tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-362738732024-03-16T07:11:10.510-04:00Dark Forces Swing Blind PunchesThis is the blog of writer and musician Hank Shteamer, whom you may reach at hshteamer.writes@gmail.com. Thanks for stopping by.Hankhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12995158278551531136noreply@blogger.comBlogger740125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36273873.post-40027765172460304952024-02-09T11:44:00.001-05:002024-02-09T11:44:38.489-05:00DFSBP is now on Substack<p> <a href="https://darkforcesswing.substack.com/" target="_blank">Check it out</a>, and subscribe if you're so inclined!<br /></p>Hankhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12995158278551531136noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36273873.post-67686778463970237772023-12-27T00:48:00.008-05:002023-12-31T09:50:08.878-05:00best of 2023: table of contents<p>Here, please find links to DFSBP's annual rundown of my favorite music of the year, in five parts:</p><p>1. <a href="http://darkforcesswing.blogspot.com/2023/12/best-of-2023-pt-i-prelude-and-overall.html" target="_blank">Overall top 11, with introductory remarks and disclaimers</a></p><p>2. <a href="http://darkforcesswing.blogspot.com/2023/12/best-of-2023-pt-ii-jazz-top-11.html" target="_blank">Jazz top 11</a></p><p>3. <a href="http://darkforcesswing.blogspot.com/2023/12/best-of-2023-pt-iii-honorable-mentions.html" target="_blank">Honorable mentions and historical titles, all genres in play</a><br /></p><p>4. <a href="http://darkforcesswing.blogspot.com/2023/12/best-of-2023-pt-iv-15-best-live-shows.html" target="_blank">Live shows</a></p><p>5. <a href="http://darkforcesswing.blogspot.com/2023/12/best-of-2023-pt-v-final-shout-outs-and.html" target="_blank">Assorted other shout-outs and a few farewells</a></p><p>Thank you for reading!</p><p>PS: As usual the archives of yearly top 10 lists — both <a href="http://darkforcesswing.blogspot.com/2018/12/year-end-top-10-lists-2005-through.html" target="_blank">all-genre</a> and <a href="http://darkforcesswing.blogspot.com/2018/12/year-end-jazz-top-10-lists-2008-through.html" target="_blank">jazz-only</a> — have been updated with the new entries.<br /></p>Hankhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12995158278551531136noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36273873.post-86734146899274817522023-12-27T00:44:00.009-05:002023-12-31T10:28:10.654-05:00best of 2023, pt. 5: final shout-outs and farewells<p>[This is part 5 of 5 of the DFSBP 2023 rundown; find the other parts <a href="http://darkforcesswing.blogspot.com/2023/12/best-of-2023-table-of-contents.html" target="_blank">here</a>.]<br /></p><p><u>A few other assorted shout-outs:</u></p><p>The best pop song I heard this year was Tyla's serene, sensuous "Water" (just <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XoiOOiuH8iI" target="_blank">listen</a>). That <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSKQRDq3RkM" target="_blank">Blink-182 ballad</a> really grew on me as well! <br /><br />The best music book I read this year was Aidan Levy's encyclopedic yet somehow compulsively readable <i>Saxophone Colossus</i>, with nods to Michael Azerrad's newly annotated version of his definitive Nirvana bio <i>Come as You Are</i>, the <a href="https://peltjazz-publishing.myshopify.com/products/griot-examining-the-lives-of-jazzs-great-storytellers-vol-3-paperback" target="_blank">latest volume</a> in Jeremy Pelt's invaluable <i>Griot</i> interview-compendium series, illuminating memoirs by <a href="https://x.com/DarkForcesSwing/status/1679303709660966913?s=20" target="_blank">Henry Threadgill</a> and <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/C0H3DjTuXTXpkdr3aYcMsGOu8Kp969tZmcIGTs0/?img_index=1" target="_blank">Geddy Lee</a>, Ray Padgett's <a href="https://x.com/DarkForcesSwing/status/1671846401519566848?s=20" target="_blank">engrossing Bob Dylan sideman tome <i>Pledging My Time</i></a>, and Alex Pappademas and Joan LeMay's hysterical and <a href="https://x.com/DarkForcesSwing/status/1656421702513876993?s=20" target="_blank">profoundly insightful</a> Steely Dan companion <i>Quantum Criminals</i>. </p><p>The best music doc I saw this year was <i><a href="https://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/max-roach-the-drum-also-waltzes-film/26469/" target="_blank">The Drum Also Waltzes</a></i>, Sam Pollard and Ben Shapiro's sensitive, unflinching chronicling of the life and work of Max Roach. <br /><br />The best music Substack I kept up with this year was <a href="https://vinniesperrazza.substack.com/" target="_blank">Vinnie Sperrazza's Chronicles</a>, clearly the product of a soul-deep devotion to drumming, jazz and the miracle of music, with nods to Jake Malooley's unreasonably entertaining Steely Dan deep dive <a href="https://expandingdan.substack.com/" target="_blank">Expanding Dan</a>, Nate Chinen's 360-degree jazz forum <a href="https://thegig.substack.com/" target="_blank">The Gig</a>, and Piotr Orlov and Steve Smith's respective indefatigable NYC-focused resources on music both live and recorded, <a href="https://dadastrain.substack.com/" target="_blank">Dada Strain</a> and <a href="https://nightafternight.substack.com/" target="_blank">Night After Night.</a> </p><p>Oh, and I wrote a lot less this year than I would have liked, but I'm really proud of this <a href="https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/the-tony-williams-lifetime-emergency/" target="_blank">Tony Williams Lifetime deep dive</a> for Pitchfork (thank you Jeremy D. Larson for the assignment!) and this Bandcamp Daily <a href="https://daily.bandcamp.com/features/demilich-nespithe-interview" target="_blank">interview with death-metal visionary and Demilich mastermind Antti Boman</a>.</p><p>***<br />Some other year-end lists/recaps I've enjoyed as I've made my way around the web in recent weeks:</p><p><a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/C1cZzBcgf3SqH10457ETRD2-uuQmiOF26bnNes0/?hl=en&img_index=1" target="_blank">John Delzoppo</a> (also mentioned above but ICYMI!)<br /><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxTpikVZcB0" target="_blank">Melanie Loves Death Metal</a><br /><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuPo1DeWb5E" target="_blank">Calder Hannan // Metal Music Theory</a><br /><a href="https://yourlastrites.com/tag/best-of-2023/" target="_blank">Last Rites crew</a><br /><a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/best-music-2023-rolling-stone-staff-albums-1234936165/" target="_blank"><i>Rolling Stone</i> crew</a><br /><a href="https://machinemusic.net/2023/11/27/machine-music-presents-the-best-metal-of-2023/" target="_blank">Machine Music</a><br /><a href="https://thegig.substack.com/p/the-year-in-jazz-954" target="_blank">Nate Chinen</a><br /><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/07/arts/music/best-jazz-albums.html" target="_blank">Giovanni Russonello</a><br /><a href="https://www.stereogum.com/2245334/the-10-best-jazz-albums-of-2023/columns/ugly-beauty/" target="_blank">Phil Freeman // Ugly Beauty</a><br /><br />***<br /><i><br /></i><u>And a moment of remembrance and tribute for a few personal heroes:</u><br /><br />Tony Oxley, a <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/C1UUAp3O7LA0JzPn8ahmIJVzJPiPXNFGhJbtbA0/" target="_blank">beacon of truth and individuality</a> who <a href="http://darkforcesswing.blogspot.com/2008/08/it-cuts-through-tony-oxley-mixtape_07.html" target="_blank">dreamed up a new universe of percussion</a>. <br /><br />Wayne Shorter, the <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-album-reviews/wayne-shorter-album-review-emanon-722856/" target="_blank">eternal explorer</a>, fun-loving enigma and composer nonpareil. <br /><br /><a href="http://darkforcesswing.blogspot.com/2023/06/peter-brotzmann-interview-2011.html" target="_blank">Peter Brötzmann</a>, the unrepentant extremist with a poet's heart.<br /><br />Robbie Robertson, the guitar-wielding bard who showed America its <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/feature/the-band-essential-albums-big-pink-bob-dylan-basement-tapes-767495/" target="_blank">deep-rooted song</a>. <br /><br /><a href="http://darkforcesswing.blogspot.com/2023/09/richard-davis.html" target="_blank">Richard Davis</a>, the greatest bassist who ever lived.</p><p>and...</p><p>Lon "Spoth" Hackett, bassist for Sulaco, a long-running Rochester outfit deeply dedicated to its depraved art, a fearless hybrid of noise rock and technical death metal. Following his death in May, they recorded the last two songs they wrote with him and released an excellent two-song single (<a href="https://sulaco.bandcamp.com/album/spoth" target="_blank">fittingly titled <i>Spoth</i></a>) in his honor. Check this one out and explore the <a href="https://sulaco.bandcamp.com/music" target="_blank">back catalog</a> as well.<br /><br />Chuck Stern, a contemporary and fellow traveler in the New York scene. I didn't know him well, but I shared bills and sat across tables from him on many occasions, and he was both a tirelessly driven creator and an unusually kind person. We will miss you, Chuck. For more on his impact and his output, see <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/C1DLMaLPQ6-/?img_index=1" target="_blank">these words</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/charlielooker/status/1737546185953427554" target="_blank">this survey</a> by his lifelong friend and collaborator Charlie Looker. <br /><br /></p>Hankhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12995158278551531136noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36273873.post-10676942238800940842023-12-27T00:43:00.024-05:002023-12-31T10:38:54.192-05:00best of 2023, pt. 3: honorable mentions and historical titles<p>[This is part 3 of 5 of the DFSBP 2023 rundown; find the other parts <a href="http://darkforcesswing.blogspot.com/2023/12/best-of-2023-table-of-contents.html" target="_blank">here</a>.]</p><p><u>10 honorable mentions</u><br /><br />Other 2023 releases — not cited anywhere in the <a href="http://darkforcesswing.blogspot.com/2023/12/best-of-2023-pt-i-prelude-and-overall.html" target="_blank">overall</a> or <a href="http://darkforcesswing.blogspot.com/2023/12/best-of-2023-pt-ii-jazz-top-11.html" target="_blank">jazz</a> rundowns — that I think are great and worth your time:</p><p><b>Autopsy, <i><a href="https://peaceville.bandcamp.com/album/ashes-organs-blood-and-crypts" target="_blank">Ashes, Organs, Blood and Crypts</a></i> (Peaceville) </b><br />A flood of death-metal legacy acts released new albums this year, including my perennial faves <a href="http://darkforcesswing.blogspot.com/2014/12/delivering-death-metal-new-cannibal.html" target="_blank">Cannibal Corpse</a>, <a href="http://darkforcesswing.blogspot.com/2011/11/in-praise-of-obituary-forgoing-space.html" target="_blank">Obituary</a>, <a href="http://darkforcesswing.blogspot.com/2013/03/here-come-tions-incantation-and-their.html" target="_blank">Incantation</a> and <a href="http://darkforcesswing.blogspot.com/2013/02/rolling-up-their-sleeves-suffocation.html" target="_blank">Suffocation</a>, but while I dug all those records and look forward to spending more time with them, from where I'm sitting, the best 2023 album by an iconic death-metal band was this one right here. Colossally heavy and fueled by the still-feral spirit of true lifers Chris Reifert, Danny Coralles and Eric Cutler. Huge kudos to these dudes for keeping the new material flowing in a nostalgia-fixated scene.<br /><br /><b>Mutoid Man, <i><a href="https://mutoidman.bandcamp.com/album/mutants" target="_blank">Mutants</a></i> (Sargent House) </b><br />As I mentioned in the prelude to this year-end survey, I really fell hard for Cave In this year, and that led to a wider exploration of Stephen Brodsky's gifts. Mutoid Man are a truly radical band, in the adolescent, dirt-bikes-and-half-pipes sense. They're fast and hyperactive and relentlessly anthemic, and they just seem to keep getting better at churning out these action-packed hardcore-meets-thrash nuggets.<br /><br /><b>Calling Hours, <a href="https://callinghours.bandcamp.com/album/say-less" target="_blank"><i>Say Less</i></a> (Revelation) </b><br />During the past few years, I've stumbled across a <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CxQNbLQrBdrgmpPMhiCoIFotQ692F3_pSKVypg0/?hl=en&img_index=1" target="_blank">handful of '90s or early-2000s underground-rock records</a> that have really turned my world around. Near or at the top of that list is Farside's <i><a href="https://farside-revelationrecords.bandcamp.com/album/the-monroe-doctrine" target="_blank">The Monroe Doctrine</a></i>, which sounds something like a post-hardcore Hüsker Dü — just the perfect combination of sophisticated songcraft and basement-show energy. And one of that band's two singer-songwriters, the immensely talented Michael "Popeye" Vogelsang, resurfaced this year on a goddamn great EP that capitalizes on all his familiar gifts. I'd recommend this to anyone who loves not just Farside, but also ALL and any other smart, sophisticated poppy-yet-punky-but-not-exactly-pop-punk rock you could name.<br /><br /><b>Zulu, <a href="https://flatspotrecords.bandcamp.com/album/fsr66-a-new-tomorrow" target="_blank"><i>A New Tomorrow</i></a> (Flatspot)</b> <br />A <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/06/arts/music/hardcore-music-diversity.html" target="_blank">true vanguard band</a>, Zulu unite the far-flung diaspora of Black music here, from chilled-out R&B to amped-up hardcore, into a glorious whole, sometimes excoriating, sometimes soothing and always riveting. <br /><br /><b>Krallice, <i><a href="https://krallice.bandcamp.com/album/mass-cathexis-2-the-kinetic-infinite" target="_blank">Mass Cathexis 2 — The Kinetic Infinite</a></i> + <i><a href="https://krallice.bandcamp.com/album/porous-resonance-abyss" target="_blank">Porous Resonance Abyss</a></i> (self-released) </b><br />Speaking of vanguard bands! I'm going to take the liberty of <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/C0UfmTmOhAXz2QIepRTsRoPsRZxuflUax9uOGM0/?hl=en" target="_blank">quoting myself here</a>, since I'm not sure I can better capture my feelings re: existing in the same timeline as this crew and their roughly biannual output: "One of the greatest feelings in contemporary music is being blindsided a couple times a year by the frenzied imagination and relentless progression of this band. 'Prolific' is one thing, but this isn’t just about quantity; it’s about raising the bar every single time. A privilege to witness/partake!" <i>Mass Cathexis 2</i> continues their wild ongoing collab with Neurosis member Dave Edwardson, while <i>The Kinetic Infinite </i>and <i>Porous Resonance Abyss</i> further their journey into the furthest reaches of mind-expanding space-prog.<br /><br /><b>Andre 3000, <i>New Blue Sun</i> (Epic)</b><br /> In some ways this one seemed more like a cultural event / discussion topic than an album. The dialogue surrounding it was <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/25/arts/music/popcast-andre-3000.html" target="_blank">lively</a>, <a href="https://www.gq.com/story/men-of-the-year-2023-andre-3000-profile" target="_blank">thought-provoking</a> and at times, as in <a href="https://harmonyholiday.substack.com/p/flute-out" target="_blank">Harmony Holiday's reading</a>, downright brilliant. And though it might be impossible to fully clear away all the context and focus on this simply as a sonic experience, no one could say that Andre 3000 and his collaborators didn't make every effort to cultivate that sort of sound-bath serenity. <br /><br /><b>Tamio Shiraishi, <i><a href="https://otoroku.bandcamp.com/album/subway-stations-in-queens" target="_blank">Subway Stations in Queens</a></i> (Otoroku) </b><br />Call me crazy but I honestly see a strong parallel between <i>New Blue Sun</i> and this, just in the sense of "a document of one man's almost worshipful devotion to his chosen instrument." In Andre's case, the flute (or, more specifically, an electronic variant thereof); in Tamio Shiraishi's case, the alto saxophone, which he employs in the most personal of ways. For years, the indefatigable avant-jazz fan, documentor, facilitator Kevin Reilly, owner of the prolific and vital <a href="https://relativepitchrecords.bandcamp.com/music" target="_blank">Relative Pitch label</a>, has been <a href="https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=tamio+shiraishi+train" target="_blank">filming Shiraishi's regular trips down into the NYC subway</a> to play his horn. From what I can tell, this isn't busking, nor is it really practice, nor is it quite performance; it seems more like communion. And the results, pairing Shiraishi's trademark piercing, fluttering squeals, which (I believe) harness a register above the horn's natural range, with the faint sounds of traffic above and the arrivals and departures of trains, are hauntingly gorgeous. The same goes for this verité audio compilation, which seems to me like a sort of ultimate document of that unique desolation that somehow manages to persist within the city's constant commotion. </p><p><b>Sunwatchers, <a href="https://sunwatchers.bandcamp.com/album/music-is-victory-over-time" target="_blank"><i>Music Is Victory Over Time</i></a> (Trouble in Mind) </b><br />Consciousness-raising punk-jazz, alternately blaring and meditative, that occasionally arrives at similar zones to the aforementioned Mendoza Hoff triumph but via a totally different path. Imagine the 1966 Albert Ayler band multiplied by early-aughts DIY shred heroes Ecstatic Sunshine, and that puts you somewhere in the ballpark of this joyful noise. I really need to see this band live, stat. (For more in this fruitful musical interzone, check out <a href="https://newfreedomsound.bandcamp.com/track/second-freedom-every-god-needs-a-witness" target="_blank">"Second Freedom: Every God Needs a Witness,"</a> the latest offering from New Freedom Sound, <a href="http://darkforcesswing.blogspot.com/2016/05/unabashed-why-i-love-major-label-post.html" target="_blank">Jawbox</a> drummer Zach Barocas' fascinating and aptly named minimalism-meets-avant-jazz-meets-ecstatic-chant ensemble.)<br /><br /><b>Imelda Marcos, <i><a href="https://imeldamarcos.bandcamp.com/album/agita" target="_blank">Agita</a></i> (self-released) </b><br />Can't remember how or where I stumbled across this four-song EP from Chicago outfit Imelda Marcos (formerly featuring a vocalist; now an instrumental two-piece), but it drew me in instantly. Burly noise-prog — emphasis on the noise — that combines the live-wire charge and DIY virtuosity of the great early-to-mid-2000s avant-rock duos (Hella definitely come to mind) with the massive asymmetrical groove of Meshuggah and sprinkles of Battles-y sleekness. Abrasive as hell yet also unabashedly fun and compulsively body-moving. I imagine that this music absolutely detonates in the live setting, and I hope to witness that go down someday, but in the meantime, this is a ripping and brutally effective release.</p><p>And lastly, <i><a href="https://newfirmament.bandcamp.com/album/significance" target="_blank">Significance</a></i>, the latest effort by my ever-brilliant/-prolific friend Nick Podgurski's shapeshifting <b>Feast of the Epiphany</b> project. Rich, moving, layered art pop, centered on Nick's exacting yet highly emotive croon — in a way some of the most conventional music he's ever made, but still embodying that otherworldly, unclassifiable quality that marks <a href="http://darkforcesswing.blogspot.com/2019/09/feast-of-epiphanys-practicing-loss.html" target="_blank">all his work</a>. Truly a must-hear. (And many thanks to my friend John D. for reminding me about this one, which got lost in the year-end shuffle — his year-end <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/C1cZzBcgf3SqH10457ETRD2-uuQmiOF26bnNes0/?hl=en&img_index=1" target="_blank">recap</a> and <a href="https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2vw6Bk81jF6yUETG17Ll4i" target="_blank">playlist</a> are always worth perusing!)<br /></p><p>***<br /></p><p><u>historical top 10 (+1)<br /></u></p><p>Here
are 10 historical titles (either reissues or newly issued material from
the vault) I loved this year, in no particular order, plus one additional plug:<br /></p><p><b>Abdul Wadud, <a href="https://abdulwadud.bandcamp.com/album/by-myself" target="_blank"><i>By Myself</i></a> (Gotta Groove)</b><br />This,
for me, is really one of the greatest albums, full stop. And this
reissue is a godsend. It was an enormous honor and pleasure to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/01/arts/music/abdul-wadud-by-myself.html" target="_blank">provide some context for the <i>Times</i></a>.<br /><b><br />Fred Anderson, <a href="https://corbettvsdempsey.bandcamp.com/album/the-milwaukee-tapes-vol-2" target="_blank"><i>The Milwaukee Tapes, Vol. 2</i> </a>(Corbett vs. Dempsey)<br /></b>Despite having been something of a <a href="http://darkforcesswing.blogspot.com/2010/07/earthbound-goodbye-fred-anderson.html" target="_blank">Fred Anderson completist</a> in the past, the first volume of <i>The Milwaukee Tapes</i>,
issued way back in 2000, flew under my radar. Thankful to have another
crack at this body of work via a very welcome sequel, because this
band, with trumpeter Billy Brimfield, bassist Larry Hayrod and drummer
Hank (later to be known as Hamid) Drake, is just pure delight. A
must-hear for any Fred fan.<br /></p><p><b>Barry Altschul, David Izenzon and Perry Robinson, <i><a href="https://nobusinessrecords.bandcamp.com/album/stop-time" target="_blank">Stop Time: Live at Prince Street, 1978</a></i> (NoBusiness)<br /></b>For
all I know, this trio only existed for one night in October 1978, but
man, do they sound great. Altschul is in his most swinging mode here,
and Robinson, always an up-for-anything improviser, sounds totally in
the zone riding the groove provided by the drummer and the brilliant,
underdocumented bassist Izenzon. This is another one, like the Leap Day Trio
disc in the jazz top 10 above, that really embodies that eternal freebop groove. Glorious
fly-on-the-wall sonics on this one too — grateful that NoBusiness saw
fit to put it out.<br /><b><br />Milford Graves with Arthur Doyle and Hugh Glover, <i><a href="https://milfordgraves-blackeditionsarchive.bandcamp.com/album/children-of-the-forest" target="_blank">Children of the Forest</a> </i>(Black Editions)<br /></b>The
Milford Graves archives are starting to bear fruit via Black Editions
and we are oh, so, lucky. This stuff, roughly contemporaneous to the
celebrated <i>Bäbi</i>, is absolutely searing, documenting the <a href="http://darkforcesswing.blogspot.com/2021/02/milford-and-chick.html" target="_blank">late genius Milford Graves</a>
both solo and alongside truly simpatico saxophone and
multi-instrumental extremists Arthur Doyle and Hugh Glover. Graves was
one of one, surely one of the most mind-blowing and spirit-lifting
percussionists the world has known, and this material captures him at
peak strength. Hear and be healed.<br /></p><p><b>Archie Shepp, <i>Derailleur: The 1964 Demo</i> (<a href="https://triplepointrecords.com/" target="_blank">Triple Point</a>)<br /></b>Who
could have known? A previously unknown-to-me — and to most of the
world? — demo recording teaming epochal saxist Archie Shepp with the
cult-favorite "School Days" band featuring Steve Lacy, Roswell Rudd,
Denis Charles and, here, bassist Arthur Harper, issued by Triple Point,
the always-revelatory free-jazz archival effort headed up by my friend
and mentor Ben Young. This sounds as exciting coming out of the speakers
as it does on paper, and that's saying a lot. <br /><b><br />Abilene, <a href="https://abilene-endeeburial.bandcamp.com/album/endee-burial" target="_blank"><i>Endee Burial</i></a> (Landland Colportage)<br /></b>For
me, Hoover were one of the great bands of the past 30 years, and though
it's a shame they were short-lived, it's a blessing that their demise
spawned so much excellent music, from the Crownhate Ruin, whose own <a href="https://newatlantisrecords.bandcamp.com/album/singles-and-early-recordings-1994-1995-lp" target="_blank">elusive, explosive early material</a> saw low-key reissue last year, to the outstanding <a href="https://bcoredisc.bandcamp.com/album/the-aesthetics-of-no-drag" target="_blank">Regulator Watts</a>
and later Abilene, a slower-burning but still enthralling outfit
fronted by Alex Dunham. This box reissues their entire body of work, and
its mix of dubby, near-abstract drift and incendiary
post-hardcore-meets-postbop (dig the trumpet work by Hoover/Crownhate
bass master <a href="http://darkforcesswing.blogspot.com/2007/08/grateful-fred.html" target="_blank">Fred Erskine</a>) retains its mystery and steely edge.<br /></p><p><b>Derek Bailey and Paul Motian, <i><a href="https://frozenreeds.bandcamp.com/album/duo-in-concert" target="_blank">Duo in Concert</a> </i>(Frozen Reeds) <br /></b>Another
"Who knew?" windfall. The feel of the centerpiece concert, recorded in
Groningen, the Netherlands, in 1990, is charmingly choppy, with Motian
having no problem matching Bailey's signature stubborn angularity, and
refreshingly subtle, with neither player seeming to feel much need to
generate climaxes so much as a continuous unhurried flow. (While
we're on the subject of Bailey, don't miss a new Otoroku reissue of <a href="https://evanparkerotoroku.bandcamp.com/album/topography-of-the-lungs" target="_blank"><i>The Topography of the Lungs</i></a>, the guitarist's stupendously ornery 1970 meeting with Evan Parker and Han Bennink.)<br /><b><br />John Fahey, <a href="https://thejohnfahey.bandcamp.com/album/proofs-refutations" target="_blank"><i>Proofs and Refutations</i></a> (Drag City)<br /></b>John
Fahey is a musical hero of mine, and I love pretty much every period of
his work. The '90s stuff, marked by outstanding Table of the Elements
releases like <i>Womblife</i> and <i>Georgia Stomps, Atlanta Struts and Other
Contemporary Dance Favorites</i> is <a href="http://darkforcesswing.blogspot.com/2006/12/late-transmissions-from-my-late-hero.html" target="_blank">especially out there and still underrated</a>, so this compilation of self-recorded material from that era
is most welcome. It's most definitely a mixed bag, featuring both peculiar vocal experiments (some sounding a lot like Fahey's attempt at
throat-singing) and fascinating electroacoustic collages,
pairing that signature Fahey guitar sound with oddball soundscapes
and/or corrosive distortion. A portrait of a endlessly curious and
uncompromising mind. <br /><b><br />John Coltrane with Eric Dolphy, <i>Evenings at the Village Gate</i> (Impulse)<br /></b>The
early (i.e., pre–Jimmy Garrison) Coltrane quartet, plus Eric Dolphy,
live in summer '61, a few months before the band's legendary Vanguard
recordings. It's easy to become a little desensitized to the constant
stream of archival Trane, but any quality time spent with this will quickly remedy that. Elvin's drums are especially present
on this one. Crank up "Impressions" and let it rip.<br /></p><p><b>Masayuki Takayanagi New Direction Unit, <i><a href="https://masayukitakayanagi.bandcamp.com/album/mass-hysterism-in-another-situation" target="_blank">Mass Hysterism in Another Situation</a> </i>(Black Editions)<br /></b>To quote a <a href="https://youtu.be/xWAb2SCxf6M?si=4JKtBTYHe5ZaakDu&t=746" target="_blank">favorite <i>Mr. Show</i> sketch</a>,
alright, buckle the fuck up... This is simply the greatest noise album
that I personally have ever heard, sounding even more electrifying to me
now than it did back in 2010 when I first <a href="http://darkforcesswing.blogspot.com/2010/07/crazy-for-you-takayanagis-mass-terpiece.html" target="_blank">enthused about it here</a>. A howling wind tunnel of relentlessly pounding drums and shrieking feedback. As chaotic as the Wadud is serene.</p><p>Lastly, the <b>Bill Laswell</b> <a href="https://billlaswell.bandcamp.com/community" target="_blank">Bassmatter subscription on Bandcamp</a> is very much worth your time, offering an enormous trove of unreleased archival material from his countless projects (including unheard Last Exit!) and assisting a wildly prolific visionary in a time of need. <br /></p>Hankhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12995158278551531136noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36273873.post-26121441091185418172023-12-27T00:43:00.022-05:002023-12-31T09:47:58.361-05:00best of 2023, pt. 1: prelude and overall top 10 (+1)<p>[This is part 1 of 5 of the DFSBP 2023 rundown; find the other parts <a href="http://darkforcesswing.blogspot.com/2023/12/best-of-2023-table-of-contents.html" target="_blank">here</a>.] <br /></p><p>Thank you as always if you've found your way to this obscure corner of the web. Obviously this is not exactly an active blog, but I keep it up and running so as to provide an open forum for (extremely) occasional posts like the following. I deeply appreciate any attention you've seen fit to bestow. Before we proceed further, a quick note that I am posting a fair amount <a href="https://www.instagram.com/darkforcesswing/" target="_blank">on Instagram</a> these days, after having mostly put my Twitter account on ice. Find me there if so inclined!<br /></p><p>Just to get right to the point here, the most impactful music of 2023, for me, arrived via an album and a live show, and if you take away nothing else from the below, I'd urge you to make note of these.</p><p>First, <a href="https://richardinmanmusic.bandcamp.com/album/inman" target="_blank"><i>Inman</i></a>, a new release by the Alberta singer-songwriter <b>Richard Inman</b>. I can't remember exactly where I first stumbled across Inman's name, several years back, but I'm pretty sure it was in a year-end list on a metal blog, which makes sense since Inman has ties to the heavy-music underground. (Michigan label Bindrune Recordings recently <a href="https://shop.bindrunerecordings.com/products/richard-inman-the-early-albums-pre-order" target="_blank">reissued his first two albums</a>, with artwork by Austin Lunn, the mastermind of renowned black-metal outfit Panopticon, and I think it may have been a Lunn-list that originally tipped me off.) </p><p>Anyway, Inman is not a metal artist; he's a singer-songwriter, in a mode that could be called country, though that maybe ought to just be called classic. I can't really overstate the degree to which these songs have arrested me, left me stunned with their bleak beauty, their plainspoken poetry, their harsh truth. This is ancient-feeling balladeer kind of stuff, one man with a guitar and his guileless yet richly expressive voice, a mountain of regrets and a closet full of demons. The themes of intemperance, lost love, the rambling life are ageless, but the details fixed in a specific time and place (see the way the narrator in opening track "Nothing More Than Nothing" describes a harrowing life spent "driving tow truck for the county"). Hard to say how much of this is autobiographical, though Inman gave a hint when he released this album, exclusively via Bandcamp, back in March. "This is a limited digital release available for the month of March 2023!" he wrote at the time. "These songs range from 6 or 7 years to a few months old. I don't remember a lot of them and a lot are just to [sic] personal to play live. Fill your boots while you can folks!" </p><p>True to his word, Inman pulled the album down afterward, for a period of months, before recently making it available again. During the time that it was unavailable (i.e., to anyone who hadn't purchased it during the initial offering), I made a point of sending the songs to a few close friends. It was a constant frustration that the music wasn't streaming, because I wanted to tip off a lot of other folks as well. Anyway, all I can say is, be grateful it's back, and, if the above sounds at all intriguing to you, I urge you to buy it immediately before it vanishes again. Inman put out two other releases this year, a "proper" album, streaming and all, called <i><a href="https://richardinmanmusic.bandcamp.com/album/life-without-your-love" target="_blank">Life Without Your Love</a></i> and an EP called <i><a href="https://richardinmanmusic.bandcamp.com/album/hell-of-a-daydream" target="_blank">Hell of Daydream</a></i>, and I very much enjoy both, as I've enjoyed the past couple Inman full-lengths, but there is something special about <i>Inman</i>. I'm no expert in country music, or I might have an apt comparison closer at hand (I did throw out Townes Van Zandt and Springsteen's <i>Nebraska</i> as touchstones when recommending the album to friends), but the truth is that this is some of the most resonant singer-songwriter music I've ever heard. It feels like these songs have always been there. I've been learning to sing and play a couple of them in recent weeks (on piano, in simplified form) and I may just continue through the whole album — nothing fancy, just a few chords, cyclical forms, but there is so, so much here. This isn't going to be a record you throw on in the background — believe me, I've tried, and more than a few times found myself choking up. This is the real stuff.</p><p>Second, a live set by <b>Botch</b> at New York's Webster Hall back in October. I've said it before in various places, but I unreservedly celebrate the ongoing wave of band reunions sweeping the underground. (Can't wait for Orchid in May!) One big reason is that I missed a lot of these bands completely the first time around, or simply didn't give them their proper due. I had heard <i>We Are the Romans</i>, Botch's final and most celebrated full-length, a few times over the years. I liked it, but I honestly didn't think much of it. But my interest was re-piqued when the Seattle quartet reemerged last year with their first new song in 20 years, and the metal/hardcore/etc. community went absolutely berserk. So when they announced a reunion tour earlier this year, after having initially stipulated that they would *not be officially reviving the band, I decided to grab myself a ticket and see what the fuss was about. </p><p>It turns out that the fuss was about one of the most intense and inventive heavy bands of our time. As I <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/Czh_OtQN8gwxYLT8bTpCzzlewdZcrXXqqsWF1Y0/?img_index=1" target="_blank">wrote after the show</a>, I'm honestly not sure I've ever witnessed a tighter band. An absolutely staggering show, and I had their records on repeat for weeks after. It turns out that their 1998 debut, <i>America Nervoso</i>, is as good if not better than <i>Romans</i>. These guys were/are absolute surgeons of controlled chaos — surely akin to contemporaries and fellow innovators like Dillinger Escape Plan, but with a gravity and grace that I'd also liken to Meshuggah. (Could it be that Botch are actually a better band than either of these other two, all factors considered? I'm not making any proclamations, but a case could be made...) I'm honestly a little embarrassed that I wasn't familiar enough with them at the time to properly situate them in my personal math-rock pantheon, as <a href="http://darkforcesswing.blogspot.com/2010/12/math-rock-dfsbp-mixtape.html" target="_blank">compiled here back in 2010</a>, but hey, you assimilate knowledge as you're able. I'm really not sure what the future holds for Botch, who recently wrapped a string of U.S. dates, but if you get the chance to see them at any point in the future, you must seize it. And I would say the same of <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CyH9zDxs-B7NIcKyyuSUGXKbi3Oi8b4dmjKVkQ0/" target="_blank"><b>Deadguy</b></a>, a roughly contemporary band currently gigging regularly here and abroad as part of their own recent-ish reunion. I likewise missed them completely during their initial run but have since come to understand why their lone LP, 1995's <i>Fixation on a Co-Worker</i>, is likewise considered a classic of deranged hardcore-adjacent heaviness. </p><p> *** <br /></p><p>And with those marquee mentions out of the way, on to some more celebration and acknowledgement of the music that mattered to me this year, with a few caveats attached. I won't belabor the point, but as I <a href="http://darkforcesswing.blogspot.com/2021/12/2021-in-review.html" target="_blank">disclaimer-ed here</a> two years ago, keeping up with new music in an orderly way during the past 12 months has been, for me, impossible, amid other commitments, priorities and endeavors, including but not limited to a new full-time job and a <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CytG4amOQbGjbAEC0P8rFJUWdPMgNDyLTNHx300/" target="_blank">move upstate</a>. I sometimes agonize over this shortcoming, mainly because I don't take it for granted that various parties (labels, publicists and artists themselves) still go out of their way to share new music with me. For that I say THANK YOU. I will always want to stay as current as I can, and though I'm never going to be able to make time for everything, I remain as attentive as I can be. By now my zones of taste and preference are pretty well established on the record, so I make no claim to anything remotely resembling comprehensiveness. I check out what I check out, along with the generous amount of older music that I'm constantly making my way through. (This year I've had meaningful sustained moments with, among others, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CyKUavYN-_1hrLD8CtIJyCZPzmAseTiU7EVNEU0/" target="_blank">Lungfish</a>, Cave In — <i>Heavy Pendulum</i>, goddamn! <i>Jupiter</i>, god<i>damn!! —</i> <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/C0vEXwbtMSoN0lUuhe4bmnnkJXWIzBb4dx-BII0/" target="_blank">Hammerhead</a>/<a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/C04DuO0uOdRIlLbVjrdq4yLDuuaZq3naYbx3lc0/" target="_blank">Vaz</a> — speaking of, don't sleep on this <a href="https://gaswar.bandcamp.com/album/girl-vanishes-on-way-to-jive-club-2" target="_blank">very cool quasi-archival Gaswar release</a>, a recently augmented '90s recording that pairs the Vaz brotherhood with former Melvins/Cows bassist Kevin Rutmanis — the Fucking Champs and veteran prog-doom power trio <b>Stinking Lizaveta</b>, who have a new album out, <a href="https://stinkinglizavetaofficial.bandcamp.com/album/anthems-and-phantoms" target="_blank"><i>Anthems and Phantoms</i></a>, that's as gritty, primal, tough, imaginative and straight-up life-affirming as anything they've ever put out; strongly recommended, along with <a href="https://stinkinglizavetaofficial.bandcamp.com/music" target="_blank">every other record in their robust catalog</a>.) And some of the new music makes its way through and actually achieves some sort escape velocity, transitioning in the rarest of cases from "I'm digging this in the moment" to "Wow, this is actually becoming part of the regular rotation..." Often, this year, live music was where it was at for me this year (more on that below), not to mention playing music myself, both alone and with new collaborators. But there were exceptions. So here's a rundown (and see above for the table of contents, which will guide you to the various components of this survey), with Bandcamp links where applicable. Hope you find something you dig in here! See you again here same time next year if not sooner.<br /></p><p>***<br /></p><p><u>overall top 10 (+1)*<br /></u></p><p><b>1. Richard Inman, <a href="https://richardinmanmusic.bandcamp.com/album/inman" target="_blank"><i>Inman</i></a> (self-released)<br />2. Scream, <i><a href="https://scream.bandcamp.com/album/dc-special" target="_blank">DC Special</a></i> (Dischord)<br />3. Foo Fighters, <i>But Here We Are</i> (Roswell) <br />4. Queens of the Stone Age, <i><a href="https://qotsa.bandcamp.com/album/in-times-new-roman" target="_blank">In Times New Roman…</a> </i>(Matador)<br />5. Mendoza Hoff Revels, <i><a href="https://mendozahoffrevels.bandcamp.com/album/echolocation" target="_blank">Echolocation</a></i> (AUM Fidelity)<br />6. Khanate, <a href="https://khanate.bandcamp.com/album/to-be-cruel" target="_blank"><i>To Be Cruel</i></a> (Sacred Bones)<br />7. Jeromes Dream, <i><a href="https://jeromesdream.bandcamp.com/album/the-gray-in-between" target="_blank">The Gray in Between</a></i> (Iodine)<br />8. John Zorn, <i>Full Fathom Five</i> (Tzadik)<br />9. James Brandon Lewis, <a href="https://jamesbrandonlewis.bandcamp.com/album/eye-of-i" target="_blank"><i>Eye of I</i></a> (Anti-)<br />10. Tomb Mold, <a href="https://20buckspin.bandcamp.com/album/the-enduring-spirit" target="_blank"><i>The Enduring Spirit</i></a> (20 Buck Spin)</b></p><p><b> (</b>*After revisiting it this week, I've decided that <b>Metallica's <i>72 Seasons</i></b> deserves a place among this top tier, so I'm bumping it up from its original spot on the <a href="http://darkforcesswing.blogspot.com/2023/12/best-of-2023-pt-iii-honorable-mentions.html" target="_blank">honorable mentions list</a> and expanding this list to 11. See blurb below.)<br /></p><p>Hopefully I've already made an ample case for the Inman. Beyond that:</p><p>The <b>Scream</b> album was a real surprise. They've always been a band I've been more aware of than actually familiar with. But during a recent Dischord catalog dive, undertaken for this <a href="https://theshfl.com/guide/dischord-records" target="_blank">survey I was honored to put together for Shfl</a> and also related to purely-for-pleasure listening, this one hit me hard. My friend and consummate Dischord scholar Joe aptly called this a sort of <i>Hackney Diamonds</i> for the D.C./Dischord scene, and I think what he was getting at is this idea of a celebration/summation of a certain set of musical values, undertaken by scene vets with the help of old compatriots. While the Stones album — which I also really dug!— only features a handful of guests, <i>DC Special</i> is a true ensemble-cast effort, teaming the classic Scream lineup of Pete and Franz Stahl, Skeeter Thompson and drummer Kent Stax (who sadly died of cancer a couple months before the album's release) with a bunch of their pals from the Dischord community. What really sells the whole concept, though, is the strength and variety of the material, which roams from hardcore to reggae to straight-up anthemic rock & roll in a charmingly care-free way. It's a great-sounding record too, and no surprise, since it's one of the last to be recorded at the longtime Arlington, VA, location of Dischord's own sonic temple, Inner Ear, by the great Don Zientara. Just a terrific listen, with high replay value.</p><p>Interestingly, one of the aforementioned guests on <i>DC Special</i> is none other than Dave Grohl, whose brief stint in Scream would help launch him to eventual omnipresent rock stardom. I haven't always vibed with the <b>Foo Fighters</b>, but that's changed in a major way in recent years. At this point, I completely get why they're as big as they are, and celebrate them as one of the great rock bands of the era. This record, clearly informed by the shocking and sudden 2022 death of Taylor Hawkins (and the lesser-publicized passing of Grohl's mom), stands with the best of the back catalog. These songs just effortlessly work, both in terms of emotional punch and shout-along catchiness. </p><p>Another band Dave Grohl has collaborated with over the years comes in at #3. There's really nothing especially new going on here, but I've been a huge <b>QOTSA</b> fan for years, and this record only sustains and amplifies my conviction that they too are among the best we have. This one took a sec to grow on me but really clicked into place after I caught them live over the summer. No one writes rock songs as stylish, sexy and stealthily devastating as Josh Homme, and there are, I think, some future classics here, including "Paper Machete," "Emotion Sickness" and "Carnavoyeur."</p><p>The <b>Mendoza Hoff Revels </b>album is like catnip for me, a disciple of the far-reaching, ahem, <a href="https://heavymetalbebop.tumblr.com/" target="_blank">Heavy Metal Bebop</a> aesthetic. But beyond my natural disposition to love a record that combines stomping, distorted crunch with anything-goes improv, this is just extremely well done, with memorable compositions balancing out gloriously unbridled blowing, and highlighted by what may be the production job of the year (by Jim Clouse at Brooklyn's Park West Studios): warm, massive and gritty as hell. I'm sure that, like me, if you've been following these extremely accomplished and prolific players during the past 10/15 years or so, you weren't surprised in the least that Ava Mendoza, Devin Hoff, Ches Smith (note that Smith and Hoff's long-running duo Good for Cows feels like a key antecedent of this project; check 2010's <i>Audumla</i> especially) and James Brandon Lewis came up with something this awesome. Note: Caught a killer live set by the Revels earlier this month, and you'll have another chance at Winter Jazzfest in Jan!</p><p>Ah, <b>Khanate</b>... Think of their surprise return this way: A new installment of a classic horror-movie franchise drops out of nowhere, and manages to scare the shit out of you all over again despite the fact that you basically know exactly what's coming. This band is simply one of the great extreme art projects of our time, in any medium, and we're so lucky they're back at it. </p><p>All the screamo masters are reuniting, and I am, as they say, here for it. As with Botch above, it's been a thrill to catch all these bands within the past few years (Saetia, City of Caterpillar, Gospel, pg. 99, etc.) and finally grasp what the fuss was all about. <b>Jeromes Dream</b> are the ones leading the pack for me, not least because I think their new music is excellent. <i>The Gray in Between</i> is, simply, a symphony of euphoric harshness, not to mention genuinely effective songcraft, that demonstrates why JD are one of the most revered acts in their wing of the underground. Kudos to them for really anteing up with their reunion and meaningfully adding to their formidable legacy. Note: <a href="https://x.com/DarkForcesSwing/status/1665016675371024388?s=20" target="_blank">Caught them</a> for the second time this year, with the demented and arresting Elizabeth Colour Wheel, and they're a monumentally heavy, near-overwhelming live presence. See them on their 2024 run if you can! </p><p>Like many, I'm still reeling from the Great Tzadik Streaming Drop of 2023, which really felt major, in the sense of reminding us all just how much there is to savor in that enormous catalog. You could obviously spend years sifting through the <b>John Zorn</b> offerings alone, but amid the flood, don't sleep on the new releases. Full Fathom Five is one of <i>three</i> new full-lengths this year by the band known as Incerto (featuring guitarist Julian Lage and bassist Jorge Roeder from the current Masada lineup, as well as pianist Brian Marsella and drummer Ches Smith, making his second appearance on this here top 10 — check him out as well on the ass-kicking latest from Ceramic Dog, <i><a href="https://marcribot.bandcamp.com/album/connection" target="_blank">Connection</a></i>, which, as I belatedly catch up to it now, I'm realizing may be something of an avant-rock masterpiece…), and it's just masterful — a real mood, as they say, a sort of mystical chamber-prog-postbop hybrid inspired by the night imagery found in Shakespeare's plays. Lovely and mysterious and at times sumptuously spooky, with plenty of room for these virtuosos to let loose.</p><p>Keeping up with <b>James Brandon Lewis</b>' output is likewise a full-time pursuit these days, and it seems like every year, one or more of his records, whether as leader or sideman, ends up in strong contention for me. Obviously he's a huge asset to <i>Echolocation</i> above, and of his two major leader statements of the year (the other being his Mahalia Jackson tribute <i>For Mahalia, With Love</i>), this one also hit me hard. JBL has led too many noteworthy power trios to catalog (for example, the one with Luke Stewart and Trae Crudup featured on 2016's <i>No Filter</i>, or the one with Josh Werner and Chad Taylor that I caught this past spring as part of a perfectly matched double bill with the Messthetics), and here comes another one on his Anti- debut, with Christopher Hoffman on cello and Max Jaffe on drums. While the other JBL three-pieces I've heard have focused more on funky drive, this one achieves a deep cyclical flow that works just as well in or out of metric time. But without slighting the vital contributions of the supporting players here — Hoffman, Jaffe, cornetist Kirk Knuffke and on the roof-raising finale, the Messthetics themselves, i.e., Fugazi brothers-in-rhythm Joe Lally and Brendan Canty and polymathic shredder Anthony Pirog — it's the focus and directness of JBL's writing/bandleading here that makes the album great. His compositions have the strength and conviction of mantras and the stickiness of great folk songs, potent enough to gather steam over the duration of pieces like "Within You Are Answers" and "The Blues Still Blossoms," where the band keeps passing the themes around, lifting them higher and higher (with the same being true of the covers here, most notably a stirring version of Donny Hathaway's "Someday We'll All Be Free"). As with the Inman album at the top of this list, many of the tracks here feel like instant canon to me.</p><p>As anyone with even a passing interest in extreme metal knows, we're in the midst of a death-metal renaissance, and for me (and I'm hardly alone!), <b>Tomb Mold</b> are one of a handful of bands who are really leading the charge. Their evolution from a more stripped-down, meat-and-potatoes sound to something more high-tech across their first three albums is well-documented, but they really took a quantum leap on <i>The Enduring Spirit</i>. I honestly wasn't sure how much I liked the change during my early spins of this record (honestly I missed what guitarist Derrick Vella <a href="https://mystificationzine.com/2019/07/08/on-the-impermanence-of-being-amidst-the-celestial-rebirth-of-tomb-mold-with-derrick-vella-2019-interview/" target="_blank">once called</a> "the more ignorant sections of our repertoire," referring to their early penchant for bludgeoning riffs that slammed you around like some kind of Cro-Magnon wrestler). But I quickly realized I needed to cut loose the baggage of my expectations because these guys were so clearly on a mission. Yes, this album is relentless fussy and detail-packed but when it wants to be, it's simultaneously as aggressive as anything they've done before. This is not one I'm throwing on every day, but every time I do, I'm sort of shocked and delighted that a genre I've been following for 30+ years just keeps hurtling onward into the future. IMO, kind of impossible to sit with this one and not come away with the notion that death metal is one of the great musical frontiers of our time, where some of the brightest minds are dreaming up boundless worlds of wonder. Inspiring as hell.</p><p>I am and will always
be a <b>Metallica</b> die-hard, and I love the old and new stuff alike. I
really think they've been on a roll of late, and this one might be even
better than 2016's <i><a href="http://darkforcesswing.blogspot.com/2016/12/best-of-2016.html" target="_blank">Hardwired… to Self-Destruct</a></i>,
which I loved. I didn't return to this one quite as much as I thought I
would throughout the year, which is really the only reason it didn't
<i>originally</i> find its way to my top 10, but now that I'm revisiting it, I'm realizing that it absolutely deserves mention among my other favorites of the year. There are some truly
great, worthy Metallica songs on this thing ("You Must Burn!," "Shadows
Follow," the title track) and at this point in their career, that's
really saying something. </p><p>To elaborate a little more on what I love about this album: As with <i>Hardwired</i> and <i>Death Magnetic</i>, the arrangements here can sometimes feel overstuffed, the songs creeping up around (or past) the six-minute mark when four minutes might have sufficed, but I'm starting to see that move back toward <i>…And Justice for All</i>–ish maximalism after the leaner style of the <i>Black Album</i> and <i>Load/ReLoad </i>as a real asset. What I hear in that tendency now is a reflection of the band's sheer joy in songwriting at this stage in their career. They just love stacking up riffs and parts and creating these massive Erector-set constructions that while sometimes a little unwieldy, always find some kind of center in a big chorus hook or fist-pumping riff. Metallica absolutely do not need to making new music at all, let alone putting this much care and effort into their songwriting. Even if I disagree with them completely, I obviously understand on some level why many purists have long ago written this band off, <i>but</i> as a fan of 30+ years, it's almost impossible for me to imagine hearing <i>72 Seasons </i>and not feeling the presence of some of that old magic. To drill down a little: for me, this record is really the best of both Metallica worlds — the catchiness of the Black Album plus the complexity of the baroque thrash years. Not to mention the fact that I think James Hetfield is singing as well as he has on record since the early '90s. There's really not one song I don't dig (right now feeling the mid-album twofer of "Crown of Barbed Wire" and "Chasing Light). Looking forward to many more spins of this one! <br /></p>Hankhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12995158278551531136noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36273873.post-85054465462903187732023-12-27T00:43:00.015-05:002023-12-27T01:05:49.508-05:00best of 2023, pt. 4: 15 best live shows<p>[This is part 4 of 5 of the DFSBP 2023 rundown; find the other parts <a href="http://darkforcesswing.blogspot.com/2023/12/best-of-2023-table-of-contents.html" target="_blank">here</a>.]</p><p><u>15 great live shows:<br /></u><br />For these, where applicable, I'm linking night-of/morning-after commentary/documentation in lieu of fresh commentary, as my memory is not what it used to be! (Note: I've omitted any gigs mentioned in passing in the companion album survey.) <br /><br /><b><a href="https://x.com/DarkForcesSwing/status/1616464973282017291?s=20" target="_blank">David Murray Quartet</a> with Marta Sanchez, Luke Stewart and Kassa Overall @ Village Vanguard (Jan. 19) <br /><br /><a href="https://x.com/DarkForcesSwing/status/1618263285475987460?s=20" target="_blank">Ron Carter Foursight Quartet</a> with Jimmy Greene, Renee Rosnes and Payton Crossley @ Blue Note (Jan. 24) <br /><br />Everyone Asked About You @ Numero Twenty fest; Palace Theatre, L.A. (Feb. 20)</b><br /> Loved catching all the heavy hitters and old faves at this fest, including the outstanding Rex and Karate, who I'd seen in more intimate confines the prior year, the explosive Unwound and the splendidly grooving Ui, but honestly EAAY, a recently reunited quartet from Little Rock, Arkansas, came along and stole the show with their ragged, bittersweet, heart-rendingly emotive sound. This was really magical to witness and I became an instant convert. See them live if at all possible and check out the <a href="https://everyoneasked.bandcamp.com/album/paper-airplanes-paper-hearts" target="_blank">Numero discography release</a>. (This <a href="https://www.washedupemo.com/news/2023/23/210-chris-sheppard-everyone-asked-about-you" target="_blank">Washed Up Emo podcast episode</a> is a great companion listen.) <br /><br /><b>Afterbirth + Thaetas @ Amityville Music Hall (March 3) </b><br />A knockout bill of futuristic death metal. Two tremendous live bands that you should catch any chance you get. See also Afterbirth's bizarre, diverse and gloriously unfettered new opus <i><a href="https://afterbirthnydeathmetal.bandcamp.com/album/in-but-not-of" target="_blank">In But Not Of</a></i>. <br /><br /><b>Brandee Younger Trio @ Public Records (April 7) </b><br />Pure <a href="https://x.com/DarkForcesSwing/status/1644674618760863746?s=20" target="_blank">aural luxury</a>. <br /><br /><b><a href="https://x.com/DarkForcesSwing/status/1669407945405153283?s=20" target="_blank">Sprain</a> @ RecordBar; Kansas City, MO (June 14)</b><br /> Punishing avant-garde extremity. Major bummer that this band decided to call it quits in 2023, shortly after unveiling their latest severe, unsparing art-rock dispatch <i>The Lamb as Effigy</i>. <br /><br /><b><a href="https://x.com/DarkForcesSwing/status/1677888923526209536?s=20" target="_blank">Misfits</a> @ Prudential Center (July 8)</b><br />One of the great rock songbooks, blown up to arena size. Glenn's pipes are once again in top form after a few iffy years. <br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/Cv1KJYZNu_eNDXG3uBpq4ag0gB5jlktrR6HQqc0/?hl=en&img_index=1" target="_blank">Bill Frisell</a> with Greg Tardy, Gerald Clayton and Johnathan Blake @ Vanguard (Aug. 11) <br /><br /><a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CwKy--4Jo8_DhQK50WJaEk61HhHvbO0iNRoc3s0/?hl=en" target="_blank">Shakti</a> @ Capitol Theater; Port Chester, NY (Aug. 19) <br /><br /><a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CwWdQStLCPdwwSlNrr-YNcNnRayEuOz9EQcQHo0/?hl=en" target="_blank">Joe Lovano's Trio Tapestry</a> with Marilyn Crispell, Carmen Castaldi @ Village Vanguard (Aug 24) <br /></b><br /><b>Ex Hex @ Colony; Woodstock, NY (Sept. 5)</b><br /> Fired-up rock & roll excellence from the legendary Mary Timony & Co. <br /><br /><b>Bonnie "Prince" Billy @ Tubby's; Kingston, NY (Sept. 29) </b><br />A roller-coaster opening to the fifth-anniversary festivities at Tubby's, in which Bonnie's Friday headlining appearance was initially canceled due to inclement weather. Miraculously, he pushed through, landing in NYC and making the journey up north to Kingston, arriving sometime around midnight to offer up a masterful solo acoustic set to an intimate crowd. <br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/Cx2vCLPOSgMy17NdXZa0-oP1GurMT98ZTeU-Tg0/?hl=en&img_index=1" target="_blank">On the Might of Princes</a> @ Amityville Music Hall (Sept. 30)<br /><br /><a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CyiV4p4O1yTZi1RPjKBvWce_8mXdVWLaGEZHW80/?hl=en&img_index=1" target="_blank">Messa + Maggot Heart</a> @ Le Poisson Rouge (Oct. 17) <br /><br /><a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CzAfckrNm2_IrK2uVQJMQ39Hgyjgr2x3oWHax80/?hl=en" target="_blank">Trevor Watts with Jamie Harris</a> @ Tubby's (Oct. 29) </b><br />Since moving upstate, I've been reaping the benefits of my friend <a href="https://www.cliffordallen.me/" target="_blank">Clifford Allen</a>'s excellent Hudson Valley show curation / scene cultivation via his So, What Do You Think? series. This edition with former Spontaneous Music Ensemble saxist Trevor Watts was especially cool, but I also loved the <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CxLFv1OLzCKwFqVanQ_8VQtJDSTT3SA9Y254SY0/?hl=en&img_index=1" target="_blank">Gold Sparkle Band / Cisco Bradley edition</a> from September. (And big congrats to Clifford as well on the 2023 publication of his excellent Matthew Shipp study, <i><a href="https://roguart.com/product/singularity-codex-matthew-shipp-on-rogueart/222" target="_blank">The Singularity Codex</a></i>!)<br /></p>Hankhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12995158278551531136noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36273873.post-73392957715888560152023-12-27T00:43:00.014-05:002023-12-27T00:55:07.214-05:00best of 2023, pt. 2: jazz top 11<p>[This is part 2 of 5 of the DFSBP 2023 rundown; find the other parts <a href="http://darkforcesswing.blogspot.com/2023/12/best-of-2023-table-of-contents.html" target="_blank">here</a>.]</p><p><u>jazz top 11</u></p><p>I'm going to get a little creative
with the math here, due to the simple fact that I submitted my ballot
for the annual Francis Davis Jazz Critics Poll (results of which should be online in early January) before I really got my
ears around James Brandon Lewis' <i>Eye of I</i>, cited and discussed in the overall top 10 above. If I <i>had</i> spent more time with that album
before the deadline, I would have absolutely made space for it, probably
in the #2 spot, but… that is not what transpired, revealing yet again
the fundamental arbitrariness of listmaking! So, not wanting to penalize
any of the 2023 jazz albums I <i>did</i> initially choose, I'm just going to list 11 albums here and call it a day. </p><p><b>1. Mendoza Hoff Revels, <a href="https://mendozahoffrevels.bandcamp.com/album/echolocation" target="_blank"><i>Echolocation</i></a> (Aum Fidelity)<br />2. James Brandon Lewis, <i><a href="https://jamesbrandonlewis.bandcamp.com/album/eye-of-i" target="_blank">Eye of I</a> </i>(Anti-)<br />3. Christian McBride’s New Jawn, <a href="https://christianmcbride.bandcamp.com/album/prime" target="_blank"><i>Prime</i></a> (Mack Avenue)<br />4. Joe Farnsworth, <a href="https://joefarnsworth.bandcamp.com/album/in-what-direction-are-you-headed" target="_blank"><i>In What Direction Are You Headed?</i></a> (Smoke Sessions)<br />5. John Zorn, <i>Full Fathom Five</i> (Tzadik)<br />6. Jason Moran, <i><a href="https://jasonmoran.bandcamp.com/album/from-the-dancehall-to-the-battlefield" target="_blank">From the Dancehall to the Battlefield</a></i> (Yes)<br />7. The Schrimps, <a href="https://jimblackintakt.bandcamp.com/album/aint-no-saint" target="_blank"><i>Ain’t No Saint</i></a> (Intakt)<br />8. Ambrose Akinmusire, <i><a href="https://ambroseakinmusire.bandcamp.com/album/beauty-is-enough" target="_blank">Beauty Is Enough</a> </i>(Origami Harvest)<br />9. Kate Gentile, <a href="https://kategentile.bandcamp.com/album/find-letter-x" target="_blank"><i>Find Letter X</i></a> (Pi)<br />10. jaimie branch, <a href="https://intlanthem.bandcamp.com/album/fly-or-die-fly-or-die-fly-or-die-world-war" target="_blank"><i>Fly or Die Fly or Die Fly or Die ((world war))</i></a> (International Anthem)<br />11. Leap Day Trio, <a href="https://littleimusic.bandcamp.com/album/leap-day-trio-live-at-the-cafe-bohemia" target="_blank"><i>Live at the Cafe Bohemia</i></a> (Giant Step Arts / Little (i) Music)</b></p><p>We'll
leave aside the Mendoza Hoff, the JBL and the Zorn since they're dealt
with in the overall top 10, as well as the McBride, which I discussed in passing in this
<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/20/arts/music/christian-mcbride.html" target="_blank"><i>New York Times</i> profile</a>
of the bass maestro earlier in the year. (Is New Jawn his best band
ever? From my vantage point, yes!) Regarding the other picks:</p><p>Each
year, Joe Farnsworth looks more and more like one of the jazz scene's
sturdiest anchors, a true ambassador of goodwill and precious
passed-down-from-the-masters, learned-on-the-gig knowledge (check out
this <a href="https://londonjazznews.com/2023/05/22/mondays-with-morgan-joe-farnsworth-new-album-in-what-direction-are-you-headed/comment-page-1/" target="_blank">great Farnsworth interview</a>
by Morgan Enos for more on all of that). What's cool about this album
is that it enriches and subtly complicates his typical role of Mr.
Straight Ahead. It's a Joe Farnsworth record, so obviously it swings
like mad, but the variety of the material and ingenious combination of
players (hard to think of another place where you'd hear Immanuel
Wilkins, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Julius Rodriguez and Robert Hurst together…)
gives it just the right amount of unexpected wrinkles. Check out the
backbeat funk of the Harold Mabern–penned title track, the hushed bossa
nova vibe of "Terra Nova" or the floating waltz-time feel of his own
reading of "Someday We'll All Be Free" (a fascinating point of
comparison with the JBL version of the same tune on <i>Eye of I</i>). Throughout, Rosenwinkel and
Wilkins make for a thrilling pair, sharing a gift for liquid-toned
lyricism.</p><p>Every Jason Moran record is an event, and that's especially true of <i>From the Dancehall to the Battlefield</i>.
Having seen the piece live this summer — one of the most compelling
concerts and/or live happenings of any kind that I witnessed all year —
it's hard for me to consider the music apart from the multimedia
presentation of this impressionistic evocation of the life and work of
pioneering ragtime/proto-jazz bandleader James Reese Europe, complete
with costumes, projections and creative staging. But the record itself
is a brilliant manifestation of the "from ragtime to no time" ethos that
Moran has been steadily fortifying for around 25 years now —
classicism, modernism and the future all swirled together. You get the
feeling that Moran's mentor <a href="http://darkforcesswing.blogspot.com/2008/07/jaki-ing-jaki-byard-mixtape-extra.html" target="_blank">Jaki Byard</a> would have been exceedingly proud of a work like this. </p><p>I
generally love Jim Black's bandleading efforts, especially Alasnoaxis
and the piano trio he launched more recently. His latest project is a
Berlin-based quartet featuring European players who are all new to me:
Asger Nissen on alto sax, Julius Gawlik on tenor, and Felix Henkelhausen
on bass. Black's familiar sonic fingerprint is here — deliberately
off-kilter funk, playful abstraction, disarmingly plaintive themes — but to my ears,
there's an increased emphasis here on conventional swing (i.e., of the
"ting ting-ta-ting" variety). The results lean at times toward a
nimble, post-Ornette-y sort of freebop, with the two saxes scampering
around the sound field, and it all sounds absolutely great. <br /></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>One of our finest contemporary trumpeters, performing an <a href="https://thegig.substack.com/p/ambrose-akinmusire-goes-it-alone" target="_blank">improvised solo concert in a Paris cathedral</a>. That's the sales pitch on <i>Beauty Is Enough</i>,
and the record absolutely lives up to whatever lofty expectations that
description might evoke. It's really a joy to hear Ambrose Akinmusire
staking out a particular sonic territory in each of these pieces —
patient and spacious on "Cora Campbell," say, or busy and staccato on
"Achilles," or achingly delicate on "Carvin." — and just feeling it out,
seeing where it takes him. The resonance of the church itself is also a
major asset. This is the kind of album that really makes you wish you
were there during the performance, and it sounds so damn good, it
practically fulfills that wish. (The other 2023 Akinmusire disc, <i>Owl Song</i>, a trio with Bill Frisell and Herlin Riley, is lovely as well!) <br /></p><p></p><p>At
this point, drummer Kate Gentile and pianist Matt Mitchell are
effectively their own school of contemporary jazz, challenging listeners
and themselves alike with gargantuan helpings of hypercomplex sound
assemblage. Gentile's latest, which features Mitchell and reedist Jeremy
Viner (both of whom appeared on her strong 2017 effort <i>Mannequins</i>) and
bassist Kim Cass, spans three discs and clocks in at more than three
hours. As with <a href="https://mattmitchellkategentile.bandcamp.com/album/snark-horse-box-set" target="_blank">Gentile and Mitchell's 2021 Snark Horse box set</a>, I'd be
lying if I said I'd had time to properly digest all of what's here, but
every time I've dipped in, I've been pretty much floored. The second
disc is especially up my alley, being clearly informed by Gentile's
<a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/kate-gentile/id1454168616?i=1000431935006" target="_blank">avowed love of extreme metal</a>. A track like "raze" here is without
question one of the most superbly insane things I've heard all year,
and is pure wish fulfillment for anyone [raises hand] who's ever
wondered what a sonic collision between Tim Berne and Behold… the
Arctopus, with a sprinkling of Magma, would sound like. It's fascinating
to hear, in the span of a year, the metal/punk/etc. influence making its
way into jazz in one way on, say, <i>Echolocation</i>, and in a
completely other way here. And that's just one facet of what's afoot on
this release, which also includes wild electroacoustic interludes and
more, for lack of a better term, chamber-ish tracks that sound like a
drum-equipped version of the Giuffre/Bley/Swallow trio 1,000 years in
the future. (Note here: If this general musical zone appeals to you,
definitely check out <i>Capacious Aeration</i>, Mitchell's recent duo release
with reedist Anna Webber. And note to self: I really need to make some
time for Gentile's <a href="https://kategentile.bandcamp.com/album/b-i-o-m-e-i-i" target="_blank">disc with International Contemporary Ensemble</a>, which seems on a quick sampling like the perfect counterpart to <i>Find Letter X</i>.)</p><p>"Gonna
take over the world / Gonna gonna gonna take over the world," jaimie
branch declares forcefully on "take over the world," a track from her
third, possibly best and, as well all now know, sadly final album with
her signature ensemble Fly or Die. And somehow, even though she's gone,
you still believe her, so energizred is the rollicking punk-samba groove that
breaks out once the piece gets going. During her roughly five years of
peak bandleading activity, branch really seemed to alter the course not
just of how jazz sounded but how it was received in the world. This
music reached people, and <i>Fly or Die Fly or Die Fly or Die ((world war))</i>
will stand forever as a testament to why, its eccentric but
ever-inclusive blend of heady synth drone, texture-rich
avant-Latin-/African-jazz, low-down funk, ecstatic dance-rock, homespun
folk and more playing out like a standing invite to some sort of utopian carnival. Amid the pain of her loss, we're so lucky to
have gotten one more complete statement. (Note: for context I recommend
both this <a href="https://www.vogue.com/article/miscarriage-loss-of-sister-jaimie-branch" target="_blank">heartbreaking memorial piece</a> by branch's sister Kate and <a href="https://pioneerworks.org/broadcast/hank-shteamer-jaimie-branch" target="_blank">this conversation</a> I had with jaimie shortly before her passing, just as she was putting the finishing touches on this record.) </p><p>Is
there such a thing as a power trio in jazz? If there is, I feel like it
might best connote the Rollins-indebted tradition of sax-bass-drum
combos, a lineage definitely evoked by Leap Day Trio's excellent <i>Live at
Cafe Bohemia</i>. Tenor player Jeff Lederer's avowed love for Ayler gives
the record a certain kind of free-jazz lean at times, but basically this
is a hard-swinging freebop effort: gritty, earthy, propulsive. Again,
as with the Akinmusire, the sounds and textures here — including drummer
Matt Wilson's "whoo" exclamations during Lederer's solos and the
no-nonsense drive of his rhythmic mesh with rock-solid bassist Mimi
Jones — really make you wish you were in the room (i.e., the briefly
reopened new incarnation of legendary downtown jazz room the Cafe
Bohemia) for this one. I'd love to hear more from this trio and, ideally,
to catch them live at some point. This album simply rocks.</p>Hankhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12995158278551531136noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36273873.post-62276776997740110632023-11-16T11:19:00.002-05:002023-11-16T11:19:40.947-05:00Dischord @ Shfl<p> A new survey of great/essential titles on the legendary Dischord label, <a href="https://theshfl.com/guide/dischord-records" target="_blank">published over at Shfl</a>.</p>Hankhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12995158278551531136noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36273873.post-23463170706814666972023-09-07T14:25:00.007-04:002023-09-07T22:43:54.618-04:00Richard Davis<p>I'm hearing <a href="https://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/rip-richard-davis.1183674/" target="_blank">reports</a> that Richard Davis has died. A musical titan and one of my biggest heroes in art. I just re-upped links to a <a href="http://darkforcesswing.blogspot.com/2010/05/richard-davis-at-80-part-ii-archive.html" target="_blank">2010 radio tribute</a> to him that my friend Russell Baker and I co-hosted on WKCR — see below. The show includes excerpts of a phone interview I conducted with Richard that year, in which he reflected on his work with Eric Dolphy, Van Morrison, Alan Dawson, Walt Dickerson, Bruce Springsteen and more.</p><p>He was such a lovely man, and his music will live forever.<br /></p><p><a href="https://www.dropbox.com/s/2yjn6i7y0jc7ma3/RD-WKCR-1.mp3?dl=0" target="_blank">Richard Davis - WKCR - I</a><br />
<a href="https://www.dropbox.com/s/gggzttkzjwm9zvn/RD-WKCR-2.mp3?dl=0" target="_blank">Richard Davis - WKCR - II</a>
<br />
<a href="https://www.dropbox.com/s/33k2g24sp3cp6ca/RD-WKCR-3.mp3?dl=0" target="_blank">Richard Davis - WKCR - III</a></p><p>Apologies for the poor audio quality of the interview segments — it was a phoner and I had to take what I could get. Hopefully those bits are still more or less intelligible.<br /></p><p>/////</p><p>And here's a <a href="https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/u53kiyfzju02acggl9flw/h?rlkey=0kpym7gvhfzmwy7m13qlvc09g&dl=0" target="_blank">second Richard Davis show</a>, from later in 2010, that Russ and I co-hosted on WKCR, this time with Richard actually in studio with us. Per the format of WKCR's Wednesday night Musician's Show, he curated a fascinating selection of his more recent work, much of it unknown to me at the time, and offered his thoughts on the music and his collaborators during the breaks. </p><p>Pardon the numerous and fairly arbitrary track divisions here — the CD-R I had this program stored on was formatted that way. But if you play it all in order, it should flow just fine. Enjoy!</p><p>/////<br /></p><p> For more on Richard's role in the landmark Van Morrison album <i>Astral Weeks</i>, see <a href="http://darkforcesswing.blogspot.com/2009/03/in-full-lewis-merenstein-producer-of.html" target="_blank">this interview</a> with producer Lewis Merenstein.</p>Hankhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12995158278551531136noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36273873.post-69350988234109762682023-06-23T06:46:00.003-04:002023-06-24T13:34:40.595-04:00Peter Brötzmann interview, 2011<p>I'm reading reports that Peter Brötzmann has died. I haven't seen an official announcement, but his frequent collaborator Ken Vandermark has <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/Ct1GbQ0r4Xy/?hl=en" target="_blank">posted about it,</a> which I'll take as confirmation of this terrible news.<br /></p><p>I just want to say that his music has meant so much to me. He was a part of some of the most powerful sonic happenings I've ever heard live or on record. I've written a <a href="http://darkforcesswing.blogspot.com/search/label/Peter%20Brotzmann" target="_blank">fair amount about him</a> on this blog over the years. I was also fortunate enough to interview him a couple of times. The below is a conversation that originally ran on the <i>Time Out New York</i> blog in June of 2011, ahead of his appearance at the Vision Festival that year. I reached him via phone at home in Wuppertal, where he had recently performed, and he was so much fun to talk to — thoughtful, dryly funny and surprisingly warm. I'm posting this here for posterity, since it's long gone from the <i>TONY</i> site. </p><p>Thank you for everything, Peter Brötzmann. </p><p><span></span></p><a name='more'></a> <p></p><p>/////</p><p><b>You just had a recent festival in your home city, is that right?</b><br />"Festival" is a big word for that, but we were on the road for two weeks with the Chicago Tentet. Then we had three days in London, and we had three days in my hometown. We could raise a bit of money because of my 70th birthday. <br /></p><p><b>What is it like for you to play in your home city? </b><br />I’m not so sure. I’m not a man for the home place, in a way—usually not. But I must say, this time it turned out to be a very good fest. Usually, you have all the people you've known for a long time, and in the first row are sitting all the old guys with gray beards like me, and that’s a bit boring. But this time it was really nice. People came from everywhere: people from Russia, people from Scandinavia, people from the U.S., and of course more-or-less local guys, so it was a good mixture of young and old. We had a good time, and I think the band was working at its best. <br /><b><br />Did anybody give you any kind of birthday surprise? <br /></b>Nah, we don’t do this kind of thing. Actually, on the road, after Wuppertal, there was a birthday cake at the Bimhuis in Amsterdam and another very nice birthday cake in Romania, in a town called Oradea. Very nice people, but usually we don’t do this birthday nonsense. <br /> </p><p><b>So you’re not really much for celebration. </b><br />Not really. I like to work and I like to travel, but sometimes I must admit it does me good. It was really nice—a little surprise is always good. <br /></p><p><b>You said you weren’t much of a hometown person. Do you prefer being on the road?</b><br />I think it’s both of it. I like to be on the road, and coming home is another good feeling. But if I stay too long at home, I get a bit nervous [Laughs], so I have to be on the road again. <br /><br /><b>Do you still live very near to where you grew up? </b><br />I live in this town, Wuppertal, and my town where I was born, Remscheid, is just about 18 kilometers away. And when I left school in Remscheid, the next art school was here in Wuppertal, and so I went there and for some reason—wife, children—I stayed. And I must say, I’m quite a man of this area. It’s a bit hilly; the people are a bit rough if you don’t know them too well, but in the end, some good people. And I like the landscapes around here very, very much. <br /><b><br />You said you went to art school in Wuppertal. Is the city known for a thriving art community?</b><br />My first target was to be a painter, and music was always on the side, but then in the ’60s it turned around. It’s a medium-size town here, Wuppertal, about 350,000, and it’s on the border of the Ruhr area and close to Cologne and Dusseldorf. We always had a very lively arts scene here in town, which at the moment, because the town is bankrupt, is not so lively! [Laughs] They tried to save money everywhere, and of course the culture is the first target. But still, compared to other cities, there are quite nice activities going on here. And you know, you just step on the train, and in a half hour you are in Dusseldorf, with very good museums and theaters, and the same with Cologne. I’m quite in the center here, so that’s good. <br /><br /><b>Obviously you're coming to New York to play in June. Can you talk about your long history of coming here, and working at the Vision Festival in particular?</b><br />I think the first time I came to New York was ’76 or ’74. That was a cultural exchange between the city of Berlin and the city of New York, and I went together with Han Bennink, and Alex Von Schlippenbach was playing solo. We played in some art gallery in Broome Street, which was the center of the gallery business at that time. But I must say, we didn’t meet too many musicians and it was a short visit. But then very soon after that, there was Soundscape that Verna Gillis was running, up in the 50s I think. And my trio with Harry Miller and Louis Moholo played there a couple of times. And that was not the first time I met Milford Graves—I had met him a year before here in Europe, in Brussels—but the first time I played with him. And of course, William Parker was my man. Peter Kowald introduced me to William, and the first note I heard from William, I was sure that’s the bass player I need and I want.<br /><br />And so together with William, we played in a lot of different constellations in the U.S. and here in Europe, and the good thing was, parallel to New York, I discovered Chicago. The guys there, they had no money, they had no idea about this kind of music. But I had a couple of fans there, so I mainly played some solo concerts, but then I was a bit tired and I was supposed to play with an East German piano player, Uli Gumpert, but he didn’t get out of his country. So I was alone again in Chicago and I was asking around and one of my New York friends said, "There is a guy, Hamid Drake is his name, and he’s played with Don Cherry and Pierre Dørge"—that is a Danish guitar player I knew—and so I just got him on the phone and we made our first duo concert. The friendship still is going strong.<br /><br />And there was an idea about a trio, so I got William and Hamid together; they didn’t know each other, and then we had quite a period with this trio. And besides that, I played with all kinds of different people, especially drummers, in New York. I started together with Fred Hopkins and Philip Wilson as a trio. And the next time I came back, Philip Wilson was murdered. And yeah, there were a lot of horn players, all kinds of people, but for New York, William was always my man. Then, the few occasions I had the chance to play with Milford were some kind of, let’s say, highlights in my little career. And the friendship to my Chicagoan friends grew, and I discovered some younger musicians there with the help of Hamid. So we got a bunch of guys together to form the Chicago Tentet, which still is going on after 12 years. It’s a very surprising thing to be at least two or three times on the road with such a big band. In our times, money is always and everywhere the question, and money is not getting better for us. So it’s always a fight, but we are used to it.<br /><br /><b>Since you were talking about working in New York, do you remember the first time you heard New York free jazz, or American free jazz in general?</b><br />The first American free jazz I heard in Europe. Long before Albert Ayler had a name, and Byard Lancaster and all these guys from the ESP label, they were much more known in Europe than in your own country. And I think the success Albert Ayler had was growing in your country because he had so much success here in Europe. The difference between the U.S. and Europe is, even if the money in Europe is small, we get paid usually, and if you work in the States, you know what the money is: mostly no money. That is a problem, and so all your guys are trying to come to Europe, to Japan, to where the work and the money is.<br /><br />And yeah, the first free jazz, it's a question of definition anyway, but when I was a really young man, I heard Eric Dolphy, I heard Sun Ra over here in Europe, besides all the Miles Davis bands, all the Coltrane: with Cannonball Adderly, with Dolphy. And I think we had some quite good information. I met Ornette Coleman the first time in Germany at the radio station in Bremen—that was the time he recorded the Stockholm trio things. I think if you wanted the information, you could hear a lot of music over here. Then you might know I was invited by Carla Bley in ’65, I think it was, to play with her European tour that the two of us badly organized. But via Carla, I met Cecil Taylor in Paris the first time, still with Jimmy Lyons, and Andrew Cyrille was the drummer. And since that time, Andrew and I stayed in touch, and later on, we had a duo going on for quite some time, sometimes together with Peter Kowald as a trio.<br /><br /> Yeah, New York… You must imagine, as an innocent man coming the first time to New York, into the music, you try to listen to everything, whatever you can get, if you have the money to get in—that was sometimes a problem [Laughs]. But I tried to listen to all the kinds of music I could get.<br /><br /><b>I read that you saw Sidney Bechet early on.</b><br />Yeah, that actually is true. I saw him twice, here in my hometown. I still was at school in Remscheid, but we took the little train to Wuppertal. Once he was playing with a whole American band that was really fantastic, and two years later, I saw him again with a French band. He was working with mostly Claude Luter. But Bechet was an amazing tsunami to watch. He was a man onstage who just blew the horn, and it was really a storm and at the same time beautiful.<br /><br />In these years, you could hear a lot of good music. We had all the good, old blues guys here, and I remember once I heard Howlin' Wolf here in my town, and I snuck backstage, and because I was so impressed, I had to say hello to the guy and he shook my hands…or my arms—you remember he had hands like I don't know what. [Laughs] He was a big guy and really impressive. That was my first little life experience with musicians, and later on, I had a chance to spend a lot of time with Steve Lacy and Don Cherry, because Cherry was working quite a bit for the German radio stations. He passed by my place and stayed overnight with the family, and that was really a very important influence, because at that time, nobody really wanted to hear my music, especially not the officials involved in the jazz business. Everybody was either laughing or turning their back to us. So it was very helpful and very important to have people like Steve or Don around. They kicked our ass and pushed us and told us, "Just go ahead—don't care."<br /><br /><b>When did you first feel, as a European, that there was something distinct happening with the free-jazz movement there that set it apart from the American scene? When did it develop its own character?</b><br />You know, I had no music education. As I said before, my target was to be a painter, but that was a good thing, because being a painter and being involved in activities here and galleries and so on, I met other people. I met, for example—and I had a chance to work with him—Nam June Paik, the Korean video artist. And he was, I think I can say now, a very great and a very big influence. And via him, I met the people from the Fluxus movement, and then at the same time Stockhausen opened up his electronic studio in Cologne, and he was running a little small theater with his wife, Mary Bauermeister, in Cologne, so you could see people like John Cage and David Tudor or other people of the so-called serious music, contemporary field.<br /><br />And that opened my eyes and ears, so I didn't depend on musical forms that jazz music gave you: the 32 bars or the 12-bar blues, or harmonic scales. I didn't care about that. So I could try to find my way of playing independent from that, and I think I always was a step further than my other German or European colleagues in that sense, and of course, it was not a decision from one day to the other; it took some years to find out where to go and how to do it. And the good thing was, our international influences—Holland is just two hours from my place, so I went a lot of times to Amsterdam. I met Misha Mengelberg the first time there, and a couple of years later, Han Bennink and Willem Breuker. And at the same time, whenever we had some money together—and when I say we, it was mostly with Peter Kowald—we went to England and met Derek Bailey, Evan Parker or Johnny Stevens and the South Africans like Dudu Pukwana, Chris McGregor, Mongezi Feza and all those people.<br /><br />And the good thing was, for Germany at that time—you might know—we had a lot of independent radio stations in all our areas, and at that time, they still had some money and so sometimes I was able to raise some money even for a larger group, like a 10-, sometimes 15-, even 20-piece band, and I could invite everybody from England, from Holland, from Denmark. John Tchicai was at that time living in Denmark, and so it was really a very good community we had together, all over Europe. And that helped to develop the music. Though people like Evan or Willem Breuker, just to take two reed players, developed—I think we all developed a very personal style, and then later on, we went quite different ways.<br /><br /><b>Overblowing the saxophone, or distorting the "natural" sound of the horn is such a big part of what you do. Do you remember when you first became interested in developing that?</b><br />No, I must say I can't remember. But when I was 14 or 15, I was playing in a kind of swing band, and in the swing band was a normal trumpet, saxophone, clarinet—that was me—and trombone, piano, bass, drums. And I had two or three trio numbers, and one of them was "I Got Rhythm," a very simple tune, which was good for me. And we had a good drummer in the band; he was a kind of little Gene Krupa–style guy. [Laughs] He looked like him too; it was very funny. Then I learned that I like very much if it's really steaming, if it's really cooking. And I think in this time—because the horn I was playing was old, fucked-up and maybe it even didn't work really good—I think in that time I did my first screams. And by the way, I always liked the guys like Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis and people like that. And I still like to do it. I mean, I know the range is much bigger than that, but if the band is steaming and cooking, I like that very much.<br /><br /><b>I wanted to ask you about something else that has been really important to your art from the beginning, which is your verbal sense, the naming of the records and compositions: Machine Gun, Balls, Nipples, things like that. You've always had a distinct way of using words.</b><br />Yeah, Machine Gun was a nickname Don Cherry gave me. He invited me in ’66, I think it was, to join the group in Paris for a weekend. And Gato Barbieri was playing, Karl Berger of course, Aldo Romano on the drums, J.F. Jenny-Clark on the bass. And after that session, he gave me two nicknames: One was Machine Gun, and the other was Living Ball of Fire. And Machine Gun of course was done in ’68, which was a very revolutionary time here in Europe and in your country, too. The Vietnam War was on its way, and here in Europe, we had our student things, because we wanted another republic and so on, and years before in your country, of course, we followed very much Malcolm X and Angela Davis, and so on. I saw Angela Davis a couple of times in Berlin. It was a time for change, and naive as we had been in these years, we thought music would be a tool for changing things. And of course we had to learn that that was a kind of illusion. I mean, I still think that you can change things, or at least you can change and open up people's minds with the music, but for a political change, it was not a strong enough tool, I would say.<br /><br /><b>It seems like those titles, like Balls and Nipples, were making such a different statement than American free jazz, which was very concerned with enlightenment and spiritual consciousness: Albert Ayler's Spiritual Unity, Coltrane's Interstellar Space and so on.</b><br />Yeah, if you look at those Albert Ayler titles, this always was very far away from my way of thinking. I always was really standing with both feet on the soil, and of course, if you take Balls or Nipples, the sexual side of the music, you have it in rhythm & blues as much as you can. It's very important, and was and still is for me. And I think we at that time were a little bit tired of all these American record titles; they were much too esoteric. We had to fight every day, and I know the guys in your country had to do the same, but the solution for us was not in some kind of other world—it was just here.<br /><br /><b>And there's also a visual aesthetic that goes along with that, as evidenced on a lot of the record covers you've designed, like Last Exit's Köln with the dead bird on the cover.</b><br />Yeah, I mean, that's my way to look at things and to find things. I remember the Last Exit cover. That was just a dead crow I found in the street, so why not use it? That's what you experience day-by-day. And of course, as much as I like, for example, the Blue Note records—they are perfect, very beautiful and well done, and it's very good to have such good design. But I thought we had to do something different, and my way of aesthetics is still a different one.<br /><br /><b>Yeah, and it's instantly recognizable too—the typefaces and the fonts that you use. It's a clear signature, the same way that your saxophone playing is. You mentioned the sexual side of this music, as it relates to R&B. Do you think of there being a humor aspect of these titles like Nipples and Balls?</b><br />Yeah, sometimes, for sure. I mean, I'm not such a humorous guy like some of my, let's say, Dutch comrades. But there is a kind of little, hidden dark humor behind my things. Even in the music, it's not always the screaming, not always the pain, not always the heavy blues. I mean, look at the blues: The blues is very funny sometimes, very pro-life [Ed: i.e., literally, not antiabortion]. I read recently a word from Ken Burns, and he said the blues was always not a description of being in the shit, but it was always a try to get out of the shit, and I think that is very right. And for that you need sometimes some humor too. It's a part of life. It maybe looks different here in Europe than in the States, or the German kind of humor is for sure different from the Dutch one, but you need it to survive. I think it's very useful.<br /><br /><b>You said it was Ken Burns who said that?</b><br />Yeah, I don't like his jazz series too much. But I like the Jack Johnson film, and I like the Civil War thing very much, and I like this remark about the blues.<br /><br /><b>I wanted to ask you about some of your electric-oriented bands, like the trio you have now with Paal Nilssen-Love and Massimo Pupillo, which seems to point back to Last Exit. Did you ever have an interest in hard rock or heavy metal?</b><br />In the early ’60s, or in the middle ’60s, I played quite a bit with some German rock bands, heavy rock bands, as a guest sometimes, or just in some sessions. And Last Exit was a try to find an in-between, and I think it was quite a fantastic band. And people always like to forget that I was the first who started to play with electronic guys, pioneers of electronics, like an English guy called Hugh Davies, for example. And I played with Michel Waisvisz quite a bit. I always was looking around; I never said no. I tried to find the right people, and if you listen to the stuff Toshinori Kondo is doing, or an electric-bass player like Massimo or Marino Pliakas from the Full Blast band, if I find the right people, I don't care what instrument they play; it just has to work.<br /><br /><b>As as listener, were you interested in hard rock and heavy metal?</b><br />Not really, because after a short while, it always got too boring. I mean, I've seen good single players in the bands, but mostly the rhythmic conceptions of the band were too boring.<br /><br /><b>Do you remember any of the players that impressed you in that style?</b><br />A guy who was really trying something else was Ginger Baker, for example. I played with him a couple of times in different bands. He had a very open mind for things, and that's what I miss in general in the heavy metal or in rock & roll music. So I couldn't mention that I would run to somebody and say, hey, let's do something together.<br /><br />At the time I was working with Bill Laswell, and he planned to bring me together with Mötörhead, because he was producing them at that time and they did know what I was doing, but it never came to that. I would have tried it, let's say it like that. But for example, I like what Kondo is doing with his electronics and the trumpet, and there are some Norwegians and some Japanese guys. I used to play with Keiji Haino—I really like this guy—and with another Japanese guy, Otomo Yoshihide. And Jim O'Rourke is living in Tokyo now for two years, so when I see him there, we do little things together. So if I find the right people, I'm open for the electric side of it. But I'll say it again: It has to be the right guy.<br /><br /><b>I was also curious about some of the records you made around the time of Last Exit, like Low Life and Iron Path, where they were more studio records that involved overdubbing and postproduction. Are you interested in that kind of record-making?</b><br />No. I like the Low Life thing, and I think we used the dubbing very, very little. But the Iron Path, I think the way Bill produced that record for sure is not my way of working, to prepare a record just in the studio, just to put together parts of music. No, I'm a man of a band, and I have to be together with the guys in the studio, onstage, and then the music is happening or not. But I'm not a man for working in the studio and then think that is the music of the band. I can imagine working on some music for films or TV, and going in the studio and collecting things and making collages out of things. But if it comes to my own shit, I need a band, I need a stage and I need an audience.<br /><br /><b>I've been going back and listening to a lot of your recordings, and I feel that sometimes your role as a composer or an organizer of large ensembles is overlooked. Listening to records like Machine Gun, Alarm and Fuck De Boere, it seems like you've always been interested in coming up with a scheme for improvising, even if it was a graphic or nontraditional score. Do you feel like you're overlooked as a composer or organizing figure?</b><br />No, I never saw me as a kind of composer. A composer has the work fixed already in his head before it gets played. No, if I work for a larger ensemble and I bring a score or I have an idea, I just discuss that with the guys, and for me, a kind of composition, if it's graphic or if it's traditionally made, can be just a little, let's say, kick to get the guys playing and to keep—to have a beginning and to have an end. But what is in between, the musicians have to develop for themselves. I mean "Machine Gun" is a very structured thing, from the beginning to the end. It's really in a way very traditional: It starts with a figure; it goes on with a Charles Ives theme; it comes at the end to some rock & roll figure. And in between, the solo stuff. So it's nothing very avant-garde; it's a very normal kind of piece.<br /><br /> But a good example is the work with the Chicago Tentet. When we started, we started with scores, with written pieces of paper. And I asked everybody who was interested to write things and bring it, and we tried to do it and we tried to rehearse. And we did that for five years, I think, and Vandermark brought very conventionally written scores, very difficult stuff; we needed a lot of time for rehearsal. I came maybe with a little piece of paper and told the guys, "Do this and that," and all sorts of ideas.<br />But then after five or six years, there was a time when I decided, "Okay, let's throw away all the papers," because I had the feeling that, okay, we are old enough and experienced enough that we'll just try to do it without. And I think it was quite the right decision at the right moment, and the band is really working like hell. It's always risky, because if something goes wrong, the whole shit goes wrong. There's nothing you can repair. But if you have the right concentration, and if you can motivate the guys, then it works fantastic. And in the band, I always was trying to give the guys as much responsibility for the music as I have. I never saw myself as a bandleader. Sometimes you have to say yes or no, but I always try to set things free, to make things possible, to make music possible.<br /><br /><b>You mentioned that sometimes things go wrong. Can you think of a particular performance where that happened, and how you may have tried to remedy that with the next performance?</b><br />Let's take this as an example: At one time, I was working with Laswell and Nicky Skopelitis and Anton Fier, and on the other hand, I still was working with William, with the guys out of the jazz tradition. I had a chance to put these two formats together, and so I formed a band—it was quite exactly 20 years ago—called the März Combo. März is the month of March in German, because it was my 50th-birthday band, and I'm born in March, so we called it the März Combo. On one side, it included William, Toshinoro Kondo, Paul Rutherford, Larry Stabbins and a couple of people like that, Werner Lüdi, the Swiss alto player. And then on the other hand, I had Anton Fier as a drummer, Nicky Skopelitis and my son on guitars, and I tried to bring these two things together, and I made some graphic scores. But it didn't work. We had quite a bit of work together here in Europe, but for some reason, it was very, very seldom that the band was really getting together. And I remember some concerts where I really was so angry and so [Groans]… I could've taken the train home. I don't know; maybe it was the wrong time for trying that, but okay, I can live with that. That just happened and next time you try better.<br /><br /><b>So you said you weren't so interested in records that were a product of the studio, but what about live ones? You have so many recordings out that are recordings of gigs. Are records in general important to you, the process of recording and releasing music?</b><br />Yeah, that's a good question. I'm glad that we took the chance to record Machine Gun, and I'm glad about most of the documents I have with my first trio with Han Bennink and Fred Van Hove, which I think for the history of European improvised music are quite important documents, but I see them still more as documents. I'm still more interested to be on the road than to go into the studio.<br /><br />I think especially the way records or CDs are produced nowadays, it's relatively easily done, because the technique is so far developed that you don't need much. You need a good engineer, you need some knowledge and you need a little bit of money. But I remember when I produced my first trio record myself with Peter Kowald and Sven-Åke Johansson, I had to save money. Nobody had money in these years. I had to pay everything and everybody in advance; otherwise it wouldn't have worked. And it was a procedure which took a lot of nerves, a lot of money, and you really had to get into it. And nowadays, it's relatively easy. And the thing is, because you don't have major record labels anymore, nobody can send you into a studio for some days, and even in the good, old jazz days, the studios were booked for a couple of hours—three, four, five hours, and then you had to do it. That means you had to rehearse earlier, days before somewhere else, and you had to get the guys together, and you had to pay them at least a little bit so that they showed up. It was a different scene.<br /><br />Now you can travel around with a little equipment, and if you're interested, you can record it yourself. I mean, I'm not into that technical stuff, but I know it's possible. And so I think the live concert is the most important thing, and the record is good to have as a kind of document, and of course, if it was a really fantastic concert, you're happy to have the tape. On the other hand, I get a little bit fed up nowadays. Wherever you go, you have a bunch of guys, and some of them even ask if they are allowed to record it. Most of the time, though, they don't ask, and you don't see the equipment and then you see it the next day on YouTube or somewhere. It's a completely crazy world, and the thing is, you have hundreds of small labels, which is on one side good, but the market is very small and it's so overloaded with 99 percent of shitty music, it's a drag. Sometimes I wish I would have known the guys from Blue Note or from Riverside, that there was a producer who understood the music at least, but since the ’60s, the market changed completely for what you can call jazz music.<br /><br /><b>Well, it seems like you're taking an interesting step with this web shop <a href="https://www.catalyticsound.com/" target="_blank">Catalytic Sound</a> that you started with Ken Vandermark, Mats Gustafsson and Paal Nilssen-Love.</b><br />Yeah, we just opened it. We were just tired that distribution is not functioning anymore. You have no real distribution in Europe you can trust. And we have audiences; that is a point. And you can't carry to all the concerts whatever you have produced, and especially if you produce vinyl, it's so heavy to carry around besides the instruments. So we decided we'd try to do a kind of distribution for at least our stuff, so that people worldwide have an address where they can go to and ask if this or that is available. We are just beginning, but at least if you want the Vandermark or the Tentet or the Brötzmann stuff, there is an address where you can get the things. I hope it will work.<br /><br /><b>I think that selling the downloads is a really good idea.</b><br />Yeah, and you know, you never make money selling the numbers we are selling, if it's 2,000 or sometimes 4,000. But the money that comes over is very little, and if you go through another distribution, they take away from that little amount another half or more. So we'll invest a little bit and we'll try to do it ourselves. Even some special small editions that you can get there, and these kind of things. And maybe some books and catalogs, whatever.<br /><br /><b>You were mentioning people like Vandermark and Gustafsson, who are working on this project with you. I think it's really impressive that throughout your career you've always worked with the cutting-edge players. When you started off, it was the people of your generation, but you've been really good about collaborating with younger players like Paal Nilssen-Love. If you look back through all these partnerships, what is that you look for in a collaborator?</b><br />I don't know. One of the best experiences of my last years was a short coooperation with Walter Perkins, who died three, four years ago. And it was a very short time together. But as you know, he comes really out of the deepest bebop sources, and it was so nice to work with him. So what I want to say is, I'm looking for not only players, I'm looking for people behind the horn and behind the instrument, and of course I like challenge. I play with Paal Nilssen-Love, who is I think the best you can have here in Europe, or the other drummer in Europe, Michael Wertmüller, who is playing a completely different style, but he is a very energetic man.<br /><br />But I still love to work with Hamid, and I'm looking forward to working with William again. But I think the young guys, they give you a kind of challenge too, and on the other hand, working with Ken, for example, it's not only the work; after all these years, it's a very good friendship, which is not always happening in our field of business. But especially working with larger ensembles, we don't have to love each other, but we have to work together. And it's a kind of social experience too, not only a music experience. And I think that's what made me in my very young years so interested in jazz music, because I always had the feeling that this was a music where the human factor, the social factor plays a very, very big role.<br /><br />And that's what I learned from people like Sun Ra or people like Duke Ellington, if you talk about big bands, for example. They worked in different ways, but they kept their guys together and they worked on the same thing for longer periods, and not as a kind of fashionable thing from here to there. I mean, music for me is not a thing for a period. Music, the way I understand it, it's my life. It's trying to get somewhere and I don't know where, but it's coming closer. And getting older, I'm coming closer anyway! [Laughs] So I'm still looking forward what to do.<br /><br /><b>You were talking about the challenge of playing with the younger musicians, and it made me think about the process of keeping up your physical stamina. In the liner notes to the Machine Gun reissue, you talked about how you guys were sleeping outside in a construction site and having beer for breakfast before the session, and it was obviously a very hard-living period. Are you still able to do that, or do you have to be more health conscious?</b><br />No [Laughs], I prefer my comfortable hotel nowadays, which we don't have always. No, life changed a bit, of course, and the body, the bones are not made to run around the world carrying cases if you are 70. But on the other hand, the playing was always a very physical thing for me too; it's still an important thing for me. And to tell you a little secret, if I work, for example, in our saxophone trio with Mats and Ken and we're on the road, I still can show the guys that I'm there and even that I kick their ass from time to time. That's a little private pleasure. [Laughs] And I'm glad that my body still is functioning and hopefully my brain too, so if it keeps on for a little while, I would be happy. And if I can't do it the way I want to do it anymore, then I hope I have some friends who say, "Hey Brötzmann, stay home—we'll send you a cigar and a postcard." But yeah, I think I'll keep going for a while.<br /><b><br />Is there anybody that you haven't yet collaborated with that you'd like to work with?</b><br />Yeah, you know, I always admired Ornette very much. I mean, I've played with a lot of great American guys. To start with the oldest one, Sam Rivers, and he still is jumping around the world, fantastic. But I never worked with Ornette, and of course playing with him, that would have been one of my little dreams. Another man I've admired since I was busy with the music was Sonny Rollins, and I saw him last year in Norway at a festival, and he played beautifully, especially the solo passages. They were so great. But the next morning, I saw him at the airport; we had to take the same plane to Oslo. And he was in a wheelchair; he didn't look too well. Yeah, I just hope for him that he can make it. But these are the people I still admire. I'm not the youngest anymore and my saxophone colleague Evan Parker is just two years younger, I think, and it's nice that we still can make it, traveling and working, and even trying to be a good example for the younger guys that you have to really invest yourself in what you are doing. I think if you can do that, and if we can still reach our audience, that is really very good.<br /><br /><b>Definitely. Do you listen to music much, either at home or on headphones while you're on the road?</b><br />No, I never do that when I'm traveling. I don't like headphones, and actually sometimes I have the feeling I don't like music. [Laughs] When I'm at home, I always come back to the same old things I've listened to for 40, 50 years, that is Monk, Ellington, Coleman Hawkins, Ben Webster and other great saxophone players. Coleman Hawkins still is my favorite, and not to forget Don Byas and Billie Holiday, and the blues, all kinds of blues. That's what I do when I have time at home and a quiet hour, or when I'm in my studio and I have time for painting or doing woodcuts or whatever.<br /><br /><b>Are you still spending a lot of time regularly on your visual art?</b><br />I still do, and I would love to have more time for that, but at the moment, I have quite a nice, big exhibition here in my hometown. And yeah, I'm still busy, if the time allows it. That's the problem; time is a problem.<br /><b><br />When you were talking about people like Steve Lacy and Don Cherry, you were saying that you had so many others telling you that what you were doing was wrong. And obviously at this point, there's a real international scene for this kind of music. I was wondering if you could remember a moment when you felt like you had found your way, or you had transcended the criticisms that you encountered early on.</b><br />I think I realized that American music, American musicians always were of real importance for me. And when I had the feeling, for example, playing the early concerts in New York, let's say the Soundscape with Milford, or in the same period, the trio with Louis Moholo and Harry Miller, when I had the feeling I got accepted by the New York audience and by most of the New York musicianse. And for example, here in Europe, Frank Wright was really a close… More than a friend. He was a really my brother in a way. When I realized that, that was really very important for me. It was not the big audiences at the Moers or Berlin festivals, but it was those little moments where you had the feeling to be together with some comrades from wherever at the end, and playing, for example, with all the great drummers, with Ronald Shannon Jackson. Sonny Sharrock was an important man for me. When I felt that there is something happening, that was always a great feeling.<br /><br /><b>In terms of recognition, obviously something that comes to mind is <a href="https://www.organissimo.org/forum/topic/27350-guess-whos-a-fan-of-peter-brotzmann/" target="_blank">the Bill Clinton mention</a>. Do you remember what you thought when you heard that he had singled you out as one of his favorite saxophonists?</b><br />[Laughs] That was nighttime here in Europe and I was at home, and a couple of European and also American friends called me. And I said, "Come on, you are kidding." But then somebody faxed me the article from this university paper, and I mean, he was not the most bad President in your history. And he is playing the saxophone, or trying. And he is smoking cigars, and I do the same. [Laughs]<br />I mean I wish one of our stupid politicians over here would even know my name. I think for sure you can criticize a lot of American politics, but that people are open for this… For example, I know that Mars Williams with his Liquid Soul band was invited to play when Clinton won the election. And if those kinds of things are possible in your country, that's one little thing I like very much. Because I don't see any of that in Europe, if you look at Madame Merkel or if you look at this little Mussolini Berlusconi or this little Napoleon in fucking France. And if I look around here, I don't have to tell what I think. But I think it's always good if people with such responsibility on their backs have open ears for all kinds of things happening on the side, and maybe it's not a bad thing to have a cup of tea with Mr. Clinton and smoke a cigar [Laughs].<br /></p>Hankhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12995158278551531136noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36273873.post-65884957290596042172023-05-01T06:36:00.002-04:002023-05-01T06:36:29.492-04:00'By Myself' rising<p><i>By Myself</i>, the self-released unaccompanied solo LP by Abdul Wadud, is one of my favorite albums of all time, full stop. I'm thrilled that it's <a href="https://abdulwadud.bandcamp.com/album/by-myself" target="_blank">finally been reissued</a>, and to have the opportunity to delve into the record and its story <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/01/arts/music/abdul-wadud-by-myself.html" target="_blank">for <i>The New York Times</i></a>.<br /></p>Hankhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12995158278551531136noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36273873.post-44698386471899039802023-02-22T10:47:00.001-05:002023-02-22T10:47:27.088-05:00Antti / Christian<p>A privilege to spend time — virtually and in-person, respectively — with two musicians I greatly admire:</p><p>-Antti Boman, mastermind of Demilich, a <a href="https://darkforcesswing.blogspot.com/2014/01/demilich-reissued.html" target="_blank">longtime obsession of mine</a>, for <a href="https://daily.bandcamp.com/features/demilich-nespithe-interview" target="_blank">Bandcamp Daily</a> </p><p>-Christian McBride, bassist and jazz ambassador extraordinaire, for the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/20/arts/music/christian-mcbride.html" target="_blank">New York Times</a><br /></p>Hankhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12995158278551531136noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36273873.post-14527607612627967852023-01-08T00:58:00.002-05:002023-01-08T11:22:53.654-05:00'Emergency!'<p>Proud to present an <a href="https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/the-tony-williams-lifetime-emergency/" target="_blank">in-depth look at <i>Emergency!</i> by the Tony Williams Lifetime</a>, via Pitchfork's Sunday Review. This record means a lot to me. Lifetime looms large in my ongoing <a href="https://heavymetalbebop.tumblr.com/" target="_blank">Heavy Metal Bebop research</a> — it's come up <a href="https://heavymetalbebop.tumblr.com/post/15774647110/6-bill-laswell" target="_blank">again</a> and <a href="https://heavymetalbebop.tumblr.com/post/15774647110/6-bill-laswell" target="_blank">again</a> in the various conversations I've had on the topic of the jazz/metal intersection. In some ways, it represents the birth of that concept: There was no jazz-rock, and then suddenly, with <i>Emergency!</i>, there it was*. </p><p>Beyond its historical significance, the record also just completely kicks ass. I think a lot about the whole "musical time machine" question, i.e., what bygone act would you go back and witness if you had your pick. For me, lately, the original Lifetime — maybe at the October 1969 Ungano's run recalled by Herbie Hancock in the review — tops that list.</p><p>For a bit more on Lifetime, check out this <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/john-mclaughlin-on-his-final-u-s-tour-revisiting-mahavishnu-orchestra-117259/" target="_blank">John McLaughlin interview</a> from a few years back.</p><p>*This phrasing is a bit hyperbolic. There were of course plenty of precursors. One I need to delve into more is Gary Burton — I found an interview where Tony specifically cited him as a genre-blending pioneer, and I've often heard Pat Metheny and Bill Frisell do the same. I don't know this body of work well, but I intend to remedy that!<br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Hankhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12995158278551531136noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36273873.post-63875465720383800562022-12-28T01:04:00.011-05:002023-01-07T11:54:16.014-05:00best of 2022Things have been quiet here at DFSBP, but as always, I wanted to try and round up my favorite sounds of the year. To anyone tuning in, thank you, and I hope you find something you enjoy. <p>Before I get to the picks — divided into an overall top 10, a metal-/rock-centric section, a jazz list and a rundown of my favorite live shows of the year — I just want to say, again, thanks for reading this and/or keeping up with my work in any way during this busy, transitional year. With Twitter on the rocks, it seems harder than ever to spread the word, so your attention means a lot. <br /></p><p>Here goes!</p><p>P.S. All album-title links below go to Bandcamp.</p><p>P.P.S. The DFSBP year-end list archives have been updated to reflect the below: <a href="http://darkforcesswing.blogspot.com/2018/12/year-end-top-10-lists-2005-through.html" target="_blank">overall</a> and <a href="http://darkforcesswing.blogspot.com/2018/12/year-end-jazz-top-10-lists-2008-through.html" target="_blank">jazz-only</a>. <br /></p><p>P.P.P.S. Here is a <a href="https://open.spotify.com/playlist/04HXg2WmOGqzJWlGHK0q72?si=4e629c2604494edd" target="_blank">best-of-2022 playlist</a> featuring 22 tracks drawn from the releases below. The inspiration was my old friend John's <a href="https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2mEALRUnlCJjQPmfjZ71ck?si=f784aa42c1e540fa" target="_blank">"50 Cuts of '22"</a> opus.<br /></p><p> <br /></p><p><u><b>OVERALL TOP 10, PLUS</b></u><br /></p><p>Right up front, I want to say that my absolute favorite release of the year was:</p><p><b>Bleed, <a href="https://20buckspin.bandcamp.com/album/somebodys-closer" target="_blank"><i>Somebody's Closer</i></a></b></p><p>I'm leaving this off the proper top 10 for a couple reasons: 1) It's a four-song EP rather than an album, lasting just shy of 14 minutes, and 2) it was originally self-released by the band in 2021 but got a much-deserved reissue this year via the respected metal label 20 Buck Spin. Anyway, I spun this thing dozens of times and also caught a great set by this Texas quartet in Brooklyn a few months back. </p><p>Bleed are a great illustration of why I can never really invest in objective discussions about the "best" music — of a given year, of all time, etc. This is a band that pushes my particular buttons, namely tapping into my deep love of '90s alt-metal, and coming up with a heavy, atmospheric and extremely catchy sound that, as I <a href="https://www.spin.com/2022/12/best-metal-albums-of-2022/" target="_blank">wrote elsewhere</a>, "plays like a fan-fic collab between Helmet circa <i>Aftertaste</i> and <i>White Pony</i>–era Deftones." </p><p>Does that description intrigue you? If so, great! If not, this might not excite you as much as it does me. But Bleed also exemplify a loose trend in recent years, across various genres, where you see young bands zeroing in on these very specific bygone micro-eras, right down to the cover art and production aesthetic, with incredibly satisfying results. There's really no downside to pastiche when you do it this well. Bleed also put out a fine <a href="https://20buckspin.bandcamp.com/album/killing-time" target="_blank">stand-alone single</a> in October, and I can't wait to hear more. </p><p>And with that shout-out behind us, here are my favorite albums of the year, arranged in an imprecise and somewhat arbitrary order. Also, there's not 10; there's 11. I really can't decide which of these to leave off, and since no one's forcing me to make that tough call, this is the list! Each selection includes a brief annotation and a link to prior coverage where applicable. </p><p><b>1. Gospel, <i><a href="11. 40 Watt Sun, Perfect Light [track write-up @ Rolling Stone]" target="_blank">The Loser</a> </i></b>[sci-fi screamo; <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/gospel-band-moon-is-a-dead-world-reunion-loser-1347655/" target="_blank">track write-up<i> @ Rolling Stone</i></a>]<b><br />2. Fleshwater, <i><a href="https://fleshwater.bandcamp.com/album/were-not-here-to-be-loved" target="_blank">We're Not Here to Be Loved</a> </i></b>[crushing modern hardcore meets brooding melodic alt-rock] <b><br />3. Chat Pile, <i><a href="https://chatpile.bandcamp.com/album/gods-country" target="_blank">God's Country</a></i></b><i> </i>[scorched-earth noise-rock tragicomedy; <a href="https://www.spin.com/2022/12/chat-pile-exit-interview/" target="_blank">interview @ <i>SPIN</i></a>]<b><br />4. Meshuggah, <i>Immutable </i></b>[that steel-plated sound you know and love; <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/meshuggah-tomas-haake-interview-immutable-1320809/" target="_blank">feature @ <i>Rolling Stone</i></a>]<b><br />5. Faetooth, <a href="https://faetooth.bandcamp.com/album/remnants-of-the-vessel" target="_blank"><i>Remnants of the Vessel</i></a> </b>[transporting, ritualistic doom; <a href="https://www.spin.com/2022/12/best-metal-albums-of-2022/" target="_blank">year-end metal list @ </a><i><a href="https://www.spin.com/2022/12/best-metal-albums-of-2022/" target="_blank">SPIN</a>, </i>tied for #1]<b><br />6. The Bad Plus, <i><a href="https://thebadplus.bandcamp.com/album/the-bad-plus" target="_blank">The Bad Plus</a> </i></b>[more <a href="http://darkforcesswing.blogspot.com/2010/12/bad-plus-vs-sideman-syndrome-at-village.html" target="_blank">indelible songs</a> from the best beyond-jazz band on earth; <a href="https://www.spin.com/2022/12/22-best-albums-of-2022/" target="_blank">year-end all-genre albums list @ <i>SPIN</i></a><i>, </i>#3]<b><br />7. Messa, <i><a href="https://messaproject.bandcamp.com/album/close" target="_blank">Close</a> </i></b>[breathtakingly epic dark prog; <a href="https://www.spin.com/2022/12/best-metal-albums-of-2022/" target="_blank">year-end metal list @ <i>SPIN</i></a>, tied for #1]<b><br /></b><b>8. Afghan Whigs, <i>How Do You Burn?</i></b><b> </b>[a veteran band that still really means it; <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvNPKQqevpk" target="_blank">"Please, Baby, Please"</a> please]<b><br /></b><b>9. 40 Watt Sun, <i><a href="https://40wattsunmusic.bandcamp.com/album/perfect-light" target="_blank">Perfect Light</a> </i></b>[exquisite chamber rock from an elite songwriter; <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/40-watt-sun-patrick-walker-spaces-in-between-song-review-1252133/" target="_blank">track write-up @ <i>Rolling Stone</i></a>] <b><br />10. Zoh Amba, <i>O, Sun </i></b>[delicacy and catharsis, masterfully intertwined; <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/26/arts/music/zoh-amba-bhakti.html" target="_blank">feature @ <i>New York Times</i></a>]<b><br />11. Hammered Hulls, <a href="https://hammeredhulls.bandcamp.com/album/careening" target="_blank"><i>Careening</i></a></b><b><i> </i></b>[Dischord all-stars make a new Dischord classic]<b><br /></b></p><p><b><u>MORE METAL, AND A DASH OF ROCK</u><br /></b></p><p>As far as the heavy stuff, I love all the other records I cited in the <a href="https://www.spin.com/2022/12/best-metal-albums-of-2022/" target="_blank"><i>SPIN</i> metal round-up</a>, including but not limited to:</p><p><b>-Sigh, <i><a href="https://peaceville.bandcamp.com/album/shiki" target="_blank">Shiki</a> </i></b>[expert eclecticism; <a href="https://daily.bandcamp.com/features/sigh-shiki-interview" target="_blank">feature @ <i>Bandcamp Daily</i></a>] <b><br />-Voivod, <i>Synchro Anarchy </i></b>[the renaissance continues]<b><br />-Undeath, <i><a href="https://undeath.bandcamp.com/album/live-from-the-grave" target="_blank">Live… From the Grave</a></i></b><i> </i>[instant mosh]<b><br />-Goatwhore, <i><a href="https://goatwhore.bandcamp.com/album/angels-hung-from-the-arches-of-heaven" target="_blank">Angels Hung From the Arches of Heaven</a></i></b><i> </i>[seething blasphemy]<b><br />-Anal Stabwound, <i><a href="https://analstabwound.bandcamp.com/album/reality-drips-into-the-mouth-of-indifference" target="_blank">Reality Drips Into the Mouth of Indifference</a> </i></b>[the one-man-band, T-1000 version] <b> <br />-Wormrot, <i><a href="https://wormrot.bandcamp.com/album/hiss" target="_blank">Hiss</a> </i></b>[visionary grindcore]<b><br />-Clutch, <i>Sunrise on Slaughter Beach </i></b>[the earth rockers reappear in full splendor]<b><i> </i><br />-Cloud Rat, <i><a href="https://cloudrat.bandcamp.com/album/threshold" target="_blank">Threshold</a></i></b><i> </i>[dire extremity]<b><br />-Sumerlands/Haunt, <a href="https://sumerlands.bandcamp.com/album/dreamkiller" target="_blank">Dreamkiller</a>/<a href="https://hauntthenation.bandcamp.com/album/windows-of-your-heart" target="_blank">Windows of Your Heart</a></b> [retro done right]<b><br /><br /></b>I also love the <a href="https://peaceville.bandcamp.com/album/astral-fortress" target="_blank">Darkthrone record</a>, which has sparked a re-engagement with their revelatory run of <a href="https://peaceville.bandcamp.com/album/eternal-hails" target="_blank">recent</a> <a href="https://peaceville.bandcamp.com/album/old-star" target="_blank">LPs</a>.<b><br /></b></p><p>Another recent listening project: a first-time immersion in Frusciante-era(s) Chili Peppers, sparked by the two new double albums and a fascinating run of Rick Rubin–conducted interviews on the <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/broken-record-with-rick-rubin-malcolm-gladwell-bruce/id1311004083" target="_blank"><i>Broken Record</i> podcast</a>. Have really dug both <i>Unlimited Love</i> and <i>Return of the Dream Canteen</i> so far and look forward to getting to know them better.</p><p>Two new <a href="https://krallice.bandcamp.com/album/crystalline-exhaustion" target="_blank">Krallice</a> <a href="https://krallice.bandcamp.com/album/psychagogue-3" target="_blank">albums</a>! As ever, I'm a few years behind these guys, but every record is a revelation once you really wrap your head around it.</p><p>A new <a href="https://extralife.bandcamp.com/album/secular-works-vol-2" target="_blank">Extra Life album</a>! Charlie Looker is an avant-garde powerhouse, not to mention a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/@charlielookerNYC/videos" target="_blank">hell of a YouTuber</a>.<br /></p><p>The <a href="https://drugchurch.bandcamp.com/album/hygiene" target="_blank">Drug Church record</a> is strong, though it didn't prepare me for what a massively entertaining live band they are. More on that below. </p><p>PS to this section: I love reading/watching year-end metal round-ups. The genre is basically impossible to keep comprehensive tabs on so I always learn a ton from these. Check out best-of-'22 posts from:<br /></p><p><i><a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/best-metal-albums-2022-1234648222/" target="_blank">Rolling Stone</a> </i><br /></p><p><a href="https://machinemusic.net/2022/12/20/machine-music-presents-the-best-metal-of-2022/" target="_blank">Machine Music</a></p><p><a href="https://yourlastrites.com/category/features/best-of-lists/" target="_blank">Last Rites</a></p><p><a href="https://daily.bandcamp.com/best-of-2022/the-best-metal-albums-of-2022" target="_blank">Bandcamp Daily <br /></a></p><p><a href="https://www.stereogum.com/2208041/best-metal-albums-2022/columns/the-black-market/" target="_blank">Stereogum / Black Market</a></p><p><a href="https://burningambulance.com/2022/12/16/best-music-of-2022/" target="_blank">Burning Ambulance</a> [plenty of metal on here, among many other genres] <br /></p><p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkkUNsWlO7U" target="_blank">Ken's Death Metal Crypt</a><br /></p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0KXb0ahmkw" target="_blank">BangerTV </a><p></p><p><u><b>JAZZ, NEW AND OLD<br /></b></u></p><p>Below is the ballot I submitted for the annual <a href="https://hullworks.net/jazzpoll/" target="_blank">Jazz Critics Poll</a> — formerly masterminded by Francis Davis and now run by Tom Hull — with two additional historical titles added. Full 2022 results <strike>should be online soon</strike> <a href="should be online soon" target="_blank">are online now</a>.</p><p>new releases: <br /></p><p><b>1. The Bad Plus, <i>The Bad Plu</i>s </b>[see top 10 entry above]<b><br />2. Zoh Amba, <i>O, Sun</i></b> [see top 10 entry above]<b><br />3. Makaya McCraven, <i><a href="https://intlanthem.bandcamp.com/album/in-these-times" target="_blank">In These Times</a> </i></b>[timeless instrumental-R&B majesty, filtered through contemporary jazz aesthetics; had the pleasure of profiling Mr. McCraven for the recently relaunched <a href="https://www.creem.com/" target="_blank"><i>Creem</i></a> but the piece is print-only]<b><br />4. Tyshawn Sorey, <a href="https://tyshawn-sorey.bandcamp.com/album/the-off-off-broadway-guide-to-synergism" target="_blank"><i>The Off-Off Broadway Guide to Synergism</i></a> </b>[raucous romps through standards both familiar and fresh]<b><br />5. James Brandon Lewis Quartet, <a href="https://jamesbrandonlewis.bandcamp.com/album/msm-molecular-systematic-music-live" target="_blank"><i>MSM Molecular Systematic Music - Live</i></a></b><i> </i>[an authoritative statement from my favorite of JBL's several excellent working bands]<b><br />6. Eubanks-Evans Experience, <a href="https://eubanksevansexperience.bandcamp.com/album/eee" target="_blank"><i>EEE</i></a> </b>[an unexpected and beautifully diverse duo set from mid-career masters Kevin Eubanks and Orrin Evans]<b><br />7. The OGJB Quartet, <i>Ode to O</i> </b>[Oliver Lake, Graham Haynes, Joe Fonda and Barry Altschul doing gritty yet graceful stuff that sounds like it could have come out on Black Saint in the mid-'80s; side note: it's a real shame that you can't purchase <a href="https://www.tumrecords.com/058-ode-to-o" target="_blank">TUM albums</a> in any digital form] <b><br />8. Joshua Redman, Brad Mehldau, Christian McBride and Brian Blade, <a href="https://redmanmehldaumcbrideblade.bandcamp.com/album/longgone" target="_blank"><i>LongGone</i></a> </b>[the all-star band to beat]<b><br />9. Karl Berger and Kirk Knuffke, <a href="https://karlbergerkirkknuffke.bandcamp.com/album/heart-is-a-melody" target="_blank"><i>Heart Is a Melody</i></a> </b>[timeless free-bop warmth from a beautifully matched quartet with Jay Anderson on bass and Matt Wilson on drums]<b><br />10. Tumi Mogorosi, <a href="https://tumimogorosi.bandcamp.com/album/group-theory-black-music"><i>Group Theory: Black Music</i></a> </b>[a powerful return to early-'70s choral jazz à la Billy Harper's <i>Capra Black</i> and Max Roach's <i>Lift Every Voice and Sing</i>]<b><br /></b></p><p>historical titles:<br /></p><p><b>Charles Mingus, <i><a href="https://charlesmingusmusic.bandcamp.com/album/the-lost-album-from-ronnie-scotts" target="_blank">The Lost Album From Ronnie Scott's</a> </i></b>[a wonderful surprise from a super-obscure '72 lineup]<b><br />Albert Ayler, <i><a href="https://elementalmusicrecords.bandcamp.com/album/albert-ayler-revelations" target="_blank">Revelations: The Complete ORTF 1970 Fondation Maeght Recordings</a> </i></b>[a welcome invitation to reengage with an underrated Ayler chapter]<b><br />Horace Tapscott, <i><a href="https://mrbongo.bandcamp.com/album/the-quintet" target="_blank">The Quintet</a> </i></b>[a previously unreleased companion album to Tapscott's cult-classic debut, <i>The Giant Is Awakened</i>] <b><br />Elvin Jones, <i>Revival: Live at Pookie's Pub </i></b>[portrait of the drum giant as budding bandleader]<b><br /><i><a href="https://strut.bandcamp.com/album/john-sinclair-presents-detroit-artists-workshop" target="_blank">John Sinclair Presents Detroit Artists Workshop</a> </i></b>[a window into an overlooked regional scene]<i><br /></i></p><p>Note: I wrote all these up for a recent <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/15/arts/music/boxed-sets-albums-pop-rock-jazz.html" target="_blank"><i>New York Times</i> box set round-up</a>.</p><p>*** <br /></p><p>Jazz-related addendum: </p><p>I predict we'll be hearing a lot more from <a href="https://laloi.bandcamp.com/album/flaming-swords" target="_blank">Fievel Is Glauque</a>.<br /></p><u><b>SHOWS</b></u><br /><p></p><p>So many good ones. Here are 30 that seem to sum up the year, grouped intuitively. Twitter links included where applicable. </p><p><b><a href="https://twitter.com/DarkForcesSwing/status/1490552952494473219?s=20&t=Bs-RiSGX1acK0C582m8yIA" target="_blank">Tyshawn Sorey, Bill Frisell and Joe Lovano</a> @ Village Vanguard (February 6)<br /><a href="https://twitter.com/DarkForcesSwing/status/1516763675884929024?s=20&t=Bs-RiSGX1acK0C582m8yIA" target="_blank">Joshua Redman, Brad Mehldau, Christian McBride and Brian Blade</a> @ Town Hall (April 19)<br /><a href="https://twitter.com/DarkForcesSwing/status/1518345640115417088?s=20&t=Bs-RiSGX1acK0C582m8yIA" target="_blank">John Zorn New Masada Quartet</a> with Julian Lage, Jorge Roeder and Kenny Wollesen @ Village Vanguard (April 24)<br /></b>These were all just scorching. The top players, reminding you why. <b><br /></b></p><p><b><a href="https://twitter.com/DarkForcesSwing/status/1502144721686306819?s=20&t=Bs-RiSGX1acK0C582m8yIA" target="_blank">Khruangbin</a> @ Radio City Music Hall (March 10)<br /></b>The ultimate party band. See them at all costs.<b><br /> <br /><a href="https://twitter.com/DarkForcesSwing/status/1520593725545754624?s=20&t=Bs-RiSGX1acK0C582m8yIA" target="_blank">Gulch</a> @ Saint Vitus (April 30)<br /></b>The final New York appearance by the <a href="https://gulch.bandcamp.com/album/impenetrable-cerebral-fortress" target="_blank">new kings of hardcore</a>. These guys left behind a smoking crater.<b><br /><br /><a href="https://twitter.com/DarkForcesSwing/status/1531274713082867715?s=20&t=Bs-RiSGX1acK0C582m8yIA" target="_blank">Maryland Deathfest</a>; Baltimore (May 26–29)<br /></b>Extreme-metal heaven (hell?). Highlights too numerous to name, but catching <a href="http://darkforcesswing.blogspot.com/2016/11/coroners-essential-autopsy-how-swiss.html" target="_blank">Coroner</a> (big bucket-list check-off), <a href="https://darkforcesswing.blogspot.com/2014/01/demilich-reissued.html" target="_blank">Demilich</a>, <a href="http://darkforcesswing.blogspot.com/2011/12/immolation-brand-i-can-trust.html" target="_blank">Immolation</a>, Deicide, Tom G. Warrior, <a href="http://darkforcesswing.blogspot.com/2017/03/pure-physical-euophoric-energy.html" target="_blank">Obituary</a>, Carcass, Deeds of Flesh, Autopsy, Atheist, Massacre, Monstrosity, Nocturnus A.D. and other giants in the same weekend — along with cult masters Rottrevore, Divine Eve and Drawn and Quartered — was life-altering. <b><br /><br /><a href="https://twitter.com/DarkForcesSwing/status/1556847109915172866?s=20&t=Bs-RiSGX1acK0C582m8yIA" target="_blank">Rage Against the Machine</a> @ MSG (August 8, 14)<br /><a href="https://twitter.com/DarkForcesSwing/status/1560256344996954117?s=20&t=Bs-RiSGX1acK0C582m8yIA" target="_blank">Rex</a> @ Tubby's; Kingston, NY (August 17)<br /><a href="https://twitter.com/DarkForcesSwing/status/1570757613486473221?s=20&t=Bs-RiSGX1acK0C582m8yIA" target="_blank">Afghan Whigs</a> @ Brooklyn Steel (September 15) <br /><a href="https://twitter.com/DarkForcesSwing/status/1550650851479506944?s=20&t=Bs-RiSGX1acK0C582m8yIA" target="_blank">Jawbox</a> @ Le Poisson Rouge (July 22) <br /><a href="https://twitter.com/DarkForcesSwing/status/1566656085779423233?s=20&t=Bs-RiSGX1acK0C582m8yIA" target="_blank">Crowbar</a> @ Bottleneck; Lawrence, KS (September 4)<br />Sunny Day Real Estate @ Brooklyn Steel (September 29)<br /><a href="https://twitter.com/DarkForcesSwing/status/1576057763540914177?s=20&t=Bs-RiSGX1acK0C582m8yIA" target="_blank">Mars Volta</a> @ Terminal 5 (September 30)<br /></b>For a few months there, it was like my CD wallets from the '90s and early 2000s had come to life. The highlight was seeing RATM for the first time, but every other one of these — from my first time seeing Rex (after having the honor of <a href="https://tidal.com/magazine/article/rex-return/1-86293" target="_blank">profiling them for TIDAL</a>) in around a quarter century to my first times seeing Mars Volta, SDRE and Afghan Whigs at all — was an utter joy. <b><br /><br />Anteloper @ Public Records (July 16)<br /></b>This is how I will always remember <a href="https://pioneerworks.org/broadcast/hank-shteamer-jaimie-branch" target="_blank">jaimie branch</a>, thrillingly engaged and supercharging every moment. <b><br /><br /><a href="https://twitter.com/DarkForcesSwing/status/1555368271322521600?s=20&t=Bs-RiSGX1acK0C582m8yIA" target="_blank">Ravi Coltrane Freedom Trio</a> @ Mama Tried (August 4)<br /></b>The second of two great Ravi sets I caught at MT this year. The first was <a href="https://twitter.com/DarkForcesSwing/status/1541973838875004932?s=20&t=Bs-RiSGX1acK0C582m8yIA" target="_blank">pure abstraction</a>; this was a funk-fusion mega-jam.<b><br /><br />Greg Tardy, Christian McBride and Johnathan Blake @ Village Vanguard (August 11)<br /></b>This was supposed to be a Bill Frisell gig, but COVID intervened, Christian McBride subbed in, and it turned into the ultimate late-night Vanguard hang.<b><br /><br />Makaya McCraven @ Public Records (September 19)<br /></b>Look, the album is really good, but hearing it live in full with a string quartet, Brandee Younger on harp and De'Sean Jones on sax and EWI was the peak <i>In These Times</i> experience.<b><br /><br /><a href="https://twitter.com/DarkForcesSwing/status/1558473067877236746?s=20&t=Bs-RiSGX1acK0C582m8yIA" target="_blank">Gospel</a> + Uniform @ Saint Vitus (August 12)<br />City of Caterpillar + Foxtails @ Saint Vitus (October 2)<br /><a href="https://twitter.com/DarkForcesSwing/status/1594075684837654530?s=20&t=Bs-RiSGX1acK0C582m8yIA" target="_blank">Saetia</a> + Pique + Uniform @ Le Poisson Rouge (November 19)<br /></b>Always go see the screamo reunion! Props to <a href="https://fffoxtails.bandcamp.com/album/fawn" target="_blank">Foxtails</a> and <a href="https://pique420.bandcamp.com/album/thanks-a-million" target="_blank">Pique</a>, standouts of the new guard, and Uniform, who never fail to bring the noise. <b><br /><br />Domi and JD Beck @ Le Poisson Rouge (October 19)<br /></b>This made me feel old! In a good way. <b><br /><br /><a href="https://twitter.com/DarkForcesSwing/status/1584006956272222209?s=20&t=Bs-RiSGX1acK0C582m8yIA" target="_blank">The Chats + Drug Church</a> + Scowl @ Brooklyn Steel (October 22)<br /></b>Punk gig of the year. Three different flavors of awesome.<b><br /><br /><a href="https://twitter.com/DarkForcesSwing/status/1584755623551414274?s=20&t=Bs-RiSGX1acK0C582m8yIA" target="_blank">Chat Pile</a> @ Saint Vitus (October 24)<br /></b>The nastiest songs of the year were even nastier live.<b> <br /><br /><a href="https://twitter.com/DarkForcesSwing/status/1590934992783560704?s=20&t=Bs-RiSGX1acK0C582m8yIA" target="_blank">Mercyful Fate</a> + Kreator + Midnight @ Kings Theater (November 10)<br /><a href="https://twitter.com/DarkForcesSwing/status/1592180203761315841?s=20&t=Bs-RiSGX1acK0C582m8yIA" target="_blank">Undeath + 200 Stab Wounds + Enforced + Phobophilic</a> @ Saint Vitus (November 13)<br /></b>Stacked bills representing the best of the old and new schools. <b><br /><br />Hammered Hulls @ TV Eye (December 2)<br /></b>D.C. comes to Queens in style. Was sad not to see usual Hulls bassist Mary Timony, but the fill-in (Fugazi drummer Brendan Canty) wasn't too shabby. <b><br /><br /><a href="https://twitter.com/DarkForcesSwing/status/1599434288771932160?s=20&t=Bs-RiSGX1acK0C582m8yIA" target="_blank">Dinosaur Jr. + Guided by Voices</a> + Eugene Mirman @ Terminal 5 (December 3)<br /></b>The indie-rock party of the year. <b><br /><br /><a href="https://twitter.com/DarkForcesSwing/status/1602123741655343106?s=20&t=Bs-RiSGX1acK0C582m8yIA" target="_blank">Orrin Evans Quintet</a> with Gary Thomas, Nicholas Payton, Robert Hurst and Marvin "Smitty" Smith @ Smoke (December 11)<br /></b>The single best hour of jazz I heard in 2022. This band apparently hit the studio the next day and I can't wait to hear the results.<b><br /><br /><a href="https://twitter.com/DarkForcesSwing/status/1589445132000317440?s=20&t=Bs-RiSGX1acK0C582m8yIA" target="_blank">Charles McPherson Quintet</a> with Terell Stafford, Jeb Patton, David Wong and Billy Drummond @ Smoke (November 6)<br /><a href="https://twitter.com/DarkForcesSwing/status/1606311468969902082?s=20&t=Bs-RiSGX1acK0C582m8yIA" target="_blank">George Coleman Quintet</a> with Eric Alexander, Emmett Cohen, David Williams and Joe Farnsworth @ Smoke (December 22)<br /></b>Always go hear the masters!</p><p><u><b>AND TWO TO GO OUT ON<br /></b></u></p><p>My favorite songs of the year by artists not mentioned above are…</p><p>Avril Lavigne, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciqUEV9F0OY" target="_blank">"Bite Me"</a> (late 2021 single release ahead of a 2022 album)<br /></p><p>and</p><p>Alex G, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFaMCIVHz2I" target="_blank">"Runner" </a></p><p></p>Hankhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12995158278551531136noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36273873.post-9787244178057483532022-10-04T12:45:00.003-04:002022-10-04T13:14:43.984-04:00jaimie branch<p>In June, Broadcast (a publication backed by the Brooklyn arts space Pioneer Works, where I've seen tons of great shows in recent years), asked me if I'd like to interview jaimie branch. I responded with an enthusiastic yes. We met in Red Hook on the evening of July 27, 2022, and I found her to be just as wise, engaging and unfiltered — not to mention hilarious — in person as she was onstage. Shockingly, less than a month later, she was gone. <a href="https://pioneerworks.org/broadcast/hank-shteamer-jaimie-branch" target="_blank">Here is that conversation</a>, along with select audio excerpts. Farewell to a legend.<br /></p>Hankhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12995158278551531136noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36273873.post-25852909469887411592022-08-15T14:29:00.004-04:002022-08-15T14:29:43.240-04:00Rex @ Tidal<p>Profiled <a href="https://tidal.com/magazine/article/rex-return/1-86293" target="_blank">one of my favorite bands of the '90s</a> for Tidal. It's funny how closely my summer/fall show calendar (Karate, Jawbox, Rage Against the Machine, Rex, June of 44, etc.) is mirroring my high school CD booklet, but I'm certainly not complaining! <br /></p>Hankhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12995158278551531136noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36273873.post-11773805268210101092022-08-07T09:31:00.003-04:002022-08-07T09:35:50.998-04:00'Out Front' @ Pitchfork<p>Honored to <a href="https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/booker-little-out-front/" target="_blank">delve into my favorite jazz album</a>, and one of my favorite albums, period, for Pitchfork's Sunday Review. </p><p>In researching this piece, I went back to the tape of a Booker Little tribute broadcast I co-hosted on WKCR 89.9 FM back in 2001. Phil Schaap told me something incredible about <i>Out Front</i> on air that day that I've never heard elsewhere — I've decided to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ebUdkIWASM" target="_blank">share the excerpt on YouTube</a> in the hopes that other fans of Booker Little and this record might find it interesting.<br /></p>Hankhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12995158278551531136noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36273873.post-27235702924436837352022-06-27T12:45:00.002-04:002022-06-27T12:45:51.126-04:00HS @ RS, 2015 – 2022<p>My last day at <i>Rolling Stone</i> is this week.</p><p>After seven years, I’ve decided to leave and try something new. For now, I’ll be freelancing — please feel to reach out via my new work-centric gmail address (hshteamer [dot] writes [at] gmail [dot] com) re: any type of writing or editing work. </p><p>As for my <i>RS</i> experience, a name-by-name thank-you list would be too long, so I’ll just say: It was an honor to work alongside so many talented, passionate, hard-working people. I learned so much.</p><p>Thanks to everyone who showed me the ropes, assisted me with my writing, trusted me with theirs, sent me music to check out, facilitated or granted interviews, read my work and/or helped to make this experience so fun and rewarding. </p><p>To mark the occasion, I put together the following list of some of my own <i>RS </i>pieces that meant a lot to me.</p><p>-HS, 6/27/22</p><p>*****</p><p>Slint // <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/slint-spiderland-interview-1144942/" target="_blank">feature on <i>Spiderland</i> at 30</a> (March 2021)</p><p>Alice Coltrane // <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/alice-coltrane-journey-in-satchidananda-500-greatest-albums-podcast-1258215/" target="_blank"><i>Journey in Satchidananda</i>, 500 Greatest Albums podcast</a> (November 2021)</p><p>John Zorn // <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/john-zorn-jazz-metal-interview-naked-city-1015329/" target="_blank">feature on his "jazz-metal multiverse"</a> (June 2020)</p><p>Neil Peart // <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/neil-peart-rush-drumming-tribute-936430/" target="_blank">remembrance</a> (January 2020)</p><p>King Crimson // two-part feature on the <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/king-crimson-interview-writing-21st-century-schizoid-man-891600/" target="_blank">history</a> and <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/king-crimson-21st-century-schizoid-man-influence-kanye-west-892305/" target="_blank">influence</a> of "21st Century Schizoid Man" (Oct 2019)</p><p>*</p><p>John Coltrane // <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/john-coltranes-interstellar-space-at-50-legacy-of-a-free-jazz-masterpiece-191760/" target="_blank">feature on <i>Interstellar Space</i> at 50</a> (February 2017)</p><p>hate5six // <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/hate5six-youtube-channel-sunny-singh-interview-1365681/" target="_blank">feature on DIY videographer Sunny Singh</a> (June 2022)</p><p>Anthony Braxton // <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/anthony-braxton-interview-nels-cline-quartet-new-haven-844843/" target="_blank">interview on collaboration with Nels Cline, Greg Saunier, Taylor Ho Bynum</a> (June 2019)</p><p>Cecil Taylor // <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/cecil-taylor-remembering-the-ultimate-piano-radical-629774/" target="_blank">remembrance</a> (April 2018)</p><div>Bill Bruford // <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/bill-bruford-yes-band-king-crimson-genesis-earthworks-interview-902501/" target="_blank">career-spanning interview</a> (October 2019)</div><p>*</p><p>Black Sabbath // <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/black-sabbath-jazz-swing-influence-bill-ward-948231/" target="_blank">feature on their jazz roots and resonance</a> (Feb 2020)</p><p>Robert Fripp // <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/robert-fripp-interview-king-crimson-tour-david-bowie-kanye-west-820783/" target="_blank">feature timed to King Crimson's 50th anniversary</a> (April 2019)</p><p>Morbid Angel // <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/morbid-angel-covenant-anniversary-665990/" target="_blank">reflections on <i>Covenant</i> at 30</a> (June 2018)</p><p>Suffocation // <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/suffocation-gramercy-theatre-frank-mullen-final-show-review-758169/" target="_blank">review of Frank Mullen's final NYC show</a> (November 2018)</p><p><a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/herbie-hancock-interview-chick-corea-1128481/" target="_blank">Herbie Hancock on Chick Corea</a> (February 2021)</p><div>*</div><div><br /></div><div>Descendents // <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/descendents-punk-band-interview-9th-and-walnut-1159835/" target="_blank">feature timed to <i>9th & Walnut</i></a> (May 2021)</div><div><br /></div><div>Clutch // <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/clutch-band-book-of-bad-decisions-tour-review-748151/" target="_blank">review of NYC show</a> (October 2018)</div><div><br /></div><div>Art Ensemble of Chicago // <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/art-ensemble-of-chicago-roscoe-mitchell-moor-mother-interview-811024/" target="_blank">feature timed to </a><i><a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/art-ensemble-of-chicago-roscoe-mitchell-moor-mother-interview-811024/" target="_blank">We Are on the Edge</a> </i>(March 2019)</div><div><br /></div><div>Sonny Sharrock // <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/sonny-sharrock-guitarist-summer-of-soul-1189260/" target="_blank">tribute timed to <i>Summer of Soul</i></a> (June 2021)</div><div><br /></div><div>Meshuggah // <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/meshuggah-tomas-haake-interview-immutable-1320809/" target="_blank">feature timed to <i>Immutable</i></a> (March 2022)</div><div><br /></div><div>*</div><div><br /></div><div>Killing Joke // <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/review-killing-joke-40th-anniversary-tour-new-york-723549/" target="_blank">review of NYC show</a> (September 2018)</div><div><br /></div><div>Ringo Starr and Dave Grohl // <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/dave-grohl-ringo-starr-interview-musicians-on-musicians-902778/" target="_blank">moderated interview</a> (October 2019)</div><div><br /></div><div>Milford Graves // <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/milford-graves-drummer-tribute-1128142/" target="_blank">remembrance</a> (February 2021)</div><div><br /></div><div>Carcass // <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/carcass-interview-torn-arteries-1206231/" target="_blank">feature timed to <i>Torn Arteries</i></a> (August 2021)</div><div><br /></div><div>Iron Maiden // <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-live-reviews/iron-maiden-legacy-of-the-beast-tour-review-barclays-center-brooklyn-864436/" target="_blank">review of NYC show</a> (July 2019)</div><div><br /></div><div>/////</div><p>+ <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/the-100-greatest-metal-albums-of-all-time-113614/" target="_blank">100 Greatest Metal Albums</a> [co-edited with Kory Grow]</p>Hankhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12995158278551531136noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36273873.post-42086217425075037762022-06-04T11:39:00.009-04:002022-06-04T11:43:28.039-04:00RIP GMIII<p>One of the masters. Listen to a three-hour interview and career overview I hosted on WKCR in 2000 <a href="http://darkforcesswing.blogspot.com/2013/09/dfsbp-archives-grachan-moncur-iii.html" target="_blank">here</a>.</p><p>This one sends me every single time:
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="210" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/e4eoKrtFbKQ" title="YouTube video player" width="375"></iframe>
</p><p>And here is Nate Chinen's <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/06/03/1103013844/grachan-moncur-iii-trailblazing-blue-note-trombonist-dies-at-85" target="_blank">comprehensive NPR obit</a>.</p>Hankhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12995158278551531136noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36273873.post-21087116903893319552022-03-18T09:10:00.001-04:002022-03-18T09:10:47.579-04:00Meshuggah<p>I had a great time speaking with Tomas Haake, re-immersing in the <a href="http://darkforcesswing.blogspot.com/2016/10/warm-blood-why-meshuggah-are-better.html" target="_blank">Meshuggah-verse</a> (including the excellent new <i>Immutable</i>) and <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/meshuggah-tomas-haake-interview-immutable-1320809/" target="_blank">writing about it for <i>RS</i></a>.</p>Hankhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12995158278551531136noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36273873.post-36514826933670902572021-12-26T15:08:00.009-05:002022-01-05T21:23:40.857-05:002021 in review<p>First, a bit of a disclaimer: Keeping up with new music in any kind of orderly way was pretty much an impossibility for me in 2021. Between work obligations and personal pursuits (<a href="https://lakegeode.bandcamp.com/album/gold-lions-rampant" target="_blank">guitar</a>, etc.), there just wasn't a whole lot of time and space left over. So I heard what I heard. Categories fell by the wayside — as did the hope of putting together an informed genre-oriented survey, as I've done in recent years for new jazz releases. </p><p>I'm fortunate to be in a position where people (publicists, label folks, the artists themselves) often send me new music. I'm grateful for every submission. I also try as best I can to manage expectations. I make no promises re: coverage — ultimately, I'm an editor by trade, and each year, I'm only able to take on a select amount of writing projects — and in 2021, the gap between the amount of music that made its way to me and the amount I was able to publicly acknowledge seemed wider than ever. </p><p>Still, I heard a fair amount and some of it really connected. And though, as I pointed out around a decade ago now (!) on this very blog, I identify <a href="http://darkforcesswing.blogspot.com/2011/01/i-am-not-jazz-journalist.html" target="_blank">much more as an all-purpose music lover</a> than as a partisan of any particular genre, I stayed as current as I could re: jazz, metal and other areas I've often gravitated toward, while taking in whatever else happened to call out to me. The bottom line is that if music hits you, and, especially, if it sticks with you after making an initial impact, it doesn't really matter what kind it is — the important thing is that it lingers, intrigues and ideally makes you want to go back. And in the arbitrary parameter of a year, you never (or at least <i>I</i> never) have time to go back to everything that grabbed you. So you do your best and then, come December, you see what you've got to work with. Whatever your taste profile, I hope you find something below that interests or excites.</p><p>Lastly, I just want to say that if you've engaged with anything I've worked on this year (writing, music, podcast), I sincerely appreciate it. Attention is at a premium for all of us, and I don't take it for granted that anyone would expend a bit of theirs on something I've had a hand in. Thank you.</p><p>By the way, just stating for the record that the most gratifying projects I worked on this year were <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/slint-spiderland-interview-1144942/" target="_blank">this <i>Spiderland</i> feature</a> and this<i> <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/alice-coltrane-journey-in-satchidananda-500-greatest-albums-podcast-1258215/" target="_blank">Journey in Satchidananda</a></i> podcast. Check 'em out if you haven't! And now, on to the lists and annotations. <br /></p><p>/////</p><p><b>Overall 2021 top 10 [w/ a few links to prior coverage where applicable]:</b> </p><ol style="text-align: left;"><li>Turnstile, <i>Glow On</i> </li><li>Floating Points, <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/archie-shepp-pharoah-sanders-review-1142785/" target="_blank">Pharoah Sanders</a> and the London Symphony Orchestra, <i>Promise</i>s</li><li>Mastodon, <i>Hushed and Grim</i> </li><li>Assertion, <i>Intermission</i> </li><li><a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-album-reviews/matt-sweeney-bonnie-prince-billy-superwolves-1160581/" target="_blank">Matt Sweeney and Bonnie “Prince” Billy</a>, <i>Superwolves</i> </li><li>Willow, <i>Lately I Feel Everything</i> </li><li>Jason Moran, <i>The Sound Will Tell You </i> </li><li>Amyl and the Sniffers, <i>Comfort to Me</i> </li><li>Leo Nocentelli, <i>Another Side</i> </li><li><a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/carcass-interview-torn-arteries-1206231/" target="_blank">Carcass</a>, <i>Torn Arteries</i> <b><br /></b></li></ol><p>An annotated version of the above can be found <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/best-music-2021-rolling-stone-staff-albums-1256635/" target="_blank">here</a>, alphabetized within <i>Rolling Stone</i>'s annual collection of staff lists. I'll just say that aside from <i>Promises</i>, which is more like a holistic sound bath, with every one of these — from the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5DZA2NLYis" target="_blank">Amyl</a> to the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1AwEGfEv4Q" target="_blank">Willow</a> to the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTD8FQykON4" target="_blank">Leo</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lb7pLbKdb_E" target="_blank">Bonnie/Sweeney</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sx1L2XW1N0c" target="_blank">Mastodon</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZDcX-DG0f8" target="_blank">Assertion</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34uxC0cfQc4" target="_blank">Carcass</a>, <a href="https://jasonmoran.bandcamp.com/track/for-love-2" target="_blank">Moran</a> and of course the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Ny1fjdLKew" target="_blank">Turnstile</a> — what did it was the songs. An abundance of tracks that dug in and stayed put.<br /><br />The two records not listed above that came closest to making the cut were Bo Burnham's <i>Inside (The Songs)</i> and Mustafa's <i>When Smoke Rises</i>. The former was an odd case: the soundtrack to a Netflix tragicomedy special that doubled as a one-man musical. Ultimately I elected to leave it out of the running, but really only on a technicality (it didn't seem quite fair to stack up a multimedia product against other audio-only albums; or put another way, even when listening to <i>Inside</i> as an album, I still felt like I couldn't separate it entirely from its visual counterpart). The truth is that, song for song, the Burnham stuck with me as much as anything I heard this year aside from the Turnstile LP, which rarely left my heavy rotation after an initial spin. (I had a new favorite song roughly every week, from <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sU1JXOB52ZI" target="_blank">"Holiday"</a> to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQZjVhQzRBI" target="_blank">"New Heart Design"</a> to the brief but brilliant <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRH5r-RG7W0" target="_blank">"No Surprise"</a>) If you haven't seen <i>Inside</i>, I recommend it wholeheartedly, and if you do watch it and don't spend weeks or months with its tunes rattling around inside your head — well, to quote one of the special's best songs, "Welcome to the Internet," "If none of it's of interest to you, you'd be the first…" (The <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEUl4DThSwE" target="_blank">Phoebe Bridgers cover of "That Funny Feeling,"</a> honestly probably better than the original, really drives home how strong Burnham's writing is here.) </p><p>And the Mustafa record is just lovely and intimate and quietly devastating. It's all there in the opening track, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7E26_sjxbYY" target="_blank">"Stay Alive."</a> This <a href="https://pitchfork.com/features/rising/mustafas-meditative-songs-of-mourning/" target="_blank">Pitchfork interview</a> from 2020 offers valuable context, and this <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-album-reviews/mustafas-when-smoke-rises-1175622/" target="_blank">review of <i>When Smoke Rises</i></a> by my <i>RS </i>colleague Mankaprr Conteh eloquently sums up what makes it so special. </p><p>I also participated in an <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/best-metal-albums-2021-1264146/" target="_blank"><i>RS</i> metal list</a> for 2021, where I wrote up the Mastodon and the Carcass, as well as King Woman's <i>Celestial Blues</i>, an immersive opus that drew me in immediately once I checked in with it late in the year. I wholeheartedly second the votes on those Maiden and Converge selections as well — both bands are legacy acts who are still out there pushing. <br /><br /><b>2021 jazz top 10 [w/ Bandcamp links where applicable]:</b><br /><br /><i>Note: This is the list I submitted to the annual Jazz Critics Poll, hosted by Francis Davis and Tom Hull. Full results <strike>should be online within a week or so</strike> can be found <a href="https://hullworks.net/jazzpoll/21/" target="_blank">here</a>. </i></p><ol style="text-align: left;"><li>Jason Moran, <a href="https://jasonmoran.bandcamp.com/album/the-sound-will-tell-you-2" target="_blank"><i>The Sound Will Tell You</i></a></li><li>James Brandon Lewis Quartet, <a href="https://jamesbrandonlewis.bandcamp.com/album/code-of-being-2" target="_blank"><i>Code of Being</i></a> </li><li>Floating Points, Pharoah Sanders and the London Symphony Orchestra, <a href="https://floatingpoints.bandcamp.com/album/promises" target="_blank"><i>Promises</i></a></li><li>Dan Weiss and Miles Okazaki, <a href="https://mfdag.bandcamp.com/album/music-for-drums-and-guitar" target="_blank"><i>Music for Drums and Guitar</i></a></li><li>Francisco Mela, <a href="https://577records.bandcamp.com/album/mpt-trio-volume-1" target="_blank"><i>MPT Trio Volume 1</i></a></li><li>Artifacts, <a href="https://astralartifacts.bandcamp.com/album/and-then-theres-this" target="_blank"><i>…and Then There's This</i></a></li><li>Barry Altschul's 3Dom Factor, <i>Long Tall Sunshine </i>[physical/digital <a href="https://www.nottwo.com/mw1012" target="_blank">available here</a>]<i><br /></i></li><li>The Cookers, <a href="https://thecookersmusic.bandcamp.com/album/look-out" target="_blank"><i>Look Out!</i></a> </li><li>William Parker, <a href="https://williamparker.bandcamp.com/album/mayan-space-station" target="_blank"><i>Mayan Space Station</i></a> </li><li>Chris Potter, <i><a href="https://chrispotterjazz.bandcamp.com/album/sunrise-reprise" target="_blank">Sunrise Reprise</a> </i> </li></ol><p>Jason Moran stood out this year as something of an MVP, an honor he's almost always in the running for. The duo albums with <a href="https://archieshepp.bandcamp.com/album/let-my-people-go" target="_blank">Shepp</a> and <a href="https://jasonmoran.bandcamp.com/album/graves-moran-live-at-big-ears" target="_blank">Graves</a> (mentioned in the afore-linked <i>RS</i> staff round-up) were handsome mementos of exemplary intergenerational collabs, but the solo record sounds to me like a career highlight to date. Absolutely gorgeous and entirely beyond category. As for <i>Promises</i>, I wondered for a second whether it even made sense to classify it as a jazz record — maybe "minimalist classical work with improvising soloist" would be more accurate — but I feel alright about using Pharoah's presence as a loophole there. It's a spellbinding record that frames a legend in an entirely new light. James Brandon Lewis is just a full-on star at this point. He puts out a lot of music but phones nothing in. I've loved his duo discs with Chad Taylor from the past few years, and their work together in JBL's larger bands is just as impressive. The quintet album<i> <a href="https://jamesbrandonlewis.bandcamp.com/album/jesup-wagon" target="_blank">Jesup Wagon</a></i> earned a lot of well-deserved praise this year, but <i>Code of Being</i> hit me even harder. There's a gravity and intensity to this one that really makes it feel top-shelf. In a jazz bandleader, you want to hear a highly developed instrumental and compositional vision and JBL is simply there on both counts. I'll be listening for whatever he does next. The Weiss/Okazaki is a high-order musical brainteaser and a memento of a deep, longstanding mind-meld between these two. The Mela really stood out to me from the jump. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/X4VfsKrVjdI" width="320" youtube-src-id="X4VfsKrVjdI"></iframe></div><br /><p></p><p>I'm still digesting this one in full but re: this particular tune… wow. I wrote to a friend that it sounds a bit like the Motian/Frisell/Lovano trio with Milford Graves sitting in for Paul (nothing wrong with the original of course, but I loved hearing this spin on their approach). Fascinating and singular stuff. Cannot wait to catch this band live at some point. The Artifacts disc impressed me as a document of a band really growing into itself, and I could say the same of Chris Potter's Circuits Trio with James Francies (also a key presence on Pat Metheny's debut Side-Eye record and a second-time Blue Note bandleader with his own <i>Purest Form</i>) and Eric Harland, and Barry Altschul's ass-kicking inside-outside 3Dom Factor band with Jon Irabagon and Joe Fonda. The Cookers remain simply one of my favorite active bands in jazz, and anything they put out is going to have a shot at my year-end list, esp. if it's as strong as this latest disc — master player and composers, beautifully showcased. Don't know what more you could ask for from a new jazz record, really. And amid the slew of music that William Parker put out this year (I still need to make time for Cisco Bradley's bio!), the sizzling <i>Mayan Space Station</i> disc with Ava Mendoza and Gerald Cleaver stood out immediately as a fresh spin on the guitar trio — in some ways a spiritual cousin to the classic Gateway records. </p><p>Speaking of slews of music, I felt like I only scratched the surface of the many worthy box sets that came my way: Wadada Leo Smith's <i>Chicago Symphonies</i> (w/ Henry Threadgill, whose own <a href="https://henrythreadgill.bandcamp.com/album/poof" target="_blank">latest Zooid disc</a> was typically enigmatic and alluring; John Lindberg; and Jack DeJohnette) and <i>Sacred Ceremonies</i> (w/ Bill Laswell and Milford Graves)— just two of three multi-album sets he <a href="https://tumrecords.com/boxed-sets" target="_blank">released via the Finnish Tum label</a> to commemorate his 80th birthday year, along with another trio disc featuring DeJohnette and Vijay Iyer (sadly, all these seem to be entirely absent from the digital marketplace; really would love to see Tum on Bandcamp one of these days); Anthony Braxton's <a href="https://firehouse12records.com/album/12-comp-zim-2017" target="_blank"><i>12 Comp (ZIM) 2017</i></a>, a sonic world unto itself — don't miss the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ST0ktFR9DI" target="_blank">visual documents</a>; and Matt Mitchell and Kate Gentile's weird and wonderful <i><a href="https://mattmitchellkategentile.bandcamp.com/album/snark-horse-box-set" target="_blank">Snark Horse</a>. </i>I came away from each of these highly impressed and hoping to immerse more in 'em going forward.</p><p>And on the live front, the jazz highlight of the year for me had to be <a href="https://twitter.com/DarkForcesSwing/status/1453556346742312969" target="_blank">seeing Darius Jones play</a> his moving, exacting new solo album <a href="https://dariusjones.bandcamp.com/album/raw-demoon-alchemy-a-lone-operation" target="_blank"><i>Raw Demoon Alchemy</i></a> in the catacombs of Green-Wood Cemetary. Unforgettable.</p><p>Then, history-wise, we got that marvelous <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-album-reviews/john-coltrane-love-supreme-live-seattle-2-1243961/" target="_blank"><i>A Love Supreme: Live in Seattle</i></a> set; Alice's magical, centering <i>Kirtan: Turiya Sings</i>; a <a href="https://newworldrecords.bandcamp.com/album/julius-hemphill-the-boy-multi-national-crusade-for-harmony" target="_blank">generous Julius Hemphill trove</a> from New World; a <a href="https://sluchaj.bandcamp.com/album/music-from-two-continents" target="_blank">vividly recorded live companion</a> to Cecil Taylor's classic <i>Winged Serpents (Sliding Quadrants) </i>LP from '84, via Polish label <a href="https://sluchaj.bandcamp.com/music" target="_blank">Fundacja Słuchaj</a>, which has been issuing a steady stream of archival Cecil since the master's passing; that illuminating, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4MgU8xtFHI" target="_blank">long-thought-lost Hasaan Ibn Ali date</a> (as well as a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktw8p8JHpIQ" target="_blank">solo one</a> that I only just learned of, also via Omnivore); and maybe most impressively, a reissue of an <a href="https://roybrooksband.bandcamp.com/album/understanding" target="_blank">all-star 1970 Roy Brooks date</a>, previously unknown to me, that sounds like it's propelled by rocket fuel (my lord, Woody Shaw on this...). <br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/IZ2L12KRXRQ" width="320" youtube-src-id="IZ2L12KRXRQ"></iframe></div><p><br />/////</p><p>A few other stray mentions of albums or songs that spoke to me:</p><p>Two albums from the Chicago label <a href="https://americandreamsrecords.bandcamp.com/music" target="_blank">American Dreams</a> left strong and immediate impressions: <i>Lamplighter</i>, a <a href="https://twitter.com/DarkForcesSwing/status/1456621461041553411?s=20" target="_blank">luminous and enveloping trio disc</a> from guitarist Matthew Rolin, hammered-dulcimer player Jen Powers and drummer Jayson Gerycz that struck me as something like "if Takoma met FMP"; and Patrick Shiroishi's <a href="https://patrickshiroishi.bandcamp.com/album/hidemi" target="_blank">masterful overdubbed saxophone opus</a> <i>Hidemi</i>, which brought to my mind a one-man World Saxophone Quartet.</p><p>The <a href="https://dinosaurjr.bandcamp.com/album/sweep-it-into-space" target="_blank">new Dinosaur Jr. album</a> is a delight. You could play "I Ran Away" for someone who'd never heard them and their core charms would all be readily apparent.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/cAXUmZ7sjWQ" width="320" youtube-src-id="cAXUmZ7sjWQ"></iframe></div> <p></p><p>Whereas Dinosaur Jr.'s genius lies in never fixing what ain't broke, the
Flying Luttenbachers have always been about restless forward
progression, esp. since their <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/flying-luttenbachers-new-song-album-794996/" target="_blank">reboot a couple years back</a>.
Their new one, <a href="https://theflyingluttenbachers.bandcamp.com/album/negative-infinity" target="_blank"><i>Negative Infinity</i></a> — their first where founder/leader
cedes drum duties; Sam Ospovat simply destroys in the role — is an
absolute monster, reminiscent at times of the rigorous savagery of the
band's <i><a href="https://theflyingluttenbachers.bandcamp.com/album/cataclysm" target="_blank">Cataclysm</a></i>
era but challenging and overwhelming in all its own ways. I hear
there's another new one due soon from this lineup and I can't wait to
hear it. <br /></p><p>This Heart Attack Man song is an emo-punk-pop mini masterpiece. The video is also a blast. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/tinII5k484g" width="320" youtube-src-id="tinII5k484g"></iframe></div><br /><p>As with "Pitch Black" above, every moment of Pom Pom Squad's "Head Cheerleader" is a hook. Songwriting excellence.<br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/6clF3e1m80U" width="320" youtube-src-id="6clF3e1m80U"></iframe></div><p>More monster hooks here, courtesy of some guy named Lindsey Buckingham:</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/M-IKgoPjv00" width="320" youtube-src-id="M-IKgoPjv00"></iframe></div><p></p><p>And still more, courtesy of some of the guys also responsible for the Turnstile masterpiece:</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Fih6DYsJm_s" width="320" youtube-src-id="Fih6DYsJm_s"></iframe></div> <p></p><p>(Note: The Angel Du$t track above first turned up on a 2020 EP, but makes a return appearance on the band's great 2021 album <i>YAK: A Collection of Truck Songs.</i>)</p><p>And who could deny this velvet juggernaut of the airwaves?</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/adLGHcj_fmA" width="320" youtube-src-id="adLGHcj_fmA"></iframe> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">The best band I saw on a stage in 2021 — close call with the mighty likes of <a href="https://twitter.com/DarkForcesSwing/status/1416832261245345801?s=20" target="_blank">Sheer Mag</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/DarkForcesSwing/status/1439375384114601985?s=20" target="_blank">Harriet Tubman</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/DarkForcesSwing/status/1421461742765359114?s=20" target="_blank">Jaimie Branch's Fly or Die</a> — may very well have been <a href="https://twitter.com/DarkForcesSwing/status/1447401703146393600?s=20" target="_blank">Gospel</a>. <a href="https://gospel.bandcamp.com/album/the-moon-is-a-dead-world" target="_blank">Study up</a> and get ready for the follow-up due soon. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">And lastly, goodbye and thank you for everything, <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/milford-graves-drummer-tribute-1128142/" target="_blank">Milford Graves</a>, <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/greg-tate-critic-obituary-1268145/" target="_blank">Greg Tate</a>, <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/herbie-hancock-interview-chick-corea-1128481/" target="_blank">Chick Corea</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/DarkForcesSwing/status/1380856900925931520?s=20" target="_blank">Sonny Simmons</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/DarkForcesSwing/status/1349845773907800069?s=20" target="_blank">Bobby Few</a>, <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/george-wein-obituary-1225450/" target="_blank">George Wein</a>, Rick Laird, Barry Harris and <a href="https://twitter.com/DarkForcesSwing/status/1435557486254338049" target="_blank">Phil Schaap</a>.<br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div>Hankhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12995158278551531136noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36273873.post-4541869702512972212021-12-06T13:44:00.006-05:002021-12-06T13:45:58.918-05:00Alice's 'Journey'<p>I've spent roughly the past four months researching and reporting this <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/alice-coltrane-journey-in-satchidananda-500-greatest-albums-podcast-1258215/" target="_blank">long-form podcast episode</a> (part of <i>RS</i>' <i>500 Greatest Albums </i>series) on Alice's Coltrane's classic 1971 LP<i> Journey in Satchidananda, </i>based around new and archival interviews with her collaborators, family and musician fans, as well as a visit to the Coltrane Home in Dix Hills, Long Island. This one means a lot to me — hope you enjoy! </p>Hankhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12995158278551531136noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36273873.post-33053330049081051042021-11-11T20:47:00.002-05:002021-11-11T20:47:30.168-05:00Lake Geode<p>Today I released my first album as a solo artist, a set of instrumental guitar compositions that I wrote and recorded at home during the past year or so. Check out the music and read more about the project over at <a href="https://lakegeode.bandcamp.com/releases" target="_blank">Bandcamp</a>. If you like what you hear, please tell a friend! <br /></p>Hankhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12995158278551531136noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36273873.post-6876067009984509592021-09-05T08:34:00.002-04:002021-09-05T08:34:38.437-04:00Death-metal dad rock<p>Carcass are a couple weeks away from putting out another excellent post-reunion album (hail <a href="http://darkforcesswing.blogspot.com/2013/09/the-ecstasy-of-present-gorguts-and.html" target="_blank"><i>Surgical Steel</i></a>), and it was an honor and a pleasure to be able to <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/carcass-interview-torn-arteries-1206231/" target="_blank">talk to them about it</a> for <i>Rolling Stone</i>.<br /></p>Hankhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12995158278551531136noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36273873.post-72812530283738451312021-06-25T15:07:00.005-04:002021-06-25T15:08:02.951-04:00Summer of Sonny<p>I almost couldn't believe it when I saw Sonny Sharrock featured so prominently in Questlove's new <i>Summer of Soul</i> doc. It's a phenomenal movie in general, but this was something I never expected. If only we could see the rest of the Herbie Mann set that this brief clip was drawn from!</p><p>It's a general guiding principle of mine that I take any/every opportunity to talk or write about Sonny. When I get right down to it, I think he is my single favorite musician of all time, the one whose soundworld resonates with me more than anyone else's. It's a bit heartbreaking to dwell on the fact that I'll never see him in the flesh, but new glimpses like this provide fresh inspiration. </p><p>Here is my <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/sonny-sharrock-guitarist-summer-of-soul-1189260/" target="_blank">latest attempt</a> to pay homage to his towering achievement, and to hopefully invite a few new listeners in. (And here's an <a href="http://darkforcesswing.blogspot.com/2017/12/living-together-in-one-song-symbiotic.html" target="_blank">older piece</a>, specifically focused on <i>Guitar</i>, that touches on some of the same ideas.) As hard as his music hits me, year after year, his words, from the many archival interviews out there, carry nearly the same weight. </p>Hankhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12995158278551531136noreply@blogger.com0