that and to keep feeling that disappointment over and over again.

A key thing that Republicans in the South managed to do for a while, but California Republicans didn’t, was to let their misrule seem almost tolerable day to day. As outrageous as the overall trends were, as catastrophic the results were for a lot of people’s lives, it didn’t necessarily feel entirely irrational for lots of people to avoid the inconvenience and disappointment of trying to stop them. But if you’re just going to be a constant, unwavering shit show of incompetence and evil, infuriating people every waking minute of every fucking day for years on end, they’re not going to be deterred by inconvenience and disappointment. They're not going to be deterred by fucking tear gas. They’re going to understand that it’s worth trying to get rid of you, even if it’s a long shot. They’re going to line up to kick you in the shin just for the hell of it. And that’s exactly what millions of them have already done.

These dumbass motherfuckers radicalized Taylor goddamn Swift!

LOOK WHAT YOU MADE HER DO!

So yeah. People who had given up are fucking voting. Texas has already had hundreds of thousands more people vote than voted in all of 2016. BEFORE ELECTION DAY!

Vice President Biden likes to recite a poem by the great Irish bard Seamus Heaney. It’s about how you have to have faith that a better world is possible, even when you don’t have any rational reason to expect it any time soon, because it’s the only way you’ll be able to seize the most precious of opportunities, when “justice can rise up/ And hope and history rhyme.”

Sometimes hope and history walk into a bar to tell dirty jokes for a bachelorette party in downtown Austin. And they rhyme.

For a hundred and fifty years, unreconstructed revanchist terrorist sympathizers have threatened that “the South will rise again.” They mean the treasonous mobsters who called themselves the Confederacy.

Why do those losers get to define the South? Like, literally, they’re losers. They lost.

There’s another South. The terrorists cut it off at the knees, so it never quite rose the first time. But it’s always been there. The South the heroes of Reconstruction tried to build. The South of the Kennedy Space Station and the Center for Disease Control. The South of the French Quarter of New Orleans and the gay neighborhoods of Atlanta. The South of Barbara Jordan, Ann and Cecile Richards, Stacey Abrams, and the young women of the Virginia state legislature. The South of Maya Angelou, Molly Ivins, and Mark Twain. The South of the exiles of Miami and the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma. The South of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Representative John Lewis. The South of James Earl Carter, William Jefferson Clinton, and Lyndon Baines Johnson.

Once upon a time, there was a colossus. The richest and most resentful white people feared it, for it was both great and good. So they hunted it mercilessly. They tortured and killed its most vulnerable people. They bound it and silenced it and told the rest of the world it didn’t even exist. But they knew that wicked lie was the best they could do, for something so mighty could never be slain by the likes of them.

The giant grows stronger every day as it struggles against its chains, and those chains are turning to rust. One day soon  - maybe in this decade; maybe this week – it will break free. It will rise. And it will shake the earth. Just you watch.

Meg Baird + Chris Forsyth - Third Man Records, Detroit, Michigan, November 1, 2022

Thanks to the mighty Detroit Lightning blog for these tapes of one of the best double bills of 2022 — Meg Baird and Chris Forsyth! Meg has a new one coming out early next year and it is incredible. Just check out "Will You Follow Me Home" which, in a just world, should be a major hit. Chris, of course, just released Evolution Here We Come, another in a long string of masterpieces. You need it.

The rhythm section for both Baird and Forsyth during this tour is worth noting, too — drummer Ryan Jewell and bassist Doug McCombs. Both legends! Throw Charlie Saufley (Heron Oblivion, Assemble Head In Sunburst Sound) into the mix and we've got one incredible night of music. I think there might be a west coast Baird Forsyth tour in the works for 2023? Keep your eyes peeled.

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coming January 15, 2021 Chris Brokaw - ‘Puritan’ (12XU 122-1) Chris Brokaw is the consummate underground rock musician. In a career spanning thirty-plus years he has been in countless bands (Come, Charnel Ground, Codeine, The Lemonheads, to name a few) has been a sideman with everyone from Thurston Moore to GG Allin, pounded countless stages on nonstop tours, and played on over seventy recordings. Puritan is his tenth solo album and it's a killer.


From the hypnotic repetition on the extended instrumental outro of title-track opener 'Puritan', the wounded grace of 'Depending', to the fragile beauty of the Velvets-esque duet with Claudia Groom, 'I'm the Only One for You', and the ghost of Alex Chilton echoing through 'The Bragging Rights', onto the GBV-like firestorm of 'Periscope Kids', and ending with the ‘On The Beach’ era Neil Young minimal strum of his cover of Karl Hendricks’ “The Night Has No Eyes”, Brokaw has crafted an understated masterpiece. ‘Puritan’ is an album that is all heartache and rebirth, resignation and joy, the kind of record that is so needed but all too rare these days. A classic from front to back. - Mark Lanegan 2020 (fig 2 photo : Anthony Saffery, fig 3 photo : Andy Hong) Q&A with Chris Brokaw on 'Puritan' Q:  How long has it been since your last solo record and what have you been doing in the time between? A : My last solo record "End Of The Night" came out in May 2019. Since then I finished up some Lemonheads touring, toured the west coast with a band playing my new record (Lori Goldston on cello, Greg Kelley on trumpet, Luther Gray on drums, Dave Abramson on drums, me on guitar), toured Japan with Thalia Zedek (solos + duos), toured Europe with my band Charnel Ground (me +Doug McCombs and Kid Millions), toured the west coast again playing guitar in Doug McCombs' band Brokeback, played a duo gig with Mike IX Williams in Boston...and then the plague hit. I've just been teaching guitar + drums on Skype since then, recording a little, laying low in Cambridge. The last album I did of rock songs, with vocals and lyrics, was in 2013, and I guess I've been gathering material since then. Q: Can you tell me a little about your songwriting method? CB : Most of them take a long time. Sometimes I'll have 8 seconds of a song, totally realized, I can hear a whole band doing it in my head as if it's on a record....and then I just wait, and eventually form the rest of the song around it. I've written some songs using mesostics and/or acrostics, tho none on this record. "The Heart of Human Trafficking" took a long time, and I had to take a leap of faith to conclude that it was actually done, that the particular form it took was finished. "Puritan" I wrote about a week before we recorded it. The band totally nailed it in the studio but I was still writing the lyrics at the microphone. I had to make it a crowd of voices, sort of tripping over one another, trying to form a path. In both these songs I was really happy to have the results be surprising. At this point I most happily await things from myself that I don't totally recognize. "I'm The Only One For You" I wrote originally for a movie, a short ghost story called 'Mother's Garden'. The song is kind of a period piece, but then I fell in love with it. Originally it was pretty short but one night I was playing it with my trio in this cavernous brewery in Massachusetts and was like, what happens if we just stretch this out...in this room with this huge high ceiling... "Report To An Academy" was named after a Rudyard Kipling story of the same name. I tried to use some of the ideas in the story, specifically the thoughts of a creature trying to imitate humans, as a jumping off point, but I couldn't fit a vocal or lyrics into the song, and it stayed an instrumental. I was going through a period where I felt like I was imitating humans....negotiating some changes. "Periscope Kids" I was trying to get something really sand- blasted-sounding. I'm a big fan of Nico and I was thinking of her a lot on this one. The Periscope Kids were a couple I knew in Seattle and they were bad news and that whole song is bad news. My songs aren't like Johnny Cash songs, most of them only I will probably know what they're really all about. That's ok, for better or worse I think that's how it has to be. Whatever people get out of them, that's great. Much of what's in them is literal for me but maybe not for the listener. Q)  How long have these songs been gestating? CB : "Periscope Kids" is oldest, I think around 2014. "Puritan" one week old. Everything else in between. Q)  Can you pick a couple songs that hold particular meaning to you and talk about them? CB:  "Depending" is probably my favorite. So far it seems to be everyone's favorite. It feels stately, and it's nice to just step into that. There's a line in "Depending" where I say: "I never thought, moving my lot alone across a prairie I'd have the thought to give up my bones unto the birds to carry whether I drive, whether I park and wait a few, it won't depend on you" And I mean that was me literally driving a truck with all my shit across the country from Seattle to Boston in 2017, extremely uncertain about what was ahead after a pretty disasterous period out west...and thinking at one point, in some part of the country where you don't see any cars or trucks or houses for hours, maybe I should just drive off a cliff and let the vultures pick my bones clean....And whether I do or not... that's my call! Sort of a declaration of independence.  - Which I thought was grim and insane and funny all at once. It still cracks me up. "I'm The Only One For You", like I said, went from being a sort of pastiche to this kind of lush romanticism I've only dreamed of. My friend Claudia Groom (formerly of the Seattle band Juned) did such an amazing vocal on it...it fucking kills me, the band plays so beautifully...I'm very happy with it. "The Night Has No Eyes" is the one cover, written by a dude from Pittsburgh named Karl Hendricks who passed away in 2017. I did the song originally for a tribute/benefit album, but re-recorded it with Thalia for this. It closes the album with a voice that feels about forgiveness and/or acceptance, and while that voice is essentially an outsider's it seemed like a conciliatory way to end an album that is working through a bunch of other shit. Q)  Inspiration? CB: I've come to love playing and singing, but came sort of late to a lot of it, so I feel like I'm still finding my way in it. It's one of a few different things I do. Like I said earlier I'm always happy to get surprised by the songs that come out. I wrote "Puritan" right before we recorded and it's definitely about moving back to New England, a place I'm not from (I grew up in New York) but one I've fallen in love with and I think found my place in. I think saying "Chris Brokaw: Puritan" is deliberately funny but maybe I'll be the only one laughing on that. The album is definitely threaded with ideas about how people judge one another, but....I don't know, I don't want to explain shit. Explaining art is terrible. The Chris Brokaw Rock Band : Chris Brokaw  guitar, vocals Dave Carlson - bass guitar Pete Koeplin - drums with special guests : Tricia Adelmann - vocal on "I Can't Sleep" Claudia Groom - vocal on "I'm The Only One For You" Thalia Zedek - vocal, guitar on "The Bragging Rights" and "The Night Has No Eyes" Recorded and mixed by Andy Hong at Kimchee, Cambridge MA 2019/2020. "Bragging Rights" and "The Night Has No Eyes", recorded by Britt Robischeaux at Cloudland, Fort Worth, TX, November 2019. Mastered at Chicago Mastering Service by Matthew Barnhart. All songs written by Chris Brokaw except "The Night Has No Eyes" (written by Karl Hendricks, lyrics used by permission). LP layout and design by James Keeler. Front cover photo by Sasha Syeed.

Reviews 344: Oto No Wa

I’m overjoyed to write again about Music for Dreams’ “Serious Collector Series,” not only because this run of compilations has produced some of the best vinyl sets of the past few years in the form of Jan Schulte’s Tropical Drums of Deutschland, Moonboots’ Moments in Time, and Basso’s Proper Sunburn, but also because the newest such collection, Oto No Wa: Selected Sounds of Japan 1988 - 2018, features a trio of curators who have all influenced this blog in significant ways. Listed first on the breathtaking cover is Ken Hidaka, who in addition to having a storied career as a DJ, journalist, and international record label liaison, has had a significant hand in coordinating many of my favorite reissues from the past few years…things such as Gigi’s Illuminated Audio on Time Capsule and Yutaka Hirose’s Nova + 4 on WRWTFWW, not to mention facilitating serenitatem…that spellbinding collaboration between Yoshio Ojima, Satsuki Shibano, and Visible Cloaks released last year on RNVG Intl. Then there’s Max Essa, one of the premiere practitioners of the balearic beat, whether it’s remixing tracks into euphoric seaside cruisers or producing expansive original works such as “Panorama Suite” for Is It Balearic?, the Lanterns LP for Music for Dreams, or his recently concluded trio of EPs for Hell Yeah Recordings: Themes From The Hood, The Cad & The Lovely, Haz Zan Roc, and The Great Adventure. And finally comes Dr. Rob, a far-ranging musical adventurer and gifted wordsmith whose reviews, interviews, mixes, and stories spread across Test Pressing and Ban Ban Ton Ton showed me entirely new ways to write about music, with his expressive poetics, deep references, and inimitable sense of cleverness rising far beyond standard music criticism and going a long way towards inspiring the creation of this very website.

As far as the music comprising Oto No Wa is concerned, Dr. Rob gives some background at Ban Ban Ton Ton, where he speaks of the trio meeting after one of their Lone Star nights at Bar Bonobo and compiling an initial list of some 200 hundred fantasy selections, which was miraculously whittled down to just 20 tracks. But then, the typically unflinching Japanese record label ecosystem slashed that list to all but nothing, leading Ken, Max, and Dr. Rob to reconsider the entire experience. I like to think that this was ultimately for the better, for in reworking the concept and flow of Oto No Wa, our trio of selectors struck upon the brilliant idea to, in the words of Dr. Rob, ”plot a course from pioneers, through to younger generations who`ve picked up the baton,” resulting in a spectacular set of balearic eclecticism focused on the 90s and 00s, which are periods often missed in the world of Japanese archival reissuing. Indeed, in contrast to the environmental ambiance, city pop, fusion, and jazz so often considered, the sounds here lean much closer to the romantic seaside vibrations of Flower Records’ Silent Dream CD mixes and the Ibizan chill out comps of React, as house beats are repurposed for summer fusion sways, sun-dappled ivories seek out a panoramic horizon, strummed acoustics jangle in an island breeze, electric guitars slide across cinematic deserts, dubwise basslines stroll down white sand beaches, chamber strings play themes for impossible sunsets, and steel pans bring touches of Caribbean splendor. Elsewhere, balafons dance through tropical forests, oceanic soundbaths wash the spirit clean, deep sea explorations transmute into Berlin school magic, and ceremonial drum layers surround barely there violin reveries, with the entire experience being bookended by a pair of kankyō ongaku drifters.

Oto No Wa: Selected Sounds of Japan 1988-2018 (Music for Dreams, 2020) Yoshio Ojima’s “Sealed,” the sole track here from the 80s, comes from the second volume of the producer’s now legendary Une Collection Des Chaînons: Music For Spiral collection and sees glowing hazes moving in slow motion…these harmonious swells mimicking the motions of some celestial sea while textures of digital crystal twinkle overhead. The vibe is hopeful and soothing, though there are moments where the swelling drones turn minor key and melancholic and the glass and gemstone atmospheres get caught in hyperspeed delay trails. But we always return to the floating stretches of major key majesty, with the music perfectly suited to scoring the motions of clouds across the sky or leaves drifting down a stream. And like many of Ojima’s tracks, there is a false ending…a fade to silence preceding a rebirth, wherein the melodic textures from before are reconfigured into mysterious forms…as if the cerulean sky scene mentioned earlier has been washed out by moody grey rainclouds. The original mix of Olololop’s “Mon” revels in washy 90s post-rock atmospherics, with increasingly free ambient jazz drumming underlying cascading pianos and plucked harps. And while the “orte Remix” by Kumi Hayashi and Takaaki Suzuki preserves many of these elements, the vibe here is more oriented towards classical chill out. The beats are rigid and slamming as they lock into a mechanized seaside swing, with the original’s jazz drumming fluidity replaced by pounding kicks, panning ride taps, and sketchy shaker patterns. Piano and harp flow into the stereo field, dropping plucked rays of golden harmony and washes of ivory ethereality before settling into a balearic dreamdance, one carried by gentle trance electronics and layers of droning bass positivity. At some point the rhythms pull away and we find ourselves in an extended beatless bliss out, wherein melodies of ocean crystal pulse around melodious harp motions, abstracted kick taps flutter on echo breezes, and pan-pipes sparkle in the distance. And later, the mix reduces to an industrial downbeat drum sway and a ceremonial hum of subdued choral mesmerism as the piano continues merging vibes of new age fusion and beachside romance.

Among my favorite cuts here is Kazuya Kotani’s “Fatima,” coming from the 2007 CD Made in Love. Seed shakers and rainsticks roll through echo machines, oceanic string panoramas shift in phase, and bongos and congas beat out a seaside beat as a cooing voice whispers sweet nothings in a way reminding me of Sth. Notional’s “Yawn Yawn Yawn (Dream… Another Reality Mix)”. Bulbous basslines bring touches of gentle dub exotica and a glorious chill out breakbeat swings with infectious forward momentum even as it lands like air, while pianos shimmer and shine via wavering chord mirages and prismatic delay leads that presage Coyote’s use of the instrument. The way everything locks in is so perfect, with hand drums bopping alongside the seaside breakbeat cruise and angelic strings glowing beneath sparkling ivory dreamspells…the whole thing coming together like some prototypical cut from one of José Padilla’s Cafe del Mar compilations or a Phil Mison curated Real Ibiza collection. At some point the drums pull away, leaving behind soft piano flutters, breathy whispers, and overlapping waves of orchestral resonance. And when the beats return, they are joined by heartwrenching chamber string progressions…a sort of swooning dance of cinematic sunset majesty before the track effortlessly glides back towards beachside chill out perfection. The B-side opens with “N.I.C.E. Guy” by Scha Dara Parra, who Dr. Rob describes in the liner notes as “Japan’s answer to the Beastie Boys.” The “Nice Guitar Dub” of the track presented here takes us into the world of the Major Force dance collective, and sees house kicks, hand drum loops, and clipped snares underlying lysergic repetitions of “feel good / checking things out” before dropping into a summery groove led by walking sunshine jazz bass, Hiroshi Fujiwara’s acoustic guitar strums, and Hirofumi Asamoto’s piano…a sort of ambient honky tonk cascade scoring some lagoon adjacent saloon. Occasionally, heavenly strings blow through the stereo field to envelop the vocal samples and there’s a strange midtro given over to urgent stick clicks and rimshots while towards the end, b-boy drum cut-ups and turntablist flourishes disturb the flow.

Little Tempo is an ever shifting group of dub and reggae explorers led in part by Takeshi “Tico” Toki and his shimmering steel pan. The collective has played the world over and released an impressive number of albums since the mid-90s, one of which is Ron Riddim, a 2xLP from 1999 containing the track “Frostie.” A stoner beat moves beneath a tropical panorama of steel drumming, with hi-hats occasionally opening, shekeres scraping, and snares pushing through granular reverb, and as we drop into the groove, liquid dub basslines pulse and slide while a piano glistens in the moonlight. The ivory performance is powerful and awash in twilight romance and noir mystery, sometimes dancing in solo and other times accented by glimmering steel pan flourishes. Elsewhere, the pianos are replaced by electric guitars, which let loose bluesy slides and space western leads…the mixture of desert twang and equatorial riddim strongly evoking the dubbier sides of Tortoise. There’s a moment where the track gives over to martial snare intensity as amphibian lasers and telephonic tracers fire across the sky, with the latter sound pulling my mind to the work of Eddie C. And eventually, the track settles into a sort of bluesy reggae zone out, with subsonic basslines skanking and dubwise drums smacking while wavering steel drum mirages surround spaghetti western slides in the style of Doug McCombs. Karel Arbus & Eiji Takamatsu will of course be well familiar to readers of this blog, both for their amazing Some Backland Plaze tape on Max Essa’s Jansen Jardin and for that completely stunning rework of Cantoma’s “Kasoto” from last year. “Coco and the Fish,” taken from the aforementioned cassette, sees idiophones splashing through sea spray while enigmatic electronics swirl in the background…like a vortex of kosmische wonderment pulsating in colors of deep purple and blue, one that occasionally opens up to reveal deep house chord stabs. It’s hard to say whether the main instrument played is marimba or balafon, but either way, it’s a hyperkinetic performance exuding an energy at once meditative and ecstatic...all while phaser wisps, starshine sparkles, and hidden voices swirl in the distance.

I first heard globetrotting DJ and Flower Records alum Kentaro Takizawa courtesy of Phil Mison and his Pure Ibiza 2xCD set released by I Label in 2008, which included the “Silent Dream Version” of the song taken from the aforementioned Silent Dream compilation. Originally though, the track closed Takizawa’s album Gradual Life from 2006, and this is the version included here. Ride cymbals shine amidst glorious murmurations of ambient synthesis while percussive eco fx mimic the songs of lizards and toads. Elecrosnares rocket across the spectrum, beauteous acoustic guitar arps fall like summer rain, and further six-string solos move in counterpoint, with subdead leads mesmerizing the mind. As psychoactive threads of static surround decaying triangles, sundowner string orchestrations ascend towards the clouds, causing the heart to soar in that Sacha Putnam or Vangelis kind of way, and when the beat drops, it’s a lackadaisical sway led by rolling bongos and tapped cymbals. Guitars dance playfully over a backdrop of fourth world alien magic and ever so often, filmic string themes diffuse into the spectrum. Elsewhere, the drums wash away, leaving e-pianos to execute breathtaking descents before disappearing into a synthesized mirage. Rainsticsk flow over the stereo field as the track evolves even further towards new age bliss, with a harmonious conversation of acoustic guitar sunshine proceeding in a fantasy jungle, wherein sunlight reflects off of glistening palm fronds and tropical birds sing intoxicating songs. And after returning to the bopping rhythms and tapestries of chill out exotica, the tracks ends with guitars being replaced by pianos while mermaid pads whoosh through a sunbathed rainforest setting. Mystical percussionist Yoshiaki Ochi inhabited similar circles to Yoshio Ojima, releasing through NEWSIC and seeing his music played, like Ojima’s, at the arts center of Wacoal lingerie company, otherwise known as Spiral. In “Balasong,” taken from 1990’s Natural Sonic, balafons bounce playfully while executing Steve Reich-style pattenrs of minimalist exotica. The drunken daydream motions and otherworldly idiophone polyrhythms are occasionally interspersed by fast motion twiddles and rapid fire rolls, while at the edge of the mix gourds buzz and textures of metal sparkle…perhaps the ghostly chiming of temple bells.

Kaoru Inoue is a hugely influential figure who for decades has been perfecting his own esoteric combination of house, techno, ambient, and spiritual world music. “Wave Introduction” was originally released on the artist’s 2006 album Slow Motion before being repurposed as the opener for one of my favorite albums ever released: Inoue’s horizontal masterpiece Em Paz released in 2018 on Groovement Organic. The track features the relaxing sounds of waves crashing to shore, joined by twinkling synths, distant foghorns, and psychosonic liquid drips, which eventually transmute into a Reich-ian dream sequence awash in textures of mermaid crystal. Undulating bass arps support slow moving pads that drift like cosmic fog while rhythmic wisps of laser static tickle the mind and the whole thing takes on the feeling of a drunken dream dance that slowly moves towards ambient rapture. The influential Flower Records and its founder Eitetsu Takamiya are represented here by the highly sought after “Scuba” under Takamiya’s Little Big Bee alias. Psychedelic bubble clouds blow over Kenji Jinguiji’s slithering bass guitar romantics and the e-pianos of Plaza Fujisaki glow with a sort of new age spirituality while Hawaiian guitars slide across a sunburst sky. A hushed house beat is accented by gentle clacks and seed shaker pulses as Jinguji’s lowslung basslines lock into a balearic fusion dance replete with vocal slides up the fretboard and as the pacific breeze guitar slides swim between solar organ dub chords, spaceage arpeggiations flitter all around. I detect a definite lean towards The Orb’s early merging of dub, ambient, and techno, with a stereo field colored through by cut-off motions, resonance flares, and whalesong pads that settle into a haze of golden light. The beats cut away momentarily, leaving filtering cosmic synthetics, pulsing organ accents, and emotive basslines while stick clicks build a rainshower rhythm. Seafoam siren synths swell in strength and subsume the entire mix as angels breath rainbow mist across universal expanses and eventually, a liquid guitar slide reintroduces the south pacific chill out groove, which now features hyperkinetic click cascades.

Coastlines, the duo of Masanori Ikeda and Takumi Kaneko, are huge favorites around here and given that I reviewed their cover of Ralph MacDonald’s “East Dry River” when it was originally released as a 7” back in 2018, I’ll present a modified version of my words from that time: Joyously ascending piano chords and deep vocal bass percussions set the scene before we smash cut into a smooth coastal fusion jam, as tambourines and toms pound beneath radiant piano strokes and synthetic steel drum dances while four four house kicks and luscious sub-basslines move the body. Angels bring touches of pure euphoria as they rain down from the sky, and elsewhere, fretless bass solos wiggle above the island rhythm dreamscape…the Motohiko Hamase-style note clusters and liquiform slides trailing under subtle ping-pong delays while colorful hand drum accents evoke slow-motion dancing on some fantasy beach. There’s a brief moment where everything washes away, leaving lush piano chords and sparkling steel pans adrift in solitude, and later, after returning to the seaside house rhythms and melodic textures of jazz fusion fantasy, we are treated again to a crazed fretless bass solo, one that grows ever more frantic and chaotic before finally dispersing. Though beloved producer Susumu Yokota is no longer with us, his memory lives on via his profound influence and his intrepid bridgings of academic ambient and techno body pressure, not to mention archival projects such as the Jon Tye-assisted Cloud Hidden from 2019. “Uchu Taniyo” is taken from Yokota’s 1999 album Sakura and begins with a voice pushing through clouds of reverb as ritualistic percussion builds from the depths. Hand drums and wooden clacks lock into a ceremonial dance kissed by cosmic fx and growling ambient forms swirl into the stereo field…these morphing tremolo gurgles imbued with atmospheres of melancholy. Voices continue babbling as a violin enters the scene, letting loose folksy melodies and post-classical whispers that barely break through the layers of rhythmic repetition. And as the track comes to an end, the exotica drum webs fade out as frogsong electronics decay into the void.

The vibe continues to spread out towards horizontal ambiance in “Time and Space,” a track exclusive to this compilation from the duo of Isao Kumano and Kenichi Takagi, who are often found working with Alex from Tokyo in Tokyo Black Star, but who here appear in their “secretive” Chillax guise. Crystallized sequences, smoldering static waveforms, and hazes of ocean either intertwine as chiming melodies ascend on unseen currents towards a sun soaked sea surface, and I can’t help but think of the underwater kosmische of Iury Lech and Miguel Noya, as well as the seafloor ambient excursions of Shelter on Profondeur 4000 and Private Agenda on Île de Rêve. Soft focus chord bursts breath ambient house ether into the mix while tick-tocking arps build slowly in the background, eventually growing in strength and taking over the mix as the vibe flows from deep sea drifting to Berlin school melodrama, wherein searing filter motions surround the spirit and vocoder cyborgs chant amidst subsuming chord decays. I’ve said much about Takashi Kokubo across this blog, though thus far everything has been focused around his hugely influential Get at the Wave. And given how well mined that album is by now, I’m quite thankful that Ken, Max, and Dr. Rob have opted instead for “Quiet Inlet,” a track appearing on Kokubo’s Eternity from 2006. Waves lap gently against the shore of some hidden island scene...a place of peace and picturesque beauty known only to the fish, reptiles, and birds. A calming piano lullaby enters the scene, marrying Satie-like ambiance and Riley-ian minimalism while digital colorations and e-piano bubble clouds flit all around. A choir of angelic sirens bathe the mix in vocal radiance while bell trees mimic sunlight refractions on the ocean’s surface and after a false ending, the dreamscape ivory cascades, pointillist e-piano melodies, and heavenly choirs return, with everything shrouded by pearlescent pad layers and gaseous blankets of reverb. Windchimes blow on a sea breeze and periodic swells of mermaid magnificence work into the mix and as the sampled waves continue their motions, they lull the mind towards daydream visages of the titular seaside paraiso.

(images from my personal copy)

Eleventh Dream Day “Works for Tomorrow” 2015. Thrill Jockey Records. We saw Eleventh Dream Day perform last week when they opened for neo-psychedelia/paisley underground rockers The Dream Syndicate and they performed several tracks from Works for Tomorrow, the band’s 13th and latest release. Though they’ve been around since 1983 and are from Chicago, just about an hour down the road, I’ve never seen them and admit to only have vaguely heard the band’s name before. Though, as they mentioned at the show here in Milwaukee last Thursday, “It took us 17 years to drive 70 miles” (ie it’s been awhile since they’ve played here). 

Eleventh Dream Day paired well with The Dream Syndicate (they’ve recorded with Steve Wynn in the past) though they have a harder rocking vibe: raw, fuzzed-out guitar jams, noise rock with melody. Original members Rick Rizzo (guitar, vocals), Doug McCombs (bass) and Janet Beveridge Bean (drums and vocals) are still playing strong -- especially Bean who is a power player and wailer and I’m just a little obsessed. 

We were able to get Bean’s setlist (on a styrofoam plate - not earth-friendly but able to withstand the monstrous beats) and a few of the songs from Works for Tomorrow were my favorite of the night.

Those songs included “Vanishing Point” on which Bean has lead vocals - it’s hard-driving and punked-up; “Cheap Gasoline” and “Go Tell It” are punk-blues at their finest where Rizzo and Bean share vocals. Also great is “Requiem for 4 Chambers” which sounds like it should be an orchestral string ensemble piece but is more like a country-twinged (punk) rocker with slide guitar and pounding organ (though towards the end there is some borderline choral chanting courtesy of Bean). 

Tortoise & Tenon: Tortoise & RJD2 @ Soul'd Out Music Festival; 4.20.2017; McMenamin's Crystal Ballroom, Portland, Or.

Tortoise & Tenon: Tortoise & RJD2 @ Soul’d Out Music Festival; 4.20.2017; McMenamin’s Crystal Ballroom, Portland, Or.

Chicago’s Tortoise elevated an at-capacity crowd with their minimalist post-everything rock ‘n roll for the second night of the Soul’d Out Music Festival.

The mortise and tenon joint has been used for thousands of years by woodworkers around the world to join pieces of wood, mainly when the adjoining pieces connect at an angle of 90°. In its basic form it is both simple and strong. – wikipedia…

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