063 ALTER.NATION weekly favtraX 10-11-2019

ALTER.NATION #63

Woolworm, Jehnny Beth, The Homesick, FKA Twigs, Jessie Ware, SebastiAn feat. Charlotte Gainsbourg, Kate Davis, Josienne Clarke, Beck, Charles Rumback / Ryley Walker, Matt Valentine, Kamaal Williams

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"I’m The Man"

ALTER.NATION #63 on DEEZER

Leaders of their own self-created genre "Blanket Rock," Woolworm are a band from Vancouver, British Columbia whose music is a fusion of hardcore, indie rock, shoegaze, and ambitious pop. Led by singer and guitarist Giles Roy,
Woolworm - Soon from AWE
Vancouver's Woolworm don't hesitate to speak proudly of their roots in the Canadian hardcore scene, though an examination of their body of work reveals an uncommon virtue among modern hardcore bands: a willingness to evolve and explore. Their third full-length album, 2019's Awe, certainly boasts the intensity and conviction of hardcore, but they've learned how to incorporate pop melodies into their sound, add atmospheric touches drawn from indie rock, and make their guitars tower like shoegaze or jangle like vintage alt-rock.

Best known as the compelling vocalist for Savages, Jehnny Beth is the performing name of French musician Camille Berthomier.
Jehnny Beth - I’m The Man
Savages leader Jehnny Beth has a new song out today, “I’m The Man,” which appears on the soundtrack for the British television show Peaky Blinders... Here’s what Beth had to say about the track in a statement: "I’m The Man’ is an attempted study on humankind, what we define as evil and the inner conflict of morality. Because it is much easier to label the people who are clearly tormented by obsessions as monsters than to discern the universal human background which is visible behind them. However, this song has not even a remote connection with a sociological study, collective psychology, or present politics; It is a poetic work first and foremost. Its aim is to make you feel, not think."

Dutch pop trio signed by Sub Pop Records
The Homesick - I Celebrate My Fantasy
Dutch trio the Homesick have signed to Sub Pop for the release of their upcoming sophomore album The Big Exercise, named after a passage from the Scott Walker biography Deep Shade Of Blue. And today, they’re sharing first single “I Celebrate My Fantasy,” which imbues their brand of post-punk with a prog-pop whimsicality in the form of clarinet and piano flourishes.

FKA twigs is the project of English singer/songwriter/producer/choreographer Twigs, aka Tahliah Barnett. Evoking trip-hop as well as the xx's spare electronic pop, FKA twigs' songs are haunting and vulnerable.
FKA twigs - Thousand Eyes from MAGDALENE
On her early EPs and LP1, FKA twigs' Tahliah Barnett expressed the intersections of love, pain, fragility and strength with remarkable eloquence. While making Magdalene, she embodied them. Not only did she endure the end of a long-term relationship, she had surgery to remove six large uterine fibroids (colorfully described by her as a "fruit bowl of pain"). These events became the heart of her second album, which uses the duality of Mary Magdalene as a lens for its wounded yet resilient feminine energy...  The beautifully nightmarish "Thousand Eyes" is steeped in anxiety that churns in its spiralling pianos and when Barnett sings "It's gonna be cold out there with all those eyes" in an anguished soprano that could cut glass...

South London native with a powerful soul-steeped voice who has collaborated with SBTRKT, Joker, and Disclosure.
Jessie Ware - Mirage (Don’t Stop)
Jessie Ware knows how to make you move. She’s been doing it for years. “Don’t stop moving together,” she intones on her latest single. “Keep on dancing.” “Mirage (Don’t Stop)” is grounded by a sticky bass line that’s impossible not to move along to, fulfilling Ware’s command to do just that. Ware understands the dance floor’s capacity for self-preservation and reinvention, and she builds songs that facilitate moments of sweaty transcendence.
“Last night we danced and I thought you were saving my life,” she sings. The British singer took a bit of a detour into smoldering, loungey music over the last few years, but her most recent singles have her back in the club where she belongs, and we couldn’t be luckier. “Mirage (Don’t Stop)” isn’t flashy or showy, and it doesn’t have to be — it’s an undeniable groove. Ware knows what she wants and she knows how to get it: constant motion, ecstasy among the strobing lights.

French electronic artist noted for his remixes as well as his glitchy, electro-house original material.
SebastiAn feat. Charlotte Gainsbourg - Pleasant from Thirst
The cover art for SebastiAn’s first solo album, Total, is a photo taken by Jean-Baptiste Mondino. It shows the French producer – best-known for his association with revered house label Ed Banger, and for his work on Frank Ocean’s Blonde – kissing himself. On Thirst, a follow-up that has taken eight years to materialise, he straddles his doppelganger and raises his fist, as though about to punch himself in the face... Charlotte Gainsbourg, whose superb 2017 album Rest was produced by SebastiAn, channels another of her regular collaborators – director Lars Von Trier – on the haunting “Pleasant”, which in turn recalls the Nineties trip-hop of Bristol artist Tricky...

Musical polymath who released jazz albums as a teen and wrote "Seventeen" with Sharon Van Etten before emerging with indie rock of her own.
Kate Davis - Dirty Teenager from Trophy
The third solo album by Portland native Kate Davis but her indie rock and singer/songwriter debut, Trophy was several years the making. A one-time jazz prodigy, the vocalist/bassist recorded a pair of cover albums as a teen between performances with youth orchestras, as a guest of the likes of Herbie Hancock and Ben Folds, and as a Presidential Scholar of the Arts at Kennedy Center... Recalling contemporary debuts by names like Anna Burch and Madison Cunningham in terms of its polished sophistication, consistency, and fault-finding lyrics, Trophy introduces a songwriter fully formed.

British folk singer/songwriter Josienne Clarke uses understated guitar arrangements to convey a sense of longing, managing to pursue melancholy atmosphere whether backed by a chamber orchestra -- as seen in her time working alongside Ben Walker -- or as a solo artist.
Josienne Clarke - Dark Cloud from In All Weather
UK singer/songwriter Josienne Clarke worked for years as half of a folksy duo with Ben Walker before completing In All Weather, her first set of hushed, sparely arranged solo songs. Clarke's bright vocal style was at the center of her songs with Walker, as they are with her solo debut, but here they’re allowed to rise even higher in the mixes, ornamented only slightly with light accompaniment. Clarke's songwriting is gentle and bittersweet...

One of the most inventive, eclectic figures of the alternative era, the epitome of post-modern chic in an era obsessed with junk culture.
Beck - Dark Places
20 years ago, the combination of Beck and Pharrell Williams would’ve seemed like the coolest thing that could ever possibly happen. Today, it’s still pretty cool... Beck co-wrote “Dark Places” with Pharrell. It’s a slow, ambling song, built from both an acoustic-guitar strum and a rich, hazy synth sound. Beck, singing as high as his voice will let him go, reflects on a breakup: “Time moves on, and on and love, it goes / Now she’s gone, and all I see are shadows.” It’s closer to Sea Change than it is to Midnite Vultures, which is not something I would’ve ever expected to say about a Beck/Pharrell collab.

Chicago's Charles Rumback is a forward-thinking drummer with a bent toward avant-garde jazz and experimental music. In addition to playing in various jazz configurations, he collaborated with virtuosic folk guitarist Ryley Walker...
Ryley Walker is an accomplished fingerstyle guitarist, singer, and songwriter from Chicago whose music and evolution as an artist have proven mercurial. He moved from noisy avant-garde work in his nascent stages into virtuosic guitar playing and floating spiritual pop that traced lines between Bert Jansch, Van Morrison, and somehow even the Dave Matthews Band...
Charles Rumback / Ryley Walker - Idiot Parade from Little Common Twist
Drummer Charles Rumback and guitarist Ryley Walker came together as a duo in 2016 to create the outstretching improv sprawl of their five-song album Cannots. Sometimes abstract and harsh, other times introspective and subdued, Cannots pitted Walker's virtuosic folk-informed guitar playing against Rumback's flowing jazz percussion.. While the results weren't always seamless or pretty, the players locked into a riled-up unison. Recorded over various sessions between 2017 and 2018, Little Common Twist represents a follow-up to the wild noise and rolling exploration of Cannots...  "Idiot Parade" is more groove-oriented, finding the duo joined by bassist Nick Macri for swells of feedback and drone that ride Rumback's fluid, reverb-effected drumming. Elsewhere they dabble in ambient tones and spirited odd-timed rhythms...

Psychedelic folk singer/guitarist who prolifically released solo work as well as co-founding MV & EE... As the years burned on, Valentine focused on a deep-fried miasma of sounds and styles with solo albums like 2019's Preserves.
Matt Valentine - Light Speed from Preserves
Matt Valentine is no stranger to psychedelic sounds... Assembled from eight years of back-filed recordings, Preserves goes off the deep end into a pool of demented funk, wild-eyed guitar freak-outs, and layered, druggy walls of confusion and bliss. "Light Speed" opens the album with its closest thing to a pop song. Funky bass, buried vocals, and scratchy, zigzagging wah-wah guitar lines all rise and fall in the mix, sometimes making space for what sounds like a violin or random electronics. It's the sonic equivalent of a bad trip in a '70s blaxploitation movie...

London-born keyboardist, DJ, and producer with a funky sound informed by '70s jazz fusion, acid jazz, and modern electronic traditions.
Kamaal Williams - Snitches Brew (Live in Atlanta) (Mixed) from DJ-Kicks
...As a listening experience, the mix is filled with abrupt switches, change-ups, dissolves, and vibe-out moments, seemingly approximating a night spent trying to visit every club in South London for a few minutes each. It also highlights the artist's skill as both a musician and cratedigger, dropping in several of his own creations (as both Williams and Wu) among dozens of records dating back to the early 1980s. Early on, he includes a live recording of his track "Snitches Brew," released as the B-side of a 2018 single, which flips from a meditative groove to an up-tempo breakbeat wig-out filled with loads of fiery soloing...

Woolworm, Jehnny Beth, The Homesick, FKA Twigs, Jessie Ware, SebastiAn feat. Charlotte Gainsbourg, Kate Davis, Josienne Clarke, Beck, Charles Rumback / Ryley Walker, Matt Valentine, Kamaal Williams

053 ALTER.NATION weekly favtraX 15-09-2019

ALTER.NATION #53

Mike Patton, Jean-Claude Vannier, Robbie Robertson, Glen Hansard, Pixies, Corb Lund, Belle and Sebastian, Charles Rumback, Ryley Walker, (Sandy) Alex G, Gruff Rhys, Sequoyah Murray, Luke Temple, Perfume Genius, Kim Gordon

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"B r o w n i n g"

ALTER.NATION #53 on DEEZER

Mike Patton is not so much a singer as he is an innovator in manipulation of the human voice. One of the most versatile, innately talented, and idiosyncratic singers in rock music, Mike Patton is also one of the genre's most valuable players, since he has divided his time between a host of diverse projects including Faith No More, Mr. Bungle, Fantômas, Tomahawk, Peeping Tom, Nevermen, Dead Cross, and an experimental solo career.
The influence of Jean Claude Vannier on French popular and film music cannot be overstated. A composer, arranger, conductor, and producer, he is best known for work he's done for other artists, but his own recordings and scores have gained critical notice too.
Mike Patton / Jean-Claude Vannier - Browning from Corpse Flower
Though few would have conceived of it beforehand, a collaboration between French composer and arranger Jean-Claude Vannier and American singer, lyricist, songwriter, and producer Mike Patton finds them a perfectly matched pair of musical reprobates... Musically, this set crisscrosses many genres, it is ultimately rooted in exploration and adventure yet grounded in sleazy chanson, lounge tropes, blues, cinema music, and sound library tropes... "Browning" sounds like a mutant outtake from the Rolling Stones' Emotional Rescue if it were arranged by Vannier, Keith Richards, and Gainsbourg...  Corpse Flower is a dark jewel from two remarkable musical iconoclasts. It offers surprise, humor, revelation, tenderness, and excess, with flair and a certain tarnished elegance. It's a high-water mark for both men, albeit one born from the belly of hell itself.

The chief songwriter and lead guitarist of the Band, who later moved into film (acting, producing, scoring) and a solo career.
Robbie Robertson feat. Glen Hansard – Dead End Kid
“They said you’ll never be nothing/ You’re just a dead end kid/ Probably end up in prison/ Or maybe down on the skids,” Robertson rasps over a smoky, sinuous groove, Hansard’s voice soaring above his in a ghostly echo. But then the song takes a defiant turn: “I’m gonna play my song/ Out across this lake/ From Scarborough Bluffs/ Over to New York State/ I want to show the world/ Something they ain’t never seen/ I want to take you somewhere/ You ain’t never been.”
Robertson wrote “Dead End Kid” while he was working on the second volume of his autobiography. “When I was growing up in Toronto, I was telling people, ‘One of these days I’m going to make some music and go all over the world,'” he explains in a statement. “Everyone was like, that’s never going to happen. You’re a dead end kid. Because my relatives were First Nation people and Jewish gangsters, it was assumed my dreams were going to explode. I found strength in overcoming that disbelief.”

Indie icons who influenced countless artists by welding classic pop influences and jagged, roaring guitars to Black Francis' fragmented songwriting.
Pixies - On Graveyard Hill from Beneath the Eyrie
On their third post-reunion album, Pixies do what they failed to on Indie Cindy and Head Carrier: suggest a way forward for their music. Too often on those albums, it felt like the band was trying to live up to someone else's expectations of what they should sound like. On Beneath the Eyrie, however, it sounds like they weren't trying to please anyone but themselves; paradoxically, the results are their most engaging set of songs since they reunited. Instead of caricaturing the best-known (and most copied) elements of their sound, they build on different, more versatile sides of their legacy. In particular, they take inspiration from some of the darker pages of Doolittle's and Bossanova's songbooks... "Graveyard Hill" is the latest incarnation of the dark feminine that's inhabited Pixies' world since "Is She Weird." While its tale of a witch who brews a deadly love potion might be almost too on the nose, it's got more bite and energy than many of their other previous attempts to re-create their magic...

Proudly Alberta-based vocalist and guitarist whose band is fluent in roots music from blues to cowboy to rockabilly to Western swing. Corb Lund is a Canadian roots-country singer/songwriter whose third album, Five Dollar Bill (2002), established him as a favorite among critics and Americana music enthusiasts in his home country, the U.S., and in Europe.
Corb Lund - These Boots Are Made for Walkin’ from Cover Your Tracks
Since releasing 2015's Dave Cobb-produced Things That Can’t Be Undone, Alberta's Corb Lund has been touring relentlessly and doing charity work. Preparing to write and record a new set of originals, the singer/songwriter, with his Hurtin' Albertans in tow, issued the eight-track Cover Your Tracks EP, co-produced with John Evans. It's a divergence for Lund, whose Americana recordings have made him one of North America's most acclaimed roots artists. He chose these tunes from his band's live set and/or their honored places in his life. While most are readily recognizable by their original artists, Lund infuses most of them with fresh energy; he also enlists of a couple of guests to assist... Lee Hazelwood's Nancy Sinatra vehicle "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'" has been covered far too often. It may be important to Lund, but it doesn't add much here...

Anchored by Stuart Murdoch, this Scottish collective specializes in immaculately crafted, clever, and poetic indie pop.
Belle and Sebastian - The Colour's Gonna Run from Days of the Bagnold Summer
Days Of The Bagold Summer is Belle & Sebastian's soundtrack for Simon Bird's 2019 cinematic adaptation of Joff Winterhart's 2012 graphic novel. The band was hired by the director during a period where leader Stuart Murdoch was revisiting some of his older songs, so these tunes anchor the soundtrack album... "The Colour's Gonna Run" is a shimmering piece of folk-pop. The individual parts fit together elegantly, even if it flirts with the ephemeral; the music deliberately floats by, leaving trace elements of melodies and vibe behind...

Ryley Walker is an accomplished fingerstyle guitarist, singer, and songwriter from Chicago whose music and evolution as an artist have proven mercurial.
Charles Rumback, Ryley Walker - Half Joking
Ryley Walker is reuniting with drummer Charles Rumback for a new album called Little Common Twist, their second release together as a duo after 2016’s Cannots. Little Common Twist compiles eight instrumental pieces recorded with producer John Hughes over several improvised sessions throughout 2017 and 2018.

Intimate lo-fi pop from a Pennsylvania songwriter/guitarist who takes influence from Elliott Smith and Built to Spill.
(Sandy) Alex G - Crime from House of Sugar
For his third Domino Records release and ninth album in total, lo-fi pop experimenter (Sandy) Alex G (Alex Giannascoli) presents House of Sugar. The multifaceted title is, for one, a reference to the SugarHouse Casino in Philadelphia... While 2017's Rocket saw the songwriter/GarageBand recordist working with an expanded guest list including touring bandmembers for the first time, House of Sugar involved recording collaborations on some songs with his mixer, Jacob Portrait, at Portrait's Brooklyn studio -- Giannascoli's first excursion to an outside studio. In addition to splurging on a new microphone and recording-software upgrade at home, Giannascoli has said that he worked more deliberately on this album, spending more time on fewer songs than ever before...

De facto leader of Welsh psych-pop outfit Super Furry Animals, who went on to record solo projects and form collaborative outfits like Neon Neon.
Gruff Rhys - Pang! from Pang!
Consider Pang! the aperitif to the luxurious meal that was Babelsberg, the 2018 concept album recorded with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales. Gliding by on elegant electronic rhythms, sung in Welsh and buoyed by breezy chord changes reminiscent of bossa nova and finger-picked folk, Pang! finds Rhys collaborating with Muzi, an electronic artist from South Africa. It's not the only 2019 album to find Rhys delving into modern African music. Earlier this year, he contributed to EGOLI, the 2019 album by Damon Albarn's Africa Express, but where that record proudly rooted itself in rhythm, Pang! is so light, it almost seems weightless...

Innovative and eclectic Atlanta-based artist blends elements of Afro-pop, gospel, Tropicália, dream pop, and soul.
Sequoyah Murray - Blue Jays from Before You Begin
Straight from its Satie-lilting introductory track, Sequoyah Murray's first full-length instantly sounds fresh and unique. The Atlanta native, all of 22 years old at the time of the album's release, takes an adventurous approach to songwriting, stitching together dreamy yet cohesive pop songs out of exploratory brainstorming sessions, and blurring genres with ease. At the center is Murray's rich, versatile baritone, which is both sensuous and commanding, and ethereal enough to make you wonder if he permanently resides in an echo chamber... Murray experiments with more complex rhythms on the cyber-Afropop of "Blue Jays"...  An eye-opening debut from a boundlessly creative talent.

Singer/songwriter and visual artist who spans indie folk and experimental pop with his solo output, with Here We Go Magic, and as Art Feynman.
Luke Temple - 200,000 Years of Fucking from Both-And
By the arrival of Both-And, his debut for Native Cat Recordings, Luke Temple had released music varying from pastoral folk to experimental pop to cosmic jams and spaces in between under his own name, under the alias Art Feynman, and with Here We Go Magic. Always unpredictable from album to album, particularly in terms of palette and adherence to song structures, any attempt to lay out a coherent sound trajectory for Temple's catalog should probably be tossed out the window. Having said that, Both-And feels a bit like a consummation of prior works, at least in that it offers varied electronic-acoustic textures and examples of improvisational atmospheres, free-form song, and stricter verse-and-chorus tunes.

Alternative singer/songwriter project for Mike Hadreas' fragile yet brutally honest songs.
Perfume Genius - Eye In The Wall
...“Eye In The Wall” was clearly written with dance in mind, and it’s easy to close your eyes and picture bodies moving to it. The song is a rich, atmospheric head-trip that owes a clear debt to Amnesiac-era Radiohead. But it’s also built around swirling Afro-Latin percussion, something that goes shockingly well with the sound. Here’s the song:

Iconic indie rock musician and feminist, best known for her work with Sonic Youth and several solo projects.
Kim Gordon - Air BnB
...“Air BnB” is a great song, a scratchy and anthemic rocker that calls back to Sonic Youth’s early-’90s noise-pop period while still sounding fully of-the-moment. The track is full of discordant guitar sounds, but those sounds work in service of the song, which has a grimy punk intensity and a huge chorus. “Air BnB / It’ll set me free,” Gordon yells, effectively satirizing the kind of consumerism that could really stand to be satirized nowadays...

Mike Patton, Jean-Claude Vannier, Robbie Robertson, Glen Hansard, Pixies, Corb Lund, Belle and Sebastian, Charles Rumback, Ryley Walker, (Sandy) Alex G, Gruff Rhys, Sequoyah Murray, Luke Temple, Perfume Genius, Kim Gordon