ALTER.NATION #108
Mourn, Population II, Christian Kjellvander, Elvis Costello, Puscifer, Eels, Trees Speak, Nothing, Dope Body, Tobacco, The Flower Kings, Mary Halvorson's Code Girl,King Khan,
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Mourn - Self Worth / Men
On 2018's vibrant Sorpresa Familia, Mourn celebrated the end of the label issues that hampered them from playing and promoting their music. However, they're still frustrated by plenty of other things -- capitalism, the patriarchy, relationships -- and on Self Worth, they tackle them head-on. Somehow, they sound even more liberated on these songs than they did on Sorpresa Familia. Self Worth is filled with big guitars and even bigger harmonies... New drummer Victor Álvarez Ridao is a worthy addition to the group, providing a whomping backbeat for the chaos the rest of the band unleashes... Knowing your value and demanding respect are some of the most punk things women can do, and on Self Worth, Mourn do both with fiery eloquence.
Population II - A La O Terre /Attraction
The first album by Montreal psychedelic explorers Population II sounds like transmissions from various locales in outer space, the trio recording and transmitting the drifting nothingness of endless expanses punctuated by the impact of comets, the blinding flash of exploding stars, and the beauty of distant galaxies. Singing drummer Pierre-Luc Gratton, guitarist/organist Tristan Lacombe, and bassist Sébastien Provençal are well versed in all forms of psychedelia, and it wouldn't be surprising to find out they had impressive collections of jazz and prog records at home too... Regardless of which avenue the band pursues, Lacombe's guitar playing is a thing of wonder. He coaxes all manner of sounds out of his instrument, ranging from gentle fills to raging shards of noise; whatever the song requires, he delivers... As it is, À la Ô Terre is merely superb and vaults the band onto level footing with fellow travelers like Dungen and Osees, which is pretty good company to be in on your initial voyage.
Recorded mostly live with drummer Per Nordmark and keyboardist Pelle Andersson, both of whom also appeared on Christian Kjellvander's previous two albums, About Love and Loving Again takes an even darker, more involving turn than predecessor Wild Hxmans... About Love and Loving Again opens with pulsing distortion and chaotic drumming on "Baptist Lodge (The Galaxy)," a reference to the remote, converted chapel where Kjellvander wrote and recorded much of his prior solo work until a divorce that informs parts of the album. The track eventually hits a middling stride sketched out by brushed snare, with measure-marking bass drum, sustained guitar strums, and humming synths backing Kjellvander's deep-voiced, subtly melodic recollections, including "It was what it was/And is what it is/And you know, you know it ain't ever coming back." Like most of the entries here, it eventually grows in volume and expansiveness, including a guitar solo that says a lot with limited notes, before falling away to expose eerie synth shimmers (and building back up again)...
Elvis Costello - Hey Clockface / No Flag
Hey Clockface arrived quickly on the heels of Look Now, but where that 2018 album seemed constructed as classicist Elvis Costello, drawing upon his strengths as a melodicist and the muscle of his regular backing band the Imposters, this 2020 affair feels as if it was designed to surprise... The spell is broken in a flurry of gnarled guitars that usher in "No Flag," a transition that establishes how Hey Clockface doesn't follow any particular path... It shows Costello's mastery of mood and storytelling, the kind of skill he's acquired over the course of a long career, but the key to Hey Clockface is that these techniques are applied to a record that's as restless as anything Costello made in his younger days.
Puscifer - Existential Reckoning / Apocalyptical
Amidst societal strife and global pandemic, Maynard James Keenan returns with the most personal and human of his three main bands, reviving Puscifer with the group's fourth official full-length, Existential Reckoning. As the title suggests, this time things are more serious than usual and the core trio of Keenan, Carina Round, and Mat Mitchell crafted a politically charged takedown of the state of the world circa 2020... Drowning in dread, frustration, and anxiety, the journey falls between Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross' introspective film scores and something that could soundtrack The X-Files in another dimension. The band also pepper the effort with touches of Bowie's spaced-out glam, Kraftwerk's robotic detachment, and Reznor and Ross' work as Nine Inch Nails and How to Destroy Angels... As the beat pulses with mechanical precision and the bass slinks along, Keenan and Round trade vocals over a slowly building buzz that eventually bleeds into the album's central concept, "Apocalyptical." Atop guitar groove and industrial percussion, Keenan growls, "Be damned, dumb.../Go on, moron, ignore the evidence," morphing into a twisted dystopian version of a Willy Wonka Oompa Loompa. Without mincing words, he calls out a populace that's content with manipulation and disinformation, ignoring facts and reality to its own detriment...
Eels - Earth to Dora / Are You Fucking Your Ex
Mark Oliver Everett, the man who is the benevolent despot behind the Eels, is not adverse to change, and after the cool electronic surfaces and nervous lyrical viewpoint of 2018's The Deconstruction, he decided to take things in a different direction for his 13th album, 2020's Earth to Dora. By Everett's standards, Earth to Dora sounds optimistic, or at least he seems reasonably content most of the time, which is pretty impressive given the dour, edgy tone of much of his music... Of course, Everett probably isn't capable of making an album that's devoid of dark thoughts, and between the uncomfortable jealousy of "Are You Fucking Your Ex,"... For the Eels, those are not emotions to dismiss offhand. In an era of malaise, Eels are contrary enough to take a shot at feeling good, and Earth to Dora is well-written and imaginatively produced pop for grown-ups that reminds us Mark Oliver Everett is crazy enough to try anything once -- even feeling OK for a while.
Trees Speak’s new album ‘Shadow Forms’ is a blend of 1970s German electronic and ‘motorik’ Krautrock instrumentals (think Harmonia, Can, Cluster, Popul Vuh, Neu!), haunting and powerful 1960s & 1970s soundtracks (think Italian prog-rock Goblin and John Carpenter horror movies, Morricone and existential John Barry spy movies), together with a New Nork no wave electronic synth and guitar analogue DIY-ness (think Suicide, anything on Soul Jazz’s New York Noise series or Eno's New York No Wave)!
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Trees Speak are Daniel Martin Diaz and Damian Diaz from Tucson, Arizona and their music often draws on the cosmic night-time magic of Arizona’s natural desert landscapes. ‘Trees Speak’ relates to the idea of future technologies storing information and data in trees and plants - using them as hard drives – and the idea that Trees communicate collectively.
Nothing - Great Dismal / Ask the Rust
Nothing burst onto the shoegaze and metal scene with the brilliant Guilty of Everything, an album that perfectly juxtaposed the swooning nowhereness of the former with the pounding immediacy of the latter. It was such a perfect debut that the band struggled a bit to figure out exactly where to go from there. After a record that was too slick and melodic (Tired of Tomorrow) and one that set them back on the right track but neglected the metal side of the equation (Dance on the Blacktop), on 2020's The Great Dismal, they finally get the balance just right...
... Crack a Light is by some counts the group's fourth proper studio album, and pushes their danceable art rock in new directions while keeping explosive energy at the center of every track. Album opener "Curve" blasts out of the gates with some familiar elements of the band's signature sound, with distorted bass, red-lined guitar, swaggering vocals, and hyperactive drumming all congealing into three minutes of tightly controlled chaos. ..It's one of the most exciting, complex, and captivating statements yet from a band already notorious for their electrifying turbulence.
... The track doesn't appear on subsequent full-length Hot, Wet & Sassy, but the album clearly takes the sparkling perfection and wide-eyed, fantasy-like optimism of '80s pop as a primary inspiration, even if the songs themselves are laced with grimy distortion and filled with self-loathing lyrics... This mood is quickly upset by the mutant talkbox groove of "Babysitter," which sports a Trent Reznor cameo and intentionally creepy lyrics, flitting between sleazy horror and odd displays of tenderness... Simultaneously one of Tobacco's most difficult and most accessible records, Hot, Wet & Sassy might seem contradictory, but it makes a strange sort of sense in the context of his catalog, and he manages to make his grotesque vision of pop music work.
The COVID-19 pandemic has and will continue to inspire art of all stripes for years to come. Touring musicians have been forced to reckon with a situation that challenges their livelihoods and their ability to collaborate. The Flower Kings respond directly with Islands, a 90-minute, 21-song double album whose theme is isolation, loss, and the fear of disconnection. It is adorned with a "floating islands" cover painting from Roger Dean... "Serpentine" melds hoary prog and Zappa-esque fusion with a soulful soprano sax appearance from guest Rob Townsend... Its bright, warm production and inspired performances contradict the dire global circumstances surrounding its creation, rendering it all the more remarkable.
Mary Halvorson's Code Girl - Artlessly Falling / Walls and Roses
Artlessly Falling is the second album by Mary Halvorson's Code Girl. Its core remains Halvorson on guitar; Tomas Fujiwara on drums; Amirtha Kidambi on vocals, and Michael Formanek on bass. Trumpeter Adam O'Farrill replaces Ambrose Akinmusire, and Maria Grand is added on tenor saxophone and voice. The date also includes three vocal cameos by Robert Wyatt... While "Walls and Roses" is introduced by Fujiwara's cymbals and Halvorson's fingerpicking under Wyatt's vocal; it erupts in under a minute as the guitarist unleashes distorted shredding. Kidambi calms her on the second stanza, but Halvorson shakes loose here, and between each succeeding exchanged stanza, as Fujiwara and Formanek brace her screaming lead lines...This remarkable album cannot be quantified, only experienced. Mary Halvorson's Code Girl are so mercurial in method and content -- and mystifying in execution -- they actually deserve their own genre.
King Khan - The Infinite Ones / Theme Of Yahya
...The song "Theme of Yahya" was a song I wrote for Yahya El Majid who played for many years with the Arkestra. I met Yahya in 2005 during my first meeting with the Arkestra. He shared many stories with me about the teachings of Sun Ra, the discipline he learned from him, and the many adventures he had all over the world travelling with the Arkestra. He told me these tales while playing a chinese harp, jamming to the sounds of Tuvaan Throat Singers, while burning a large amount of frankincense and myrrh. When I recorded the song I had four harps panned in stereo to form a sonic flower. When Yahya heard the track he telephoned me and told me that he was really moved by the piece and was proud of me. Yahya had been struggling for years with cancer and sadly passed away late August, 2020. I did not realize that my tribute to him would become a requiem, and it means the world to me that he was able to hear his tribute before he left the planet...
Mourn, Population II, Christian Kjellvander, Elvis Costello, Puscifer, Eels, Trees Speak, Nothing, Dope Body, Tobacco, The Flower Kings, Mary Halvorson's Code Girl, King Khan,
