Horseback: "The Golden Horn"

Jenks Miller is the sole constant in avant-metal outfit Horseback. Miller’s output — occasionally under his own name, often as Horseback, and recently with the Americana group Mount Moriah — has been a steady trickle over the past three years, with each release offering a new glimpse of the artist’s capabilities. To consider Miller’s art only in terms of his 2010 breakout, The Invisible Mountain, is like considering an iceberg only in terms of its tip.

Such an assumption is also likely to leave you confused upon hearing The Gorgon Tongue, which compiles Impale Golden Horn (Miller’s 2007 debut as Horseback) and last year’s ultra-limited Forbidden Planet cassette. Each is radically different from the other and also from the lumbering kraut-metal/Americana hybrid upon which Horseback built its reputation.

But that reputation came after more than two years of output, slowly revealing the character of the project and the Chapel Hill musician behind it all. Horseback began as a method for Miller to focus his concentration, to help manage his obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Impale Golden Horn — which Miller spent three years recording and reworking before its 2008 release — introduces Horseback as a patient, meticulous sculptor of sound. “Laughing Celestial Architect,” at 17 seconds past the 15-minute mark, is Impale’s second-longest track (behind the 17-minute opener, “Finale”). It’s a slow, smoldering rise, not unlike waking up as sunlight slowly fills the room. This mixture of ascendant dynamics, meditative repetition, and calming timbres is indicative of the collection. It's a bluff belying all of Miller’s work to follow. It makes the improvisatory follow-up seem almost ironically relaxed.

The collection of spare, solo, electric-guitar meanderings, billed as Approaching The Invisible Mountain and released under Miller’s given name, sounds as though it’s working through Neil Young’s Dead Man soundtrack, Earth’s lethargic Americana, and Loren Connors’ entrancing resonance.

Though Approaching indicates the melodic direction of The Invisible Mountain, its immediate followers found Miller exploring harsh electronics (Zen Automatica, Vol. 1: V) and monochromatic black metal with a heavy melodic undertow (the MILH IHVH 7”).  That exploratory instinct is pervasive in everything that Miller does. In interviews, he’s quick to offer in-depth analyses of his own work, with references to the sonic and philosophical explorers, like Keiji Haino and Aleister Crowley, that have informed his work.

He contributed an acoustic-guitar piece to the Jack Rose tribute compilation, Honest Strings. And in Mount Moriah — an ensemble informed by classic pop, Southern hymnal music, and country — Miller’s steady, resonant guitar leads offer a voice of reassurance behind the vocals of Heather McEntire (also of Bellafea).

And then there’s The Invisible Mountain, the sprawling, dramatic LP that grew a steady following over three separate releases (CD via Utech in 2009, vinyl via Aurora Borealis in 2010, and finally, wide release via Relapse later in 2010). It was a synthesis of Miller’s preceding catalog: the patient expansiveness of Impale, the spidery Italian-western riffs, and caustic vocal timbres. If anything, its vision was too singular for an artist so prone to explore so many directions.

Since The Invisible Mountain’s release, Miller has unleashed a flood of new material, mostly in limited quantities and all apart from his Invisible Mountain aesthetic. American Gothic finds Miller collaborating on vibrant, electronic drones with Nicholas Szczepanik; a split with Voltigeurs betrayed Miller’s prog fancies on keyboards (beneath a dense layer of blackened skuzz, naturally); and his latest, a seven-inch split with Locrian, finds Miller exploring his darkest monochrome, creating with sound the feeling of dirt piling on one’s chest.

Forbidden Planet is a standout of the recent batch of releases, though, and earns its titular reference to the 1956 sci-fi classic. A stark, desolate landscape scorched by inhuman shrieks and metallic, insectoid chatter, the cassette plays like the soundtrack to a doomed mission’s final moments — like Italo-horror staple Goblin gone to hell. It’s a jarring, uneasy listen, but it’s captivating in the same way that a garrote-taut horror movie is.

It’s a perfect foil to Impale Golden Horn, which presents a suddenly ominous tranquility before Forbidden Planet wages its terror. Miller’s knack for a slowly developing melody is consistent through both, though it’s employed to radically different ends.

Hearing the two together, as The Gorgon Tongue, is unnatural, but it works. The blissfulness of Impale counters the anxiety of Forbidden Planet the way that Forbidden Planet’s harsh sonic decay counters Impale’s respiring warmth. The Gorgon Tongue is, without a doubt, a Jekyll-and-Hyde combination, but Miller is clearly, audibly, the soul of both. It’s as much a unified statement of Miller’s artistic capabilities as The Invisible Mountain.

A Lull: Confetti (Mush)

A Lull: "Weapons for War"

Building off its early buzz for the single “Weapons for War,” Chicago quintet A Lull has drawn plenty of early attention for its debut album, Confetti.

Comprised of five multi-instrumentalists who each have a hand in its percussive style, the band unites assorted characteristics of contemporary indie electronica, with textured timbres, humming ambience, and melodic hooks building over pitter-pat beats and thumping toms. The vocals are equally as multi-layered and harmonized, alternating between soft pop refrains and “rat-tat-tats” and other percussive utterances over waves of deep, distorted low end.

Young Widows: In and Out of Youth and Lightness (Temporary Residence)

Young Widows: "In and Out of Lightness"

Now more than a few album cycles removed from its transition from post-hardcore outfit Breather Resist, Louisville's Young Widows continues coming more and more into its own.

The trio's last full-length album, Old Wounds, marked its arrival as post-punk powerhouse.  Its newest, In and Out of Youth and Lightness, displays another progression in the band's songwriting skills while also emphasizing the "quietness" in the genre.

Guitarist/vocalist Evan Patterson's reverberated instrument walks an eerie line between clean and dissonant. The rhythm section favors a ceremonial plod, often accenting select beats instead of playing straight through, but it's more than capable of mixing in urgent rock rhythms.  In between, there's a roomy silence, occasionally breached with a wandering guitar echo or backing vocal.

From the weird twang, Black Heart Procession vibes, and enveloping vocal harmonies of tracks such as "Right in the End" and "Lean on the Ghost," In and out of Youth and Lightness has plenty of new direction for familiar fans, but it's also an excellent jumping-off point for new listeners.

- Text by Scott Gordon. Read the full review here.

Atmosphere: The Family Sign (Rhymesayers)

Atmosphere: "Just for Show"

Back after last fall's double-EP release, Minneapolis hip-hop duo Atmosphere presents an album that is a true family effort.  Though its 2008 album was chock full of guest spots and featured DJ/producer Ant piecing together samples of live instrumentation, The Family Sign was built by a four-piece incarnation of Atmosphere, with previous collaborators Erick Anderson (keyboards) and Nate Collis (guitar).

Collis, in fact, is the surprise MVP of the album, with shimmering slide guitar and murmuring melodies that guide many songs.  Anderson plays nearly as vital a role, with gentle piano lines and chords that fill out what often was occupied by funky bass lines and horn cuts.

There are more singing and spoken-word passages than rap aficionados might like, but The Family Album isn't nearly as sunny or soulful as When Life Gives You Lemons…, and it feels like a much more cohesive and organic record.

Hauschka: Salon des Amateurs (FatCat)

Hauschka: "Radar"

Hauscka is the alias of prolific German composer Volker Bertelmann, who has released eight albums of neoclassical material since 2004 — with the most recent coming just six months ago.

His instrument of choice is the prepared piano, a piano that has objects placed on or between its strings in order to create unique, textured sounds.  Though much of his earlier material was in the John Cage school of prepared minimalism, his last album, Foreign Landscapes, was a more orchestral affair, and his newest, Salon des Amateurs, presents his instrument's version of techno.

This "organic dance" music shares similarities with fellow German outfit Brandt Brauer Frick, a trio that released a promising debut in November.  Bertelmann's range of timbres is narrower, but he achieves a lot via overdubs and guest spots by John Convertino and Joey Burns of Calexico, drummer/sampler Samuli Kosminen of Múm, and violinist Hilary Hahn.  Ultimately, Salon des Amateurs is much closer to Cage than techno, but it's another interesting cross-section that proves the potential of loops and short repetitions.

Garage á Trois: Always Be Happy, But Stay Evil (Royal Potato Family)

Garage á Trois: "Shooting Breaks"

Originally a trio with 8-string guitarist Charlie Hunter, rock/funk/jazz hybrid Garage a Trois has morphed over the past decade to a quartet comprised of saxophonist Skerik and vibraphonist Mike Dillon (both of Critters Buggin, The Dead Kenny Gs, and many Les Claypool incarnations), drummer Stanton Moore (Galactic, Corrosion of Conformity), and keyboardist Marco Benevento (Benevento/Russo Duo).

The group's sounds have undergone just as much transformation, from entirely live improvisation to unified grooves. Always Be Happy, But Stay Evil is the group's second album since the addition of Benevento, and it again takes great advantage of his keyboard melodies.  However, unlike its predecessor, Power Patriot, this album pulls back a bit from the distorted rock grooves.

Nonetheless, the album's musical moods are what fans of Power Patriot might expect: slinky ("Resentment Incubator"), polyrhythmic ("Earl Harvin"), accessible ("Earl Harvin" again), raw ("The Drum Department"), cosmic ("Shooting Breaks"), and ever so eerie ("Swellage").  Recorded by engineer/producer Randall Dunn (Secret Chiefs 3, Sunn O))), Earth), it closes with an unexpected cover of John Carpenter's "Assault on Precinct 13," a rendition that sonically embodies the album's title.

Fredrik: Flora (The Kora)

Fredrik: "Rites of Spring"

Each track on Swedish electro-folk trio Fredrik’s newest album, Flora, is adorned with a menagerie of small details.

On the third song, “Chrome Cavities,” vocalist Fredrik Hultin’s hushed intonations and a delicately clattering xylophone tiptoe over a sinister, tribal drum beat and jingling sleigh bells.  Later, on "The North Greatern," tinkling wind chimes, hypnotizing cowbell, and thundering mallet strikes conjoin over oscillating ambience.

Throughout Flora, a brooding force takes shape, often building to climactic heights similar to those of Sigur Rós. Whether laying on the heavy bounce of new-wave synth or sticking to more classical string-based melodic work (as on “Naruto and the End of the Broken Ear”), Fredrik deftly navigates varied terrain.

Honorable Mentions

Autechre: EPs 1991 – 2002 (Warp)

Between the Buried and Me: The Parallax: Hypersleep Dialogues (Metal Blade)

Causa Sui: Pewt’r Sessions 1 (El Paraiso)

Classified: Handshakes and Middle Fingers (Halflife / Sony / Decon)

Figurines: s/t (The Control Group)

Howe Gelb & A Band of Gypsies: Alegrías (Fire)

Indian: Guiltless (Relapse)

Kreidler: Tank (Bureau B)

Femi Kuti: Africa for Africa (Knitting Factory)

Last Chance to Reason: Level 2 (Prosthetic)

Little Scream: The Golden Record (Secretly Canadian)

Low: C’mon (Sub Pop)

Agnes Obel: Philharmonics (PIAS)

The One AM Radio: Heaven is Attached by a Slender Thread (Dangerbird)

Panda Bear: Tomboy (Paw Tracks)

Red Fang: Murder the Mountains (Relapse)

Alexander Tucker: Dorwytch (Thrill Jockey)

TV on the Radio: Nine Types of Light (Interscope)

The Waitiki 7: Waitiki in Hi-Fi LP (Pass Out Records)

Zomes: Earth Grid (Thrill Jockey)

Earth: "Father Midnight"

Most God-fearing people would probably characterize Earth’s cinematic drone-rock music as dark, and the assumption is not without merit. Since 1989, Earth’s founder and guitarist, Dylan Carlson, has specialized in a kind of down-tempo, almost lethargic style of slow rock that easily allows listeners to conjure thoughts of an emotional purgatory.

Carlson describes Earth’s musical destinations in a conversely different light. For him, the band’s resonant, slow-forming instrumentation represents a musically cerebral path to some sort of middle ground, but it’s not so much as a waiting room to hell as it is a medieval common area, where people are free to simply be, free to do as much or as little as they’d like. Earth’s womb-like melodic cocoon is in many ways an external and extremely personal catharsis — an intimate attempt to make sense of an ever-present melancholy that pervades Carlson’s vision of humanity.

What do you think has allowed Earth to maintain the same musical continuity for so long, while so many other bands from your time period have faded from the radar, sold out, died, or come back playing something completely different than what they started?

I think it’s still pretty similar. I think the main difference is more seen by working with [drummer] Adrienne [Davies] and working with the other members of the band more; it’s more of a collective experience than before. There were times when there were very few members of the band — no members of the band — [laughs] except me, so it was definitely more of a solitary pursuit at points, where now I have the luxury of being able to attract musicians to play with me and are able to play with me for at least a couple years at a time, instead of album by album.

That’s different, and I like that. I’ve always viewed Earth as a band, and wanted it to be a band, but it’s not always the easiest thing to find musicians to work with and keep them. I’m more cognizant of what I’m doing than before.

Do you think your sobriety has played a role in that?

Yeah, I definitely think so. I’m definitely more focused on doing music now and not wasting my time running around chasing [pauses] other things [laughs], so that’s good. And I’ve obviously been more productive in this second go-around than I was in the first, in terms of output and performing live.

Has your creative process changed at all over the years?

Yeah, I mean, for the most part, I guess. To me, there are certain things that need to be there for it to be Earth, otherwise I’d do something different. Within that, it should be slow, it should be simple, and hopefully be on the longer end of letting things develop — the longer end of the scale. There’s some wiggle room to do some other things, but if those three things aren’t there, then I should do a different project.

And if I were going to do something different, I’d do something completely different and wouldn’t try to sell that off as Earth. I think Earth has an identity of its own. I don’t think that would be fair to people to make something really fast and new-wave-y and call it Earth [laughs]; that wouldn’t be Earth. That would be my really fast new-wave-y project.

So are you saying you’ve got a really fast new-wave-y project in the works?

I’m hoping to do a solo record maybe later this year, and we’d like to start recording that as soon as possible, depending on our touring schedule, and that’s something that I hope would be different than Earth.

Is it going to be like ska or something?

No, no, no — but like acoustic guitar and some other stuff.

Will there be vocals in that, or will it be instrumental?

I haven’t decided yet. There’s certain things [that] I have in my head [that] I’m sort of keeping secret. I think it’ll definitely be something different, but hopefully people will be interested enough in it.

Speaking of that Earth sound, do you feel any sort of ownership to the sound that Earth has been said to have “pioneered”?

To me, the ownership of music is like this fiction that we’ve all agreed on. Unfortunately, we live in what they call a free-market capitalist economy, and there’s an exchange of goods required for people to survive. We’ve all sort of agreed that there’s this fiction that "Oh, I wrote this," and "Oh, I own this," and "I’m selling it to you." To me, music is as old as time itself, and there’s nothing that invented it.

Right — it’s like give a penny, take a penny?

Yeah, exactly, but because of the society we live in…we have to have the object to sell people, which is the object of the CD.

Do you think that certain catch-22 of music has made it harder for less-established acts to earn a living? Bands with a massively established audience like Radiohead can count on their fans to continue supporting them. Do you think that new bands have to rely more on touring as a means to stay financially solvent?

Yeah, and that’s my hope. My hope is that live music will become more important, like it used to be, but the economics of that don’t always work out. Back when music was big live, there was no TV, no radio; we didn’t have 24 hours of Internet porn [laughs], so we’ve got competition now.

I definitely think people seem more excited about live music than they used to be, and they want to see bands that can actually play their instruments as opposed to backing tracks and dance routines, and that kind of spectacle. I think [that] the only people in trouble are the major labels, and their whole factory thing. Justin Beiber in front of a bunch of teenagers at a mall is not a live show; most people realize that.

As much as I hate to talk about Justin Beiber, he brings to mind something that I hear you mention in a lot of your interviews. Authenticity is a really hot commodity right now in music, and I think that’s largely because of what you were just talking about — people aren’t just looking for something to tap their feet to, but they want something they can connect with — but is that authenticity something that you can feasibly and consciously strive for or knowingly attain?

We have all these myths and representations of music and art, like it’s something for other people to do rather than for everybody. Like the Amadeus myth that there are just born these phenomenal musicians, and the rest of us can only mash our teeth and plot to murder them because they’ve been given this gift that we don’t have. I absolutely abhor that whole myth.

The reason Mozart was Mozart was because his dad started training him when he was four. The reason Jimi Hendrix was a great guitarist was because he played guitar 18 hours a day. They put in the work; that’s why they were good. Everyone wants to go out and be on American Idol and be a star and believe there are people that are somehow just naturally gifted, but that’s bullshit. Ultimately, if you want to do music, and you put in the work, you’ll do something worthwhile.

Have you ever thought about your music as a sort of guided meditation?

Not specifically that sense. My favorite analogy that I heard was someone saying that Earth reminded them of a busy city, like the world as this busy city and Earth as this park where people can go to just be for a while, whether they want to meditate [pause] or alter their consciousness somehow. I remember a brief time when I was homeless, and the most frustrating thing of that whole experience was that there was just no place that you were allowed to be, where you didn’t have to be buying something, or paying for something.

There are no more places in the world for people to just be; you have to be doing something or spending money or being involved in an exchange. It’s really frustrating. In the old days in England, before the Enclosure Act, there used to be a thing called “the commons,” which no one was allowed to own, and anyone could use it, or they could just leave it alone [laughs]. That whole concept is gone. Now it’s all about "What can we do with this?" and "What can we make it pay?" and that’s happened to people. No one’s allowed to just be; you always have to be in motion, and playing the game, and you know, burning [laughs].

It’s like an acid trip; it’s all about what you make of it…

Yeah, you could have a great time or you could lose your marbles [laughs]. Life is fraught with risk. I’m sure there are theological arguments for why that is, but that’s life: there’s no free ride. It’s like doing drugs; as good as you feel at that one moment, that’s as shitty as you’re going to feel later. There’s a trade-off. So, yes, I think there’s a melancholy to Earth, or darkness, but I also think there’s another side as well.

The Dead Kenny Gs: Operation Long Leash (The Royal Potato Family, 3/15/11)

The Dead Kenny Gs: "Black Truman (Harry the Hottentot)"

Smooth-jazz lovers beware.  As an antidote to the polished alto saxophones and rarely improvised easy-listening jams of adult contemporary music, eccentric jazz trio The Dead Kenny Gs has released its second album, Operation Long Leash.  Given its play-on-words moniker that simultaneously drives a sock down the mouth of smooth-jazz king Kenny G and recalls the early '80s hardcore-punk band The Dead Kennedys, the powerhouse trio taps into a sound that fuses jazz and punk.  It’s a crazy mix that works surprisingly well, played intensely by a group that has the skill and knowledge to pull it off.

Composed of three of the members of legendary Seattle-based Critters Buggin — bassist Brad Houser, drummer and vibraphonist Mike Dillon, and saxophonist Skerik — the band uses its genre-mashing experience to anchor it all down.  The trio has played in countless projects together, including all three in The Black Frames, and Dillon and Skerik comprise half of Garage a Trois.  Needless to say, the three have run in the same circles for more than two decades, playing hybrid styles that are everything but conservative.

For Operation Long Leash, the trio is hostile and straightforward in fusing elements of free jazz, Afrobeat, punk, metal, and anything else that it feels like throwing in the mix.  Behind the hilarious name and the curly dark wigs, there are some serious chops at work.  Switching between instruments and utilizing a healthy selection of effect pedals, it’s sometimes hard to believe that there are only three musicians — and forget trying to decipher who’s playing what.

Sounding more like a noise-rock record, the 10-song set comes off like a swift punch to the face, making clear the band’s mission of subverting the restraints of the respected genres.  The deeper you get into the record, the more liberated the music becomes, and a sense that anything is possible emerges by the end.

Long-time collaborator and guitar virtuoso Charlie Hunter lends his style on the raw funk tune “Black Truman (Harry the Hottentot).”  The trio has mastered the mixing and matching of different sounds; even on this track alone, there is so much happening with harmony, timbre, and the nuances of melody.  Skerik rocks his saxophone in funky staccato bursts, an attack that sounds as raw as Hunter’s shape-shifting guitar riffs.  A wide variety of percussion instruments keep the rhythm inherently Afrobeat influenced, and some spacey electronic elements propel the band into some George Clinton-tinged P-funk.

“Melvin Jones” has the band bouncing back and forth between thrash, Balkan folk, and Klezmer styles, and switching time signatures between each section.  The effect is jarring, almost resembling a music form from a strange, dystopian future.  Like the cross-section where Black Flag and Albert Ayler would meet, the track is ferocious in sonic exploration, while bringing Eastern European melody lines to the forefront.

Though the tracks are as much informed by Jesus Lizard as they are by Roshaan Roland Kirk, they are entirely distinct to the DKG sound.  Songs have everyone playing frantically, making all kinds of disparate negotiations at once — whether it’s Skerik’s Klezmer sax lines with Dillon’s speed-metal drumming on “Sweatbox,” the mad electronic atmospherics with the gritty piano keys on “Bucky Balls (Spherical Fullerene),” or Dillon’s funk-infused vocal growls on “Black Death.”

Operation Long Leash's producer, Randall Dunn (Sunn O))), Earth), has worked with Houser, Dillon, and Skerik through Critters Buggin in the past, but he’s also worked with some of the heaviest metal bands in the world.  The result is a well-conceived sound that makes the punk-rock and free-jazz connection that people rarely make.  Not for the soft at heart, Operation Long Leash is aggressive, unrelenting, and designed to kill your speakers.

Adebisi Shank: This Is The Second Album From A Band Called Adebisi Shank (Sargent House)

Adebisi Shank: "Micro Machines"

Released to European acclaim in 2010, the aptly titled second album from Irish electro/math rockers Adebisi Shank has now achieved North American release thanks to the peerless Sargent House.

The record label / management company describes the trio as a blend of Fang Island’s shredding riffs with Battles’ electronic quirkiness and rhythmic playfulness. That description isn’t off the mark, but readers won’t get a sense of the band’s real abilities until they hear its hyper-melodic, polyrhythmic, and — most importantly — jubilant songs in full.

Over 40 minutes — a self-described "double album" given the band's riff-intensive style — Second Album delivers a maelstrom of zany electronics, unusual distortions, and triumphant, rapidly ascending scales mixed with vintage synths, marimba, horns, and other accoutrements.  This is all packaged between and around gloriously catchy and powerful rock riffs.

It's a manic and buoyant sophomore effort.  Simply put, Adebisi Shank is a revelation.

Trap Them: Darker Handcraft (Prosthetic)

Trap Them: "The Facts"

Originally conceived as a side project to Backstabbers Incorporated, riotous hardcore quintet Trap Them became a full-time endeavor half a decade ago and has been perfecting its sound ever since.

For Darker Handcraft, its third full-length album and first for Prosthetic, the band continues expanding, ever so slightly, its grindcore style to present more assailing D-beat rhythms and impossibly heavy sounds.  The production, again courtesy of Kurt Ballou, draws understandable parallels to the producer's main gig in Converge.  But Trap Them's low tunings, dark chord progressions, and noodling high-string riffs are more responsible for the comparison, even if Trap Them is less about diversity and more about straight-forward fury.

This time around, vocalist Ryan McKenney has a crisper but equally brutal delivery, often recalling former Refused front man Dennis Lyxzén.  It might be one of the album's best evolutions — outside of "Drag the Wounds Eternal," the melodic, mid-tempo penultimate jam.  In all, Darker Handcraft is top-notch modern hardcore, meshing punk and metal with equal aplomb.

The Dead Kenny Gs: Operation Long Leash (Royal Potato Family)

The Dead Kenny Gs: "Devil's Playground"

Fans are long used to seeing the names Skerik, Mike Dillon, and Brad Houser in the same sentence.  Together, the three multi-instrumentalists comprised three quarters of genre-hopping groove merchants Critters Buggin (along with percussionist/keyboardist Matt Chamberlain); Skerik and Dillon have worked in Garage a Trois and a few outfits with Les Claypool, and Houser has again joined forces to create The Dead Kenny Gs, a trio of musicians who "listen to Bad Brains and Art Ensemble of Chicago."

Operation Long Leash is the group's second album, and though it isn't freewheeling punk jazz, it shares that marriage of rock aggression, funky hooks, and left turns.  Call it heavy acid swing — or something completely different — but it shares just enough elements with the trio's previous projects while exploring new territory.

After a cohesive, rhythmic blend of dueling saxophones, Dillon's glistening vibraphone, and freak-out effects, the middle and tail end of the album get into more heavy rock grooves, including distorted bass on "Black 5" and pounding tom hits and sax bleeps on "Sweatbox" — which quickly transforms into a jazzy jungle groove.  The thuds soon return for more of the album's wildest and loudest sounds, almost resembling some of Zu's most recent "sludge jazz" album.  From there, the soothing outro of "Jazz Millionaire" proves that The Dead Kenny Gs' moods can swing as much as its music.

Mamiffer: Mare Decendrii (SIGE)

Mamiffer: "We Speak in the Dark"

Led by pianist and graphic artist Faith Coloccia, Mamiffer is a project born from the ashes of a similar if more loosely structured group, Everlovely Lightningheart.  With a rotating cast of guests and permanent members — now including ex-Isis front man, Hydra Head honcho, and SIGE partner Aaron Turner — the group surrounds down-tempo, minor-key piano melodies with eerie, ambient soundscapes of assorted instrumentation.

Though strings, guitars, drums, and slowly unfolding vocals are all regular elements of the group's music, Mare Decendrii — its sophomore full-length — amasses another collection of semi-decipherable sounds.  There are moments of minimalist classical beauty and others of echoing tangents to post-metal, as is the case with the sprawling 20-minute track "We Speak in the Dark," a microcosm of the whole.  It begins with minutes of building dissonance before a lead piano/string line turns into emotive vocal harmonies and a churning post-rock passage with a nearly Nine Inch Nails melody.

And though the album's breadth and reach are to be expected from what Mamiffer has previously delivered, it's fueled further this time thanks to guest spots by violist-and-vocalist duo Eyvind Kang and Jessika Kinney, bassist Don McGreevy (Earth), bassist Brian Cook (Russian Circles), violinist Timb(a) Harris (Estradasphere), drummer Aaron Harris (Isis), and many others.

Honorable Mentions

Antonionian: s/t (Anticon)

Disco Doom: Trux Reverb (The Static Cult Label)

Does It Offend You, Yeah?: Don’t Say We Didn’t Warn You (The End / Cooking Vinyl)

KEN Mode: Venerable (Profound Lore)

J. Mascis: Several Shades of Why (Sub Pop)

Mi Ami: Dolphins 12” (Thrill Jockey)

Sin Fang: Summer Echoes (Morr Music)

V/A: Those Shocking, Shaking Days (Now-Again)

Colin Stetson: New History Warfare Vol. 2: Judges (Constellation)

Colin Stetson: "Judges"

Everyday music connoisseurs may not automatically recognize Colin Stetson's name, but they're likely to have heard his bellowing and diverse reed work — whether from his efforts with musical luminaries such as Tom Waits, Anthony Braxton, and Fred Frith or, more recently, his opening slots for stadium indie acts such as Arcade Fire and The National.

Armed with a baritone sax and other horns, Stetson uses his solo releases to present looped, layered, and transcendental compositions that may leave listeners puzzled at how they're created.  Most sound only vaguely borne from horns, as Stetson utilizes circular breathing, chordal mouth/throat techniques, and singing through his instruments to achieve sounds that are uncommon to most.

New History Warfare Vol. 2: Judges is his latest, and it's full of swirling, cyclical pieces that can be both meditative and powerful.  Laurie Anderson and Shara Worden (My Brightest Diamond) provide a few spots of guest vocals, but no amount of star power — including Stetson's famous tour-mates — could steal the spotlight from this one.

Julianna Barwick: The Magic Place (Asthmatic Kitty)

Julianna Barwick: "The Magic Place"

Creating her music almost entirely out of overdubbed and looped vocals, singer/songwriter Julianna Barwick is able to achieve a profound and resonant style. Her ascendant voice, particularly when presented en masse, takes a celestial quality and at times resembles high-pitched woodwinds, organs, or keyboards.

With distant wails and chants that swell and retreat, the music sounds like an experimental composer’s take on church choirs, and for good reason: Barwick refined her talents while singing in church and school choirs as a youth. There are a few complementary piano notes and a buried bass line here and there, but largely, it’s Barwick’s shining voice and compositional skills that are center stage.

Earth: Angels Of Darkness, Demons Of Light I (Southern Lord)

Earth: "Father Midnight"

Since restarting his cult-favorite band Earth in the mid-2000s, guitarist Dylan Carlson has offered a much less foreboding take on "drone doom" — using pedal steel, banjo, baritone guitar, and more to inflect a dark "Americana" vibe into what had focused on heavily distorted and slowed-down blues-rock riffs.

Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light I is another return to form — and another new lineup.  Gone are the guest guitars from Bill Frisell; in his place, bassist Karl Blau and cellist Lori Goldston offer resonant low-end riffs that complement and harmonize with Carlson's melodies.

The songs, like usual, are long-form pieces that build around a few lengthy repetitions.  However, they're even a little longer than usual, with two that top 10 minutes and a closer that eclipses 20 — totaling 60 minutes over just five tracks.  All together, the material is another victory for down-tempo music, proving that slow songs don't have to be boring.

Pitom: Blasphemy and Other Serious Crimes (Tzadik)

Pitom: "Head in the Ground"

Combining heavy, fuzzy rock jams with Jewish melodies, Pitom is one of many projects from guitarist, bassist, and composer Yoshie Fruchter.  Blasphemy and Other Serious Crimes, the quartet's second release on Tzadik, follows the same path as its predecessor, but it does so with a bit more cohesion and restraint.

Built from the ground up with distorted bass and violin, the band's music carries similarities to that of Skeletonbreath, an alt-rock trio that embraces worldly motifs, and Miasma & The Carousel of Headless Horses, another eclectic ensemble that combines doomy riffs and string work.  Pitom's lineup, however, has a key difference: Fruchter's pliable skills.

Whether driving a song with an infectious melody, commingling with the violin in the high end, or simply taking over a track with raw ability, Fruchter knows when to go full throttle (the punk power of "An Epic Encounter") or pull back (the dark slow jam of "A Resentful Repentance").

Honorable Mentions

Darkest Hour: The Human Romance (E1)

Gil Scott-Heron & Jamie XX: We're New Here [remix album] (XL)

Rachel Goodrich: s/t

Gutbucket: Flock (Cuneiform)

Peña: Vol. II (Secret Stash)

Six Organs of Admittance: Asleep On The Floodplain (Drag City)

Tera Melos: Zoo Weather EP (Sargent House)

Teeel: Amulet (Moongadget)

Earth: "Father Midnight"

Dylan Carlson's best work as Earth often creates a crushing sense of inevitability. Between the long-form guitar griddlings of Earth 2: Special Low Frequency Version in 1993 and the panoramic beauty of The Bees Made Honey In The Lion's Skull in 2008, Earth has erratically transitioned from smothering to sparkling.

One thing that remains, though, is how Carlson and his assorted bandmates move through their instrumentals: with slow but ever-emphatic steps. Since Hex: Or Printing In The Infernal Method in 2005, people have often said that Earth is creating something more like "Americana" than its earlier doom metal. That isn't wrong at all, but more fundamentally, Earth's recent music revels in the basics of melody. It often uses blues-like scales — though rarely as grindingly dissonant as those on Earth 2 — but always explores them with an almost mad patience. It has the frank sureness of a force that knows it will catch up with you eventually.

The new Angels Of Darkness, Demons Of Light, Vol. 1, might be roughly part of the Hex phase, and might sound just as good as Bees, but with the addition of cello and greater willingness to vary Earth's format from song to song.

Carlson has said that he likes to find his melodies "within the drone." It's clear on the new Angels that he's as ready as he's ever been to let his collaborators seek alongside him within the expanses of sound they create. Where Bees relied largely on layers of guitar from Carlson, and, on three tracks, Bill Frisell, Angels finds bassist Karl Blau and cellist Lori Goldston — both new members — pushing right alongside him, and sometimes ahead of him, rather than simply thickening up the core melodies.

The other players on Bees never seemed to loosen up quite as much as Blau and Goldston do here, except maybe the piano on "Hung From The Moon." Throughout the album, Blau's bass fills and Goldston's dynamically varied melodic complement fill more of the space between Carlson's orbit through sparing guitar phrases. The new lineup makes the music slightly busier, but never breaks the pace. Earth's new group dynamic gets its best showing on "Father Midnight," on which Carlson, Blau, and Goldston set the rhythm by pinching themselves down to a collective mid-range hum, then releasing themselves into lower registers.

Of course, a cello is a no-brainer fit for Earth's sound, dominated by a guitarist who likes to let each note ring out nice and long, and Goldston ends up supplying just as much variety as the guitar. On "Hell's Winter," the cello gently arcs up in between those guitar notes, almost as if setting a path for Carlson to follow. Goldston carefully alternates between handsome, long-held notes and rougher, squeaking sounds, like the ones that violin / viola player Warren Ellis often pours into Dirty Three records.

The crushing inevitability is still there, in the iron-fisted discipline of drummer Adrienne Davies. She mostly uses just kick, snare, and cymbal, with a perfect timing that makes you feel the vast pockets of open space within the songs, especially album opener "Old Black." When she throws in stuff that the liner notes call "sea hooves" and "Satan's knuckles," the effect isn't to add to the low end of the kit, but to suggest a shaker played in slow-motion. (It is hard avoid using the word "slow" a lot with Earth, and this is the kind of slow music that demands real concentration from its players.) You might not expect much rhythmic variety from a band that insists on such low tempos, but "Descent To The Zenith" shows how it can be stirringly graceful. The rhythm sways like a leaf drifting toward the ground. It brings even more hallucinatory, inspiring calm to this album than "Miami Morning Coming Down II: Shine" did to Bees.

It's the title track that challenges and pries apart the Earth sound the most, though. Bass and cello dominate it for the first minute and a half or so, and even after that, Carlson's guitar comes in only gradually, a couple notes at a time. The song is a reasonable, 20-minute-long argument that the line between harmony and disharmony isn't so thin. Carlson's guitar melodies come to hold down the overall structure as always, yet they're launching off of the singeing, grumbling low end.

As much as Bees, Angels invites the listener to savor and re-discover the pleasures of un-flinching, healthy, sustained notes, it compels you not to tap your foot along, but to slow your breathing to its pace and get engulfed. Angels may even be the better of the two, and you can take it from someone who put Bees at the top of his 2008 best-of list. Earth's approach varies quite a lot here, yet it's in no rush for the sake of change. Earth's Special All-Frequency Version is opening up before us, in a slow process that's anything but monotonous.

Cisneros has been a prominent figure in underground metal for years, but his gentle, unassuming demeanor is a far cry from what many would expect from a musician associated with what is typified as an aggressive, macho genre.

Om, the intense, hypnotic bass-and-drum duo that he founded with drummer Chris Haikus in 2003, has been reinventing the way that many people perceive heavy music. Its songs are cerebral but accessible, spiritual but unreligious. Om’s music could be used to excite the apathetic as much as it could serve as a meditative soundtrack for the hyperactive.

In a live setting, Om takes on another dimension. The walls rattle under the colossal vibrations from Cisneros’ bass cabinets, fuelled by his carefully selected custom amps; the huge, warm sounds that come out of them seem to enter the body, resulting in a feel that is like being caught in the eye of a storm.

“I feel really safe sometimes, if that’s the right word, when the speakers [fuzz out] like that,” Cisneros says. “Descriptions [of music] can be stereotypes. It’s very peaceful.”

When Haikus amicably left the band in the spring of 2008, Cisneros sought out Grails drummer and Holy Sons mastermind Emil Amos to take his place. Things have been good ever since, as the title of Om’s fourth studio album and first featuring Amos on drums, God is Good (Drag City), suggests.

“It’s just true,” Cisneros says of the title, which, true to form, decontextualizes religious iconography from its traditional meanings. “We’re in the journey right now, and we wanted to sing about it. It’s the word symbol we came up with. You can’t explain it. The more you try with words, the more you try to explain what it means.” As each word passes, Cisneros sounds vaguely frustrated at trying to communicate such esoteric thoughts out loud. “You can feel it,” he continues. “Everyone can feel it.”

Amos is more direct about the title. “It makes me think of a really hellish LSD trip,” he says, “where at the end of the whole thing, you meet this sobbing resolution that things actually are okay—the fact that you know, in some Jungian sense or in a Carl Sagan book, [that] the creation of this universe came from the first moment of good winning over evil.”

Cisneros began exploring the depths of heavy metal as a teenager in the late ’80s, when he and Haikus formed punk/metal hybrid Asbestosdeath. The band added second guitarist Matt Pike (now guitarist/frontman of High on Fire) and by the early 1990s morphed into Sleep—a riff-brandishing psychedelic power trio, a band that owed more to the bluesy grooves of Black Sabbath and Pentagram yet whose sound was filtered through a set of musicians that had also been exposed to Bay Area hardcore and thrash.

“We all dropped out of high school—I think every one of us,” Cisneros recalls. “We were all having hard times, and we were friends through music.” For the young friends, music became more than just a hobby. “[It was] our lifeline,” he corrects. “I wouldn’t have made it through those times without it.”

Sleep grew a following, and with the release of its second album, Sleep’s Holy Mountain, many believed that it had the potential to cross into the mainstream. The band signed with London Records to release its third album, tentatively titled Dopesmoker, a single, hour-long epic song that had taken the band years to perfect.

The label, rather than appreciating what it had, saw it as “noncommercial” and toyed with remixing it and dividing the song into pieces. The band was horrified and eventually broke up under the strain, but the album later surfaced as the segmented Jerusalem on Rise Above Records, and eventually, an unabridged version of Dopesmoker was released on Tee Pee.

Sleep left a legacy not only because of its primal, heavy sounds that have influenced others, but also because of its unwavering commitment to its vision of its art, no matter what the stakes.

In the aftermath of Sleep, Cisneros stopped playing music for seven years. “I just took the time to go back to school—and live, really,” he says. “I didn’t want people to tell me that I had to do Sleep. I wanted to know what I wanted and what was right to me.

"I used that time to find it and to cultivate it. In finding that, the songs that I had already been hearing were able to be treated with the respect that they deserved, and I was able to document the ones that really stuck with me. It was time to play; I needed to heal, though, first. When Sleep had broken up, I felt like I had died. It meant so much to me. It meant my entire life. When it went the way it did…I never knew that there would be a return to playing.”

As the songs began to accumulate, Cisneros called Haikus, and the two teamed up as Om. “From that point forward, we were going to do it,” he says. “It was like being able to live over again with a different appreciation, being able to be connected.” Beginning with 2005 experimental album Variations on a Theme through the awe-inspiring Pilgrimage (Southern Lord) in 2007, Om impressed listeners with the intense yet organic feel of its music.

It bucked convention with minimal, droning sounds that were punctuated by Cisneros’ staccato, mantra-like vocals in pieces that could last upwards of twenty minutes. “It is all about the feel and the duration of the art, how it needs to be, and the distance it needs to be,” Cisneros says. “I’d be fighting myself thinking about wanting to write a song a certain length.”

That same intuition on which Cisneros relies for writing music came into play when he asked Amos to join his band. The two had recently met when Om and Grails played a short string of shows together, but otherwise they were virtual strangers.

“We knew only enough about each other that we knew that we got along,” Amos says. “We knew that we both worshipped [prolific jazz and fusion drummer] Billy Cobham, Pink Floyd, and dub. We had some heated late-night discussions [about music], and that was about it.”

Amos, as one might imagine, was caught off guard. “I didn’t know what to say,” he recalls. “My life was in disarray at the time.”

A grueling schedule of music and production projects had left him burned out and reevaluating his way of life. “I became a machine,” he says. “I gave myself to music completely for the first time. I’d avoided it my whole life; I never wanted to make it a job.” To cap it off, “I had gotten out of an eight-year relationship, and the girl left the country on the day that Al called me. My life completely changed in one category, and literally a couple of hours later he called me. My head turned from one reality to another reality.”

With that, Amos joined, and Cisneros’ instinct proved to be dead on. In preparation for a European tour, Cisneros flew from his California home to Portland, where he and Amos spent two days practicing before recording their first piece of music together, the Gebel Barkel 7” (Sub Pop), which cemented a new era for the band. “It’s pretty unreal for a band to assume that they could form like that,” Amos says, “and record their debut two days later and expect that it will be fine. And we did that.”

With the addition of Amos, Om has not done away with its signature style, but both fans and critics have recognized a distinct freshness to the duo’s performance (illustrated on Live Conference, a live rendition of Conference of the Birds [Important Records, 2009]), a reflection of the energy that transpires between the two musicians.

Amos, who cut his teeth on hardcore growing up in Chapel Hill, North Carolina before branching into more worldly styles, describes the lineup (“crudely,” he admits) as “a hardcore kid and a metal kid coming together,” noting that their musical partnership has opened the gates for what has become a unique friendship. “We’ve needed each other on a level that we couldn’t have seen,” he says. “There are an odd number of coincidences of how we think. We just flow so well; the whole thing has this serendipitous, odd synchronicity to it. The way we came together just worked.”

The two share a similar aesthetic that goes beyond the actual craft of making music. “I look at music as a very serious form of spiritual discipline,” Amos says. “It’s the same thing for Al. The artistic template is the way to pursue your own sanity. … It’s not like a job, but it is a format in which to live. It’s a spiritual work. Work is sort of all we have as humans. We apply ourselves for life as making music, and that keeps us happy. Without that, we would be lethargic and confused. It’s a form of finding yourself and a strata of values within the world.”

“The music happens because it has to, and that’s essential,” Cisneros says. “It can’t be forced at all, or it’s not worth participating in. I’ve seen people sit at a guitar for ten hours, and it’s like, ‘Dude, water’s not going to come out of your rock.’ I don’t even understand it—does that person have to play? If they’re going through all of that, what’s the whole idea?”

Continuing, he muses, “Songwriting seems to be more of a job as an editor rather than a writer. It’s more a process of negotiation and building and learning what not to do. When you have a part that seems right in your heart, you ask yourself, ‘How do I stay there? How do I not go away from that?’”

With Amos, Cisneros stays right in the thick of it. He describes their creative output as a flood, with parts of God is Good coming so suddenly that “We’d record it on our cell phones just so we could have it documented.”

The album, recorded with Steve Albini at Electrical Audio studios in Chicago, showcases Om’s penchant for creating music that is as genuinely emotive as it is heavy, best illustrated on opening number “Thebes,” which begins serenely, building into a rollicking thunder before coming down again.

And though the core of the duo remains the focal point, subsequent tracks weave in other sounds and moods, such as the rhythmic handclaps leading the way on “Cremation Ghat Pt. 1.” (it’s actually danceable) and the help of friends such as flutist Lorraine Rath and Lichens / 90 Day Men member Rob Lowe on tamboura at key points throughout the album. “It’ll always be the bass and drum, but we’ve been using different instruments to lead the songs,” Amos says. “It’s important for the trajectory of where the records are going to find new ways to say things. Live, we haven’t worked [it] out…the band will always be the two guys.”

Designed by Grails’ Alex Hall, the album’s cover art depicts a gold-leaf halo-adorned angel against a stark black backdrop, echoing the softer but nearly identical imagery of Pilgrimage. And like the art, God is Good represents another step in the journey for Om—a heightened sense of focus and wellbeing that doesn’t lose sight of the original goal.

Likewise, this newfound positive energy has given way to a tidal wave of new music that extends outside of the band as well. In January 2009, Cisneros joined Scott “Wino” Weinrich, Neurosis’ Scott Kelley, and Melvins’ Dale Crover in a “masters of underground rock” super-group, Shrinebuilder, whose upcoming self-titled album has been touted as one of the most anticipated heavy albums of the year.

In May, he joined former Sleep bandmates at All Tomorrow’s Parties Festival in the UK for a highly anticipated reunion that marked the first time the legendary trio had performed together since it disbanded more than a decade ago. Amos has been busy as well; among other projects, he has edited and produced Grails’ Acid Rain DVD (Temporary Residence), released Holy Sons’ sixth full-length, Drifters Sympathy (Important), and begun work on yet another Grails album.

This multitude of other projects has served to heighten the duo’s enthusiasm for Om. “One of the things that we’ve been able to do is to start using more areas of the canvas,” Cisneros says, hinting that the best is yet to come. “It has deepened what preexisted, and it has opened what was once contained. It has let in light and energy, and I am totally, totally thankful. The rate that Emil and I work…there is a lot there. We’re so excited with the outcome [of the new albums], but it’s really just beginning.”

Quoting another prominent figure in the genre, Amos concludes, “Dylan Carlson from Earth said it well: ‘I don’t want to make more noise. The world is noisy enough.’ Al and I are trying to create a cohesive sum of what we’ve learned, rather than just noise pollution.”

It is tempting to chalk up this oversight to cultural disconnect (the three-piece hails from Japan), but a more apt diagnosis would be that for Boris, record sales and critical accolades are inconsequential compared to the experiences that making music has provided them and the joy of a synergistic working relationship with one another. Takeshi is quick to point out, in a somewhat Zen kind of way, that even the music itself has become a byproduct of something larger and more encompassing between he and his cohorts.

"When we first started playing, it was about making music, but the more we played the less it became about making music at all," he says. "It was about working together and what came out of it ‒‒ the joy of living, the joy of meeting people, and the experiences that it has brought me. By not making music, I found real meaning."

Defiant of convention, immune to pigeonholing, and predicated on experimentation, Boris (whose moniker was derived from the first song on Melvins' Bullhead) firmly established itself as one of the heaviest and most compelling doom-metal acts to emerge in the ’90s with Absolutego, a rumbling, interminable 65-minute onslaught. The album used thick, down-tuned chords sustained for achingly long durations that rivaled Sleep’s Jerusalem in terms of sheer might. The follow-up, 1998’s Amplifier Worship, found the group dabbling in slightly more traditional song structures, driving power riffs, and psychedelic sludgery (an approach they would revisit on 2003’s Akuma No Uta). After Amplifier Worship, 2000’s Flood submerged listeners in slow-building drones that coalesce into a veritable deluge of howling guitars and textural distortions.

Along with their many albums, there have been a slew of projects with artists such as Merzbow, Keiji Haino, and Ghost’s Michio Kurihara (notably on 2007’s triumphant Rainbows on Drag City). Two years ago they released Altar, a 2006 collaboration with Southern Lord labelmates Sunn O))).

“Three or four years ago we played with Sunn O))) in London, and thought it would be great to do a collaboration together,” says Takeshi. “Because we had become friends, it was a lot of fun, but in terms of the music that came out of it, it felt divine. It was music that had to be made, and when we did, it was like a release.” According to drummer/vocalist Atsuo Mizuno, “Altar was a document of Boris and Sunn O)))’s ten-year relationship.”

The most ambitious and most comprehensive of the Boris albums at the time of its release, 2005’s Pink was a rollicking patchwork of songs, showcasing melodic yet bottom-heavy hooks and low-frequency attacks that owed more to Blue Cheer, Motorhead, and Mudhoney than to Earth or Sleep. Despite the variances between each of their albums, there has always been an undeniable, singular philosophy of sound that permeates all of Boris’ music, even if the vocabulary used to articulate that philosophy is different from record to record. "There is something that is Boris in each of the albums,” says Takeshi. “But really, each time we make a new album, the goal is to get away from that."

The dirty, stripped-down yet texturally and tonally rich sound that defines Boris comes from a combination of classic equipment and sheer imagination. The band members use only Gibson guitars and record only on analog equipment but utilize numerous effects pedals and rely heavily on experimentation. "We love buying old equipment," explains Takeshi. "It's really an adventure in what we can find in crazy stores and then playing on that. It's all improvisation. Each time it's, 'What are the new toys that we found, what can we play with, what sounds can we make, and what comes out of that jam session?' When we get tired of the sound coming out of the improvisation, we might just stop and be like, 'All right, what's the coolest riff that we can think of right now?'”

"We experiment with different settings on our equipment and often screw up," Atsuo confides. "But even during those moments when we feel like we've made a mistake, if we just listen to the sound with new ears, we can discover great potential for all sorts of new sounds. We place equal importance on songwriting and creating the right sound.” If one fosters a good relationship with the world, communication becomes a much more enjoyable experience, according to Atsuo.

Perhaps the poster group for its genre, Sunn has spent the past 10 years experimenting in epic, doomy sound and noise.

Now, with Monoliths & Dimensions, the core duo of Stephen O'Malley and Greg Anderson teams with guests galore to create, in the words of the group, "the most musical piece we've done."  Guest musicians Eyvind Kang (John Zorn, Bill Frisell), Jessika Kenney (Eyvind Kang, Asva), Oren Ambarchi (Burial Chamber Trio), Dylan Carlson (Earth), Julian Priester (Sun Ra, John Coltrane) and others help make that so, while retaining the creeping, end-of-the-world vibe that persists thoughout Sunn's work.

Khanate: Clean Hands Go Foul (Hydra Head)

As the belated swan song for the super-group collaboration between Stephen O'Malley (Sunn O)))), James Plotkin (Phantomsmasher), Alan Dubin (OLD), and Tim Wyskida (Blind Idiot God), Clean Hands Go Foul is a fitting endgame for Khanate's aural presentation of desolation and despair.  Evil ambience crests and falls, working with ominous chords and soul-shredding screams; naturally, fans of O'Malley's other work will love this.

Khanate: "Wings from Spine" (excerpt)
Khanate: \"Wings from Spine\" (excerpt)

Grizzly Bear: Veckatimest (Warp)

Unconventional indie darlings Grizzly Bear have pushed three years since their last full-length release, and the passage of time hasn't diminished the band's creative stroke.

On Veckatimest, Grizzly Bear's trademark vocal harmonies and layered orchestrations are still present, but the album features a slightly heavier touch of electronics and chamber elements.  By and large, however, this is the same Grizzly Bear, and preexisting fans won't feel alienated by this disc.

Sir Richard Bishop: The Freak of Araby (Drag City)

In his solo creations and many collaborative endeavors, ex-Sun City Girls guitarist Richard Bishop weaves through Arabic, Indian, flamenco, African, and Gypsy influences in both composed and improvised settings.

With his new album, he employs a clean, reverberated electric guitar in place of his usual acoustic sound, and he adds a bit of percussive assistance. For spring and summer tour dates, Bishop will perform with a full ensemble, which should make his ethnic creations even more compelling.

Master Musicians of Bukkake: Totem One (Conspiracy)

Milky and Don McGreevy of Earth, producer extraordinaire Randall Dunn (Secret Chiefs 3, Sunn O)))), Bill Horist of Ghidra, and other noted Northwest musicians comprise this collective that designs psychedelic, ethnically inspired folk freak-outs.

With Totem One, the group begins a musical trilogy while expanding and maturing its expansive sound.  The album's guests include Alan Bishop of Sun City Girls and Timb Harris of Estradasphere and Secret Chiefs 3.

Vieux Farka Touré: Fondo (Six Degrees)

The son of musical Malian icon Ali Farka Touré, guitarist/singer Vieux Farka Touré has garnered international distinction since the release of his self-titled debut album, issued the year after his famous father’s death.

That disc, which was remixed later in the same year, featured kora virtuoso Toumani Diabate on a pair of tracks and combined Mande and Sonrai folk styles with pop and a touch of reggae.  Diabate is back to help with Fondo, which finds Vieux taking more of a distinctive direction while improving his songwriting chops.