Gig #155: Kee Avil, YEAH YOU, Franck Vigroux, Anadol, Keeley Forsyth, Flower-Corsano Duo, NAPPYNAPPA, Yasuaki Shimizu, Kill Alters, Nik Colk Void, Simona Zamboli, BUÑUEL, Natasha Barrett, Holodrum, Terry Riley, Angusraze

Kee Avil
YEAH YOU
Franck Vigroux
Anadol
Keeley Forsyth
Flower-Corsano Duo
NAPPYNAPPA
Yasuaki Shimizu
Kill Alters
Nik Colk Void
Simona Zamboli
BUÑUEL
Natasha Barrett
Holodrum
Terry Riley
Angusraze

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Kee Avil HHHH
‘Crease is the debut album by Kee Avil, a project led by Montréal producer and guitarist Vicky Mettler: a singular expression of fractured dream logic concretized in chiselled postpunk guitar, sinuous low-end electronics, a panoply of organic and digital samples creating alternately twitchy and propulsive rhythm, and the anxious intimacy of her finely wrought lyricism and vocals. Bound by an outstanding production sensibility throughout, Crease unfolds one oblique earworm hook after another, with compositional innovation anchored to an inscrutable and compelling voice across 10 songs of tremendous and imaginative sonic detail.’ — CST Records

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YEAH YOU Skin (I Have Only Lived Once)
‘To you YEAH YOU are to you a father daughter duo who let music invade the family context. Who let music dismantle the family car, using construct absurdity to redeem resented weekly Tesco shops and traffic jams. YEAH YOU are not who you said we are, but we are that inverted, and battery op. The content shifts depending on how many supermarket discounts we found. Known for their sneak-up picnic public invasions, perform mostly when uninvited but will always jump on chance to berate a strobe-cut stage, brawling electronic dirt pop, words and feet exert integral (instagram) distrust: you won’t hear what you see.’ — Cafe Oto

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Franck Vigroux Lame
‘Working with his long time visual partner Antoine Schmitt, ATOTAL is Franck Vigroux’s uncompromising signature sound of colossal electronic music and an audiovisual performance aiming to reconstruct in order to better deconstruct the processes of imposition of will by repetition and absolute synchronism, to propose a breach to a potentially life-saving decoincidence. The total work of art, when pushed to its paroxysm of absolute coincidence of the perceptions of a captive spectator, is similar to the techniques of mental manipulation of totalitarian regimes, proceeding by annihilation of the critical mind, repetitive semantic pounding, subliminal messages.’ — Tailored Communication

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Anadol Gizli Duygular
‘Anadol is a very Postmodern Turkish artist — the influence of Turkish pop and Arabesk music can be heard, but also folk, chanson, Greek music, US rock and jazz. In Atila’s hands, what might sound like a grisly confection emerges as deliciously fluid, gliding across genres to create something kaleidoscopic and engrossing. The recruitment of Istanbul jazz musicians to flesh out her vision means that the music here is immaculately realised, but it also has the grit and grain of great hiphop.’ — Neil Kulkarni,The Wire

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Keeley Forsyth  I Stand Alone
‘Forsyth’s grounding in the theatrical arts feeds directly into her music. There’s no sense of pretense on Limbs—quite the opposite. But her training seems to give her the command to channel difficult emotions with the steely composure of a ballet dancer. Forsyth mentioned the influence of Pina Bausch, the German dancer and choreographer whose dramatic, physical pieces drew their power from the raw material of trauma. You can hear that sense throughout Limbs; that drama of the everyday, accentuated into something carefully measured but utterly intense.’ — Louis Pattison

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Flower-Corsano Duo The Ship That Sailed on Dry Land
‘Since 2007’s brilliant “The Radiant Mirror”, Flower-Corsano Duo have occupied an idiosyncratic space in the musical spectrum. Who else exactly is looking to build a power duo from improv drums and electrified shahi baaja sounds? The duo don’t release much either, so a new set from them is always worth a peek, and on this one Corsano sounds more energetic than ever, working his kit in tides rather than rhythms, leaving Flower to fire shards of harmonic noise from his instrument.’ — Trippy Jam

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NAPPYNAPPA Wilderness
‘Echoing with laughter, repetitious piano lines and sampled words of wisdom, the production veers into slicker territory than NAPPYNAPPA’s previous LP, 2020’s IFEELJUSTLYKTHEIRART. The driving force behind these ten tracks is NAPPYNAPPA’s unique voice, tapping into his perspective on capitalism, corporations and violence. Twisting over and back, the Washington DC’s rapper’s rhymes follow unusual patterns and keep the listener focused on what he has to say next.’ — Loud and Quiet

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Yasuaki Shimizu Momo No Hana
‘Kiren stands out for more than just its sonics. Unlike most of Shimizu’s releases, it wasn’t intended for a record label. Instead, it was the product of the freedom he had while collaborating with Aki Ikuta, the late producer who was instrumental to his music’s sound. You can hear his boundary-pushing ideas on “Momo No Hana.” It begins with an extended passage of queasy ambience before Shimizu throws in additional noises to subvert expectations: high-pitched synth tones, a spectral growl, and a noise that sounds like a warped Banjo-Kazooie voiceline. Then there’s an instrument that recalls his affection for Indian classical music, and then a plunderphonic loop that anticipates Oneohtrix Point Never’s Replica shockingly well.’ — Joshua Minsoo Kim

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Kill Alters Slow Heat
‘Listening to the maddening and momentous work of Kill Alters could inspire you to either laugh or scream. Both reactions are welcome—and are often returned by bandleader Bonnie Baxter, who performs with an ecstatic intensity that blurs the two extremes. While this marks the first album in five years from the deliriously psychedelic NYC noise outfit, which also includes Nicos Kennedy and drummer Hisham Bharoocha, Baxter has maintained a breakneck pace in both solo work and other collaborations. Armed To The Teeth accentuates Kill Alters’s immense sense of space and tension better than any prior release.’ — Hausu Mountain Records

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Nik Colk Void Interruption Is Good
‘Nik Colk Void is well established with her work – using modular systems, voice and guitar – as one half of Factory Floor, one third of Carter Tutti Void (alongside Chris Carter and Cosey Fanni Tutti) and with the late Peter Rehberg as NPVR, but perhaps surprisingly, Bucked Up Space is her first solo album release. Bucked up Space is the result of the ideas and resulting sounds of free exploration morphing into a personal structured album that fearlessly moulds patience, listening and restraint. It’s a sharp focussed work embracing collective action through the lens of the self. All this, and also one of the best abstract dance records you will hear in some time!’ — Editions Mego

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Simona Zamboli Faro
‘Simona Zambolis first album “Ethernity” is a piece of haunting music – vibrating, pulsing and cutting through the concrete and the chaos at the same time, when you listen close enough. The album is a journey through trans-reality, not only as a melancholic drama, but also as a travel to alien worlds.’ — Serendeepity

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BUÑUEL When God Used A Rope
‘Buñuel acts as a sort of super group. The mostly-Italian quartet features Oxbow‘s Eugene S. Robinson in his usual lead role. Other performers in the group include guitarist Xabier Iriondo, drummer Francesco Valente, and bassist Andrea Lombardini. Each musician brings a very distinct background to the table, which creates a sound that proves difficult to pin down. The easiest categorizations, noise rock and post-punk, fail to capture the full experience. Instead, Killers Like Us is a blitz of untamed, unchecked testosterone.’ — boolin tunes

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Natasha Barrett Urban Melt in Park Palais Meran
‘When did that walk in the woods get weird? Was it the cracked branch beneath your feet, the pines looming larger overhead, or the wind at your ankles, a little colder than before? Electroacoustic composer Natasha Barrett’s stunning ‘Heterotopia’ is as ingenious as it is unsettling, using the estranging qualities of immersive audio to tweak at the edges of the intangible.’ — The state51 Conspiracy

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Holodrum Free Advice
‘Holodrum’s debut LP is a vehicle of abandon and sincerity that manages to capture the gut-punch feeling of the live experience. ‘Free Advice’’ the first “new” track on the record, is a snappy jammer focused on the interplay between sparkling synths and groovy Clavinet, and rounded out by a sassy back and forth between Shjipstone and Garner – the latter doing her best Tom Tom Club throughout. Besides being a hell of a lot of fun, this record is a vehicle of sincerity and abandon – and genuine appreciation. This is a group that doesn’t keep anything at arm’s length. If it’s in their sound, they embrace it, redirecting that enthusiasm toward the listener.’ — Bernie Brooks

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Terry Riley Shri Camel, Morning Corona (Part One)
‘Shri Camel is a meditative masterwork blending the feeling of eastern music with the futuristic electronic technologies of the West (Japan actually!). Riley had been studying with North Indian raga master Pandit Pran Nath for years in search of swara “or the knowledge of profound pitch relationships which reigns supreme.” The organ sounds are generated here through a modified Yamaha keyboard tuned to unequal temperament to permit scales used in non-Western music. There are also as many as 16 organ voices running and interacting simultaneously here creating a sort of one man orchestral improvisation.’ — In Sheep’s Clothing Hi-Fi

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Angusraze Interface Overload II
‘This song is a sequel to a song about Rozey Cheekx’s Soozie, and is presented a semi-sarcastic look into art and the dissolving of identity in the quest for attention or fame. ‘Interface Overload II’ extends the narrative to the idea of something corrupting that attention and fame Soozie receives. In the film, we are shown Soozie entering some sort of performance space for an audition, she dances and performs to this song as we see several angles of her performance in a CCTV-style observational fashion. It’s intrusive, and it brings to light the contrast between celebrity glamour and internal turmoil, with lines like ‘I know that light can relight the spark that will burn her.’’ — Angusraze

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p.s. Hey. ** Brandon, Hi. About 2/3 of the people I know here in Paris either have a cold or Covid at the moment, so yeah. Feel better, obvs. Congrats on the septum pierce. It’s funny that people are afraid of things like that. I guess they’re afraid that you’re going to change into some kind of different, unpredictable person who won’t want to be their friend anymore? I don’t know. Anyway, sounds like its effect is a thumbs up so far, and you can always undo it if you get bored by your new face or whatever. I’m good, super busy with tons of stuff to do with the new film, kind of swamped, but it’s okay. I hear it’s going be weirdly hot outside where you are today. Hope it isn’t too nasty, but I’m a heat hating person, so … I hope your health is perfect and invisible again. ** Ian, Congrats on the post-weed progress. Vietnamese food … that sounds so good. I’m gonna find some, as opposed to make some because I’m microwave-only kind of cook. I, of course, hope your project ends up feeling commitable, but that’s easy for me to say. Reading proposal? I have a ‘5 books I loved’ post coming up on Saturday, but generally when people ask me that question my go-to recommendation is Agota Kristof’s novel trilogy ‘The Book of Lies’. I think it’s an unsung total masterpiece. So maybe that? ** kier, Hi, Kier! Yeah, I think most people even in the US who weren’t cogent when he was a big deal in the 60s/70s won’t know his name much less his stuff. Studio dog! Me too: a little too much going on with me too, but it’s a good too much least. Exciting about your upcoming show. 100% sure that you’ll ace it like crazy. Oh, you’re in Bergen now. Or about to go. Wait, it’s your birthday? Happy Big One! My day? Not too exciting. I’m writing Gisele Vienne’s new piece, so I spent most of the day doing that interrupted by phone calls and emails with people to set up things for the film shoot in September, and I did an interview because ‘I Wished’ comes out here on Friday. So I was mostly stuck to the computer, alas. Yes, the road trip. Zac is currently studying to get his driver’s license renewed because it has expired, in no small part with the goal of being able to drive the car that will take all of us on that very road trip you mentioned. So, yes! I’m seeing Zac in an hour, and I will hug him, etc. for you. Have huge fun in Bergen if you see this before you leave!!! Love, me. ** David Ehrenstein, Yes. I wonder if he’ll get a revival of interest. Seems inevitable, I guess. ** Dominik, Hi!!! So, it was your birthday yesterday or the day before, right? Happy happy in retrospect! The world that doesn’t just involve the likes of us artists and our scene sucks! Mm, I think the interview might just be in French, actually, but I’m not totally sure. I’ll find out eventually. Goosebumps are the best! Thank you! What’s that lyric from? Love selfishly making the DP we want to work with on our new film and who we’re meeting with in about 90 minutes say yes because we really, really want to work with her, G. ** Misanthrope, Well, it’ll be even more epic, which I suppose is a good thing since people so often seem to equate a novel’s length with its importance. Oh, shit, sorry about your mom. I hope they can just unzip that thing from her face lickety-split. ** Bill, Yeah, you can drive a little ways down the coast and see them if you want to. They don’t look all that exciting though. It’s true about his poetry, yeah. Taxes, double if not even triple argh. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, Ben. I agree about its not total comprehensibility and simultaneous appropriateness for contemporaneous virality. ** Thomas Moronic, Hi, T! I’ll check my schedule and see if I can, re: McDowell, and Ethiopian food has the power to rearrange my schedule if necessary. Ooh, new novel angling … extremely good news! Wow, I wonder why the blog is behaving itself. I really don’t understand this place’s extreme moodiness at all. But yay! Hope that sticks. ** Right. I made you all a gig of a bunch of tracks I’ve been into in recent days, and there’s some quite worthy stuff in there, if I don’t say so myself, so have a listen and look please, thanks. See you tomorrow.