ALTER.NATION #97
Kamaal Williams, Crack Cloud, Alex Izenberg, Flower, Land of Talk, Alain Johannes, Taylor Swift feat. Bon Iver, The Psychedelic Furs, Winter, Ellen Allien, Nicolas Bougaïeff, Romare
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"Save Me"
ALTER.NATION #97 on deezer
Kamaal Williams - Wu Hen / Save Me
...Wu Hen, Williams' proper second album is titled for the nickname provided by his Taiwanese grandmother. This ten-track set integrates the keyboardist's experiments in jazz, hip-hop, R&B, and electronic dance music under the banner of "Wu Funk." His accompanists on the date include strings and charts from Miguel Atwood-Ferguson, saxophones from Quinn Mason, Katalyst Collective's Greg Paul on drums, and bassist Rick Leon James. Alina Bzhezhinska's harp is employed in a guest capacity.
Crack Cloud - Pain Olympics / Tunnel Vision
If the aim of Pain Olympics was to leave the listener wanting more, then it's gold medals all around. Although the 29-minute runtime is bursting with brilliance, the breakneck speed of the record approaches escape velocity only to abruptly hit the brakes. It can be a little disorienting at times, as the tracks pinball from one another with minimal space to catch their breath, even managing to forge a newer cosmic side to their sound in the process. It feels like a truer opening statement from the band, as their debut was really just two EPs melded together, and fully demonstrates their capabilities, especially their updated version of "Bastard Basket," which eschews the scratchy nature of its initial iteration for a weightier sound. Despite its erratic nature, Pain Olympics does manage to find cohesion in chaos; the band may have Zach Choy's vocals and propulsive percussion front and center, but the cast of larger than life members -- including the irresistible magnetism of Mohammed Ali Sharar -- that surround him conjure something far greater, an odd unity of sound and visuals that would otherwise fall apart if too many egos were at play; no-one else in 2020 exemplifies art-punk as much as Crack Cloud...
Alex Izenberg - Caravan Château / Requiem
Arriving four years after his full-length debut, Caravan Château delves deeper into the trippy, intimate chamber pop that singer/songwriter Alex Izenberg established on Harlequin. Recorded at various locations over a span of three years, its off-mike collaborators include indie artists like Grizzly Bear's Chris Taylor, Foxygen's Jonathan Rado, and Midnight Sister's Ari Balouzian. The album hits like the work of a solitary creator, however, its suffocating songs often warped by trippy arrangements, unpredictable turns, and out-of-tune components (including persistent double-tracking) all sound like the product of a singular, eccentric perspective...
Flower - None Is (But Once Was) / Blood
Land of Talk - Indistinct Conversations / Weight of That Weekend
Alain Johannes - Hum / If Mornins Comes
Taylor Swift feat. Bon Iver - folklore / exile
The Psychedelic Furs - Made of Rain / Turn Your Back on Me
After spending nearly two decades as a reliable concert draw playing the old hits to crowds happy to hear them, the Psychedelic Furs decided as the 2010s came to a close that the time was right to record some new music. After two quick sessions spent recording a few older, but mostly newly written, songs, the band's eighth album, Made of Rain, was ready to share with the outside world. It's a largely melancholy record that doesn't harken back to their nervy post-punk days, or their shimmering synth pop days, or even their dance-rock heyday. Instead, they go for a spit-shined modern sound that is sure to sound good in large halls and small arenas. The powerful rhythm section, subtle keyboard flourishes, and layers of guitars provide a suitably dramatic backdrop for Richard Butler's impressionistic lyrics and impressively unchanged vocals...
Winter - Endless Space (Between You & I) / Say
It's nothing new for a band to straddle the line between the soft, enveloping textures of dream pop and the noisier, pedal-abusing sounds of shoegaze, plenty of artists and bands have given it a try. Some of them do a pretty decent job blending the Cocteau Twins with My Bloody Valentine; some of them can't quite get the balance right. Over the course of a few albums, Winter showed that they were on the right track. Guided by the vision and voice of Samira Winter, they took a light and bouncy approach that felt like the brightest, happiest work of those two bands mashed together. On Endless Space (Between You & I), Samira Winter ditched her previous crew of collaborators and called in Ian Gibbs to help bring her vision to life. Gibbs plays a key role in crafting the intricate and moodily pretty music made by the band Vinyl Williams and it's perhaps no coincidence that Endless Space (Between You & I) marks a definitive change in the band's sound...
Ellen Allien - Auraa / I Can't See You
Ellen Allien's third album in as many years continues the interstellar motif of 2019's excellent Alientronic, delivering another focused set of club tracks that explore sci-fi themes. Allien's occasional vocals are processed, making her sound like an extraterrestrial, and the tracks give the impression that she's encountering Earth for the first time and learning to adapt to human culture through its music. "Hello Planet Earth (Breath Mix)" introduces the album with trance arpeggios and a half-tempo rhythm that booms outward from the center, creating a sensation of suspended motion...
Nicolas Bougaïeff - The Upward Spiral / Listen Carefully To The Heart Beat
Nicolas Bougaïeff's first full-length for Mute is a startling set of complex audio constructions that challenge the conventional framework of techno. Instead of structuring standard 4/4 beat patterns and predictable builds and drops, he goes off the grid and assembles rhythms and sequences that seem to run counter to each other, drastically shifting perspectives when one element cuts out and another takes over. For an artist often known for such pristine, high-end sound design, from producing an intricately crafted EP with Max Cooper as well as developing audio performance gear with Richie Hawtin, the album sounds surprisingly rough, caked in grungy distortion and occasionally steeped in a high-pitched steam-kettle hiss that sounds like a hand-manipulated device rather than a plug-in. The record finds common ground with the lo-fi noise-techno of Container and the more purist Berghain sound...
Romare - Home / Gone
Romare's third album was created after the producer moved from London out to the English countryside, where he started a family and built a home studio. Shifting away from the late-night odes to yearning and romantic desire of 2016's Love Songs: Part Two, Home is focused more on identity, belonging, and finding one's self. While key samples of blues, soul, and gospel vocals still make significant appearances, there's much more of Romare's own playing than on his past releases. Additionally, his tracks sound less wobbly and choppy than they used to, and they seem to progress a bit more. It relies much less on rare-groove crackly vinyl effects and sounds more like an expression of Romare's own personality...
Kamaal Williams, Crack Cloud, Alex Izenberg, Flower, Land of Talk, Alain Johannes, Taylor Swift feat. Bon Iver, The Psychedelic Furs, Winter, Ellen Allien, Nicolas Bougaïeff, Romare
