Water From Your Eyes
Martyna Basta
Oval
Linda Smith & Nancy Andrews
Brandon Seabrook
Marta Salogni & Tom Relleen
Scotch Rolex & Shackleton
Wolf Eyes
Sparks
Moni Jitchell
RP Boo
Colin Andrew Sheffield
Lana Del Rabies
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Water From Your Eyes 14
‘Water From Your Eyes is a decisive step in a different direction. A Brooklyn-based duo with Rachel Brown on vocals and Nate Amos handling the instruments, Water From Your Eyes traffic between experimental music of the krautrock period of the late 1960s and early 1970s and today’s feminine pop sensibility reflective of their millennial/Gen Z generation. They come across as methodical students of the Nurse with Wound list, who are also fans of Lana del Ray. I could be challenged on this, but they seem to believe there is a missing link between the two. Their music is about establishing this secret genealogy.’ — Christopher J. Lee
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Martyna Basta Slowly Forgetting, Barely Remembering
‘Over the last four years the Kraków musician Martyna Basta has released a growing body of work that pushes back against conventional modes of beauty, flipping over the block of marble to see what lies squirming underneath: quivering microtonal dissonance, arrhythmic scraping, breathy sighs and guttural whispers. While Basta has tackled a range of formats—meditative standalone tracks, filmic longform works, audio “postcards” collaging together field recordings from friends and confidants—all of them feel charged by a profound sense of unknowing. Her music exists in a stygian netherzone: It is rarely clear where her sounds come from or where a given piece is going.’ — Philip Sherburne
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Oval Touha
‘This latest album from Markus Popp marks yet another intriguing stylistic detour for his endlessly shapeshifting Oval project, as he delves into “an omnipresent and yet oft ill-defined, even maligned area of music and art–the romantic.” The idea for this album first began as a multimedia collaboration with digital artist Robert Seidel intended for the grand opening of Frankfurt’s German Romantic Museum, but the endeavor soon evolved and expanded beyond the original purpose, as the two artists “sought a more expansive definition of ‘romantic,’ extending outward from the museum’s comprehensive survey of the 19th-century epoch in art.”‘ — Anthony D’Amico
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Linda Smith & Nancy Andrews A Passing Cloud
‘New collection of decade spanning tracks from DIY icon, Linda Smith, and former housemate & collaborator, Nancy Andrews. Their shared story runs back 40 years to 1983 when the pair lived together in a large house in Baltimore alongside a number of other creatives. What Smith did after this has now passed into semi-legend thanks to Sky Girl and various archival endeavours. Nancy Andrews’ story isn’t really documented in the same way having pursued a career as animator and filmmaker rather than musician.’ — World of Echo
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Brandon Seabrook Live at 456 Gallery
‘Brandon Seabrook has made a name for himself in the New York avant-garde music scene as an explosive guitar and banjo performer, relentlessly committed to immediacy and precision. Seabrook honed his terror-inducing riffage skills at the New England Conservatory in Boston. He has since performed extensively in North and South America, Mexico and Europe, as a solo artist, bandleader and collaborator. He has been summoned by the likes of Anthony Braxton, Elliot Sharp and Joey Arias for his unpredictably spiked approach to improvisation and impeccable caterwauling.’ — All About Jazz
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Marta Salogni & Tom Relleen Trains
‘In Music For Open Spaces, Marta Salogni and Tomaga’s Tom Relleen explore different geographical spaces through heavily improvised ambient pieces. Created just before Relleen’s death from cancer in 2020, the album was recorded between London, the Joshua Tree desert and the Cornish coast: setting out to express these environments through a palette of tape machines, synthesisers and bass guitar.’ — Alastair Shuttleworth
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Scotch Rolex & Shackleton Deliver The Soul
‘Any entry point into Shackleton’s catalog feels like the deep end. His work since 2012’s Music For The Quiet Hour/The Drawbar Organ EPs has been heady, heavy and forbidding, often collected on marathon-length albums that feel like the electronic equivalent of ’70s narcotic-jam head-blowers like Hawkwind’s Space Ritual. Shigeru Ishikawa is a different, more accessible kind of weirdo—the kind of guy who might stop to flip an actual pancake in the middle of his Boiler Room set in between screaming into a mic and coaxing unholy sounds out of a Game Boy. But both are artists turned on by extremes, and on their collaborative album Death By Tickling, Shackleton’s stone-faced approach and Ishikawa’s playfulness work beautifully together, without canceling each other out.’ — Daniel Bromfield
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Wolf Eyes Car Wash Two w/ Short Hands
‘Drawing on DIY instruments and graphic scores created during a residence at the New York Public Library, Nate Young and Johnny Olson are keeping the spirit of Fluxus alive and well. Take the opening ‘Car Wash Two w/ Short Hands’, for example. Distorted voices, cassette hiss, and flickers of disintegrating beats fade in and out of existence like an AM receiver shifting between frequencies. To then learn that the track was actually played on a car radio and recorded while going through an auto wash comes as no surprise at all.’ — Antonio Poscic
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Sparks Escalator
‘Sparks are rightfully praised as savvy shapeshifters, but the past decade has been one of relative aesthetic consistency. After a half-century of bounding between rock theatricality, electro-disco austerity, and classical frippery, recent releases like Hippopotamus and A Steady Drip, Drip, Drip have synthesized the Maels’ interests into sleek hybrid models, presenting a vision of pop music that belongs equally to Old Hollywood and outer space. The Girl Is Crying in Her Latte stays the course but exudes even more vitality and verve, striking the ideal Sparksian balance of madcap melody, labyrinthine arrangement, and stinging social satire. What Kimono My House was to their glitter-rock phase and No. 1 in Heaven was to their synth-pop period, The Girl Is Crying in Her Latte is to this late-career era of holistic stability.’ — Stuart Berman
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Moni Jitchell Hell of a Yeah
‘Moni Jitchell are a two-piece hardcore band from Glasgow, comprised of vocalist and drummer GrantDonaldson (also of Civil Elegies, Ideal, and ex-Outblinker) and 12-string guitarist and bassist David scott (ex-Thin Privilege, ex-Billy Ray Osiris, ex-In Wrecks). Both minimalistic and feral, their sound touches on the noisecore technicality of Botch, the punk fury of Hirs Collective, and the mangled electronics and stripped-down weirdness of Melt Banana.’ — Some Great Reward
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RP Boo Last Night
‘Though he would later begin composing in Ableton, Boo made all of his early work with the minimalist arsenal of an Akai MPC and a Roland R-70 drum machine, and he leaves the songs’ seams visible, which can feel jarring at first. Some loops lope haphazardly, ending with the staccato click of a digital artifact; it often sounds like Boo is triggering samples in real time. He deliberately sets clashing sounds against each other, like the horror-movie drone and “Live and Let Die” vocal sample of opener “Eraser,” and adjusting to the lurching, hyperactive rhythms can take some patience. Though the music sprang from Chicago house, footwork deliberately deconstructs that genre’s quantized, four-on-the-floor grid—the guiding pulse just isn’t there in most cases.’ — Dash Lewis
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Colin Andrew Sheffield Silhouette
‘Colin Andrew Sheffield’s “Images” was entirely constructed from heavily edited and manipulated samples from jazz records. These eight electroacoustic mosaics range in style from lush ambient loops to jarring tones like the wails of the damned. Chopped drum solos appear and retreat along with spiraling piano fragments; saxophone and trumpet scraps clash or fall in time with disfigured bass rumblings, etcetera. These song-length explorations are detailed, atmospheric, and surprising. Meticulously composed over the span of a year, this is nuanced and singular music — a true distillation of Sheffield’s interests as both composer and obsessive listener.’ — Soundohm
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Lana Del Rabies Hallowed is The Earth
‘A name like Lana Del Rabies, which latches parasitically onto the identity of another more famous act, might well be a subconscious device to deflect attention away from the artist. It has certainly worked for me in the past, with Wevie Stonder, Com Truise and a number of other similar spoonerists almost entirely passing me by as I continue to suffer an ongoing sense of humour failure. Behind the Lana Del Rabies facade is the Arizona noise musician Sam An, who constructed her dark aesthetic from a morbid love of Coil, Nine Inch Nails and Pharmakon, as well as from a stint living in Detroit, where she sucked up the electronic signals from the sonic ley lines of the Motor City.’ — Jeremy Allen
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p.s. Hey. ** scunnard, Howdy and, again, the pleasure and thanks were/are all mine. ** Misanthrope, Spinning is giving it too much credit. Getting older is what it is, better to get into its bonuses. Understood about your friend’s mom. Sounds awful and sad. ** Dee Kilroy, Hi. I’m always looking for ways to freshen the ways to use narrative and plot and all those fiction building blocks in my work, and video games, or the really good ones, are very adventurous in those realms, and the power sharing between game maker and player is really interesting, how the maker susses that unknown aspect of its usage. So, it was a no brainer to try to learn things from games. Well, you’ve made Atlanta very filled in. I’m going to layer that into my memories of it and keep it in mind if I ever plop down there again. I still think my hometown LA has more virtues than not, not to sugar coat it, of course. But its relative disorganisation and quality of secretiveness is pretty useful. So maybe there? I’ll have a coffee and many for you, thank you, and, it being France-based coffee, it will likely be superior to any cup you could get over there. Perhaps. Have something on me that I can’t get here, like a slice of chocolate cake. ** Steve Erickson, You’ll find it, no doubt. Enjoy the hunting? I guess you have no choice. ** Cody Goodnight, Hi. I’m good. I hope you get to go from okay to good today. I’ve only played ‘Substance’ and ‘Twin Snakes’, but I liked them a lot. What you’ve been doing nothing but is a fine nothing but. I’ve just been film editing, no complaints. But I’m seeing Sparks live tonight, a bit of a treat. You have a great day too, man! ** Right. Today I made one of my gigs featuring some new music I’ve been interested by. Try it or parts of it out, why don’t you? See you tomorrow.
Now available in North America 
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Shit, I just saw you posted about Hideo Kojima yesterday! I meant to check the blog yesterday but I forgot because life’s been so crazy. I am a huge Kojima fan. When I was in my teens, Metal Gear scratched my itch for homoerotic violence. I loved Death Stranding, too. Kojima has big ups for letting me virtually live out my sexual fantasy of beating up Troy Baker. Well, my thoughts on the game are much, much deeper but I’ll spare you…
P.S. I will check out the gig tomorrow. I’m falling asleep as I type this.
I forgot to mention that in the game you get to tie him up and then stomp him in the balls. That seemed important enough to me to warrant correction.
Dennis-
*Bless* you for reminding me Markus Popp is the best. Just found an hour-long german radio mix of Oval & Microstoria on Internet Archive. Perfect accompaniment for a morning bike ride through the tall woods.
Chocolate! I can’t. Somehow, in my twenties, overdosed on coffee to the point I actually gave myself an allergy. How I ever managed to draw w/ a crow-quill, juked to the gills on coffee, I’ll never comprehend. Ah, inkpetuous youth.
-D
Dennis, Yes, I did read Moni Jitchell as Joni Mitchell at first.
Hmm, its bonuses? Its BONUSES? I’ll have to sit and think about that. It might take me a while to come up with some bonuses, at least in the physical realm. Mentally, I’m fine with getting older. It’s just this old body.
Okay, not spinning then. Elegantly revolving (when not murdering children).
Was enjoying Moni Jitchell there. Good to see the Glasgow-based reversed-letters Hardcore scene is still going strong! As ever, RP Boo is doing interesting things too. Seems the Footwork scene in Chicago remains worth keeping an eye on.
Oh ice cream? Yes! I forgot to mention I’m a mind reader I know everything 😉
Not an ice cream fan but I like the yogurt based vanilla ones. OMG so ah I have to tell you about yesterday. So that kid who’s really mentally fucked up if u remember got arrested yesterday after having this giant meltdown. I saw it all happened because it was around med time and I was just waiting. I remember one of the staff members coming in with blood on his hands. Honestly! Um oh is the book skin good? I think it will be. In the book I’m writing at one point the kid becomes a self-destructive performance artist and…well
yeah!
That one guy in the 70s. Chris Burden? Who crucified himself to a car and all that. I’m really interested in the self-destructive forms of performance art-not because I enjoy it, but because I think its interesting how dangerous the idea of a depressive delusional artist can find comfort in the fact that there are people who see their inflicted pain as an art. But I have a lot to say about that so I wont ramble!
OH the “Rose Garden” book is so amazing and I’ve never read a book that every word just fundamentally makes sense and I can relate to every feeling described . I think it came out in the 60s? It did! The movie is amazing too! Its a 70’s movie and it takes place in a mental hospital and those are the best kinds!
Oh ok- this is probably going to sound very very weird but oh well! My friend wanted to draw me as an animal because they’re into furries. What animal would you be-not like a furry-but like just an animal in general?
Out of the music I’ve perused here, the Colin Andrew Sheffield song is my favorite. He really transforms his sources – I wouldn’t have guessed they all come from jazz.
Lately, I’ve been listening to the Tubs (’80s jangly guitar pop blended with British folk music, played with incredible energy), Divide and Dissolve (heavy drones leavened with passages of classical music), Jelly Roll (country music about the struggles of addiction and recovery, from a former Three 6 Mafia affiliate) and the new Kesha album (she’s been cast out of the industry mainstream and may be financially ruined by Dr. Luke’s libel suit later this year, but she’s found freedom in no longer trying to please a wide audience or make her grim experiences easily consumable). Have you heard the new ’80s anarcho-punk compilation CEASE & RESIST?
I’ve really been struggling with anxiety. The past two days, I woke up with panic attacks at 8 AM. I don’t know what’s going on or how to treat it, and getting little sleep most nights just leads to a vicious circle.
Hey Dennis, just popping into share some music I think you’ll like: ‘Sister Time’ by Amy Cutler, which I listened to today and fucking loved. I really enjoyed the new Sparks album, but no surprises there. Jealous you’re seeing them live. The others will be getting the air in my ear canals vibrating the right way soon. Listen, this week I’m headed back to the UK for the summer in an attempt to make some money, the plan being to come back to Paris unemployed and devote to art as many of my days as I possibly can. So, let’s meet up come September when I’m back and you’ll be less busy with all the film prep. Love to ya, but I will drop back in here from time to time, xoT
Wolf Eyes! There’s a band I haven’t heard in awhile. I remember being really into them around 2008-2010 or so (I recall liking a song of theirs that was called something like “Stabbed in the Face” along with an album that I think was called HUMAN ANIMAL or something like that), but I gradually just lost track of them over the years. I wasn’t even aware they were still around tbh.
Right now I myself am doing a big relisten of, er, Ministry. It started off good when I was handling the albums from the late 1980’s-early 2000’s but now I’ve reached the dregs of their discography ha ha.
While I wasn’t much into W.E. solo, the Wolf Eyes & Black Dice record remains a regular pull from my CD library.
Anytime I heard those guys in proximity to any other musical act, particularly electronic, they blew my doors off. Head was firmly lodged in the NY noise scene of the naughties (00s). Mainlined circuitbending in those years. Sonic Youth brought Double Leopards to Atlanta at the perfect moment to deform my ears. And then those wicked Detroit boys came along. Still not 100% my scene, if I’m honest. I’m too weak.
I remember buying ‘Burned Mind’ off the power of the Black Dice collab, and couldn’t take it. Even now I’d rather listen to Jamie Saft vs. Merzbow.
Sparks, l have to tell you and you may guess where this is going, l discovered the song Amateur Hour from the pages of Closer and I fell in love, played it on repeat… The songs you reference always sound so interesting in relationship with the ”context” of the page lt’ a trip for me
My poem that l wrote few days ago automatic style just got published and l am so pumped and happy <3
https://donotsubmit.net/1-poem-by-charalampos-tzanakis/
–Like music, simple, a single stanza of music– very nice! -k.
PS: I just released my new song “Orange Harvest”: https://callinamagician.bandcamp.com/track/orange-harvest
Yaaay, Mr. Erickson! I’m listening now– Does this piece reflect the new programs/equipment you’d mentioned in recent posts? BTW/ I like the three suns pic, and, may I ask, why the capybara?
Hope you’re taking good care of yourself- k.
No, I haven’t yet bought any new equipment or a new DAW. However, “Orange Harvest” was produced using generative software, as well as the Moog website (which allowed me to play the bassline on a mini-Moog) and another site that allows you to take samples from sources all over the world and put them together in a sequencer.
Recent Oval is quite different from his ’90s work that I really liked. I guess I can’t expect him to do the same thing for 25+ years. Sparks still sound like Sparks though. And I have to approve of Moni Jitchell’s bandname.
I finally heard Bernstein’s Age of Anxiety for the first time, live. What a fun piece.
Bill
Holy hell that Brandon Seabrook guy is blistering. Awesome playing. Also really liked the Colin Andrew Sheffield track will definitely check out that record. Been listening to this Death’s Dynamic Shroud record called ‘I’ll try living like this’ the track ‘Loving Is Easy’ is mind-blowing.
Oh, sheesh, Mr. D… I’m just barely getting over some serious motion sickness from watching a couple of hours of MGS V.: Phantom Pain… not so phantom the pain i’m in… eugh… ha haha….
Seriously, I had to lie down…
Does this happen to anyone else?
Euww… gimme a minute…
Alright bear with me I’m writing through the yuck…
I watched alot of MGS 3 Snake Eater and then the Phantom Pain… so interesting the difference of 11 years
I’ve been doing the same w/some manga that was recommended to me; One Piece and JoJo’s Bizare Adventure…. (eeuuuu..if I look at the screen while I type I feel like i’m gonna boot) ha ha ha so so weird…)
Is the gif at the ‘mast-head’ of the blog from One Piece? It so reminds me of Monkey D. Luffey from the earliest issues… ?
Hwaet…
All this in response to the Hideo Kojima post… innocently enough– he he
So curious, the way stories are being told in these games… Not great stories, but I love the way the ‘consciousness’ of the narrative moves in and out of the writer’s and the player’s hands… Like stepping through glass, just a hiccough of consciousness and there you are as bodily extension or there you are watching yourself, looking at yourself as protagonist…
Hey.
That’s kindof like being a real person, isn’t it?
Both in and out of yourself at the same time, watching yourself and doing ‘you’ in the world… Grappling with what’s coming at you and all the while something’s narrating the story in your head as you live it–?
ooooo — Can being sick be a little like being high?
Maybe more to say when the world no longer looks like day old asparagus soup to me–
Alright, to be brief:
Q.1 What is the gif at the top of the blog from?
Q.2 How do you stay cool in your place there if you don’t have AC (you’ve mentioned the heat bothering you; Q. 2.2: Do you have a way to get relief if it gets bad this summer?)?
Q.3 Someday, will you tell me about your trip to Antarctica? I could tell you about finding an infant burial under an Anasazi hearth. Deal?
Be well, Sir – k.