First Impressions 003: Damo Suzuki, wistful thinking person's pop, cooling cellos, spiritchasing trip-hop and more.

Initial vibes on new music

The death of Can singer Damo Suzuki brought back a memory that, for me, summed up the man’s approach to music and life. Oren Ambarchi had convened a short-lived outfit called Husbands for an experimental stage at the Sydey leg of the Big Day Out, a touring festival that more typically hosted the likes of Nirvana, Rammstein, and Björk. The premise was simple: seven or so guitarists each playing their individually-assigned note or riff, plus a drummer, with a lineage to Glenn Branca's minimalist overdrive. (here’s a clip of a later show in Melbourne) Damo Suzuki was also present that day. Word got out he wanted in. Introductions were made and Damo jumped up on stage, proving himself to be right in sync with proceedings by pinpointing himself squarely within the group’s mix of pure discipline and spirit. Ever the wildcard in his time with Can, he instinctively knew which collaborators would complement him best, no matter where he traveled in the world. As he embarked on his journey with Damo Suzuki’s Network, any gig with him upfront offered the chance for full-on release, vocalising to both the rhythms of his body and the band. Thanks, Damo, for showing us how rock music can be a portal to freedom in a sense truer than any commodified posturing could ever give you.

OK, let’s go:

Timeless - Hu Vibrational: I’ve had this bookmarked since it came out in August last year, Hu Vibrational being the project for New Yorker Adam Rudolph, who composes in the way someone might for a loose improvising ensemble, except he plays the majority of instruments himself. (noting one of bigger contributors is legendary drummer and percussionist Hamid Drake with some heavy-hitting help on production from Carlos Niño) After some studio collaging, it’s a kind of spiritchasing trip hop with its fourth world approach, weaving together loping rounds of Indian classical and African instrumentation, drawing a line back to the the spacious experimentation of Jon Hassell, and to a lesser extent Brian Eno and David Byrne circa My Life In The Bush of Ghosts, without the white-boy funk pretense.

Distorted Rooms - Radian: Another that snuck out and right past me mid last year. All of the members’ expansive work is worthy and it’s great to see this project return after a long absence. In crude terms, this sounds like the uncanny rhythmic thrust of The Necks chopped ‘n screwed by On-U Sound System. However, Radian have their own langauge ticking on a unique energy they’ve developed to be way more buzzingly alive than those coordinates, but I hope they’ll be a springboard for you to dive in.

Lovegaze - Nailah Hunter: An unexpected but grand turn from the harpist and Longform Editions alumni with this positively glowing, sumptuous album. With these soaring and dewy songs, set within a constellation of electronic atmospheres and spiritual jazz leans, you have to commit in the same way Nailah pours herself wholly into the elements. It’s like a very rich dessert some may find a little too much, though perfect if you want something on the right side of indulgent.

Whoopee - J.McFarlane's Reality Guest: A colleague sent this on, saying it was ‘very 90s in that sultry, slinky vibe’. Which often means that 90s by way of 60s vibe - and yep, there’s a lot of lava lamp in this. Once with Twerps, Julia McFarlane’s more recent project takes a moody view to her bedroom pop, often sounding like some lost lo-fi trip hop album from that mid 90s era when beats frequently collided with dusky jazz and film noir feels. Along the way you’ll find Tropicalia, French chanson and delightfully twee breakbeats coursing through these songs, all aimed squarely at lounge times. 

Echo You Know - Yohei: Some extra elevated California dreamin’ left to bake in the sun for that little bit longer. Tokyo-born but now based in LA, Yohei worships at the altar of West Coast pop classics with his liquid fusion of soft rock and psychedelia. Its hazy way is gentle and easy to love. One for wistful thinking. Wilco trainspotters take note: Nels Cline guests on pedal steel.

Detritus - Bensin: I was tipped to this via Marc Masters’ excellent, deep-reaching experimental music round-ups for Bandcamp. I got curious because Bensin is apparently from Naarm (Melbourne) with no extra detail offered. Detritus is two longform pieces deftly weaving their variously random recordngs made over a seven-year period into one vast vision, immediately bringing to mind the likes Oneohtrixpointnever and pimmon (new music please, Paul!) making music to soundtrack a low budget remake of Dune. The common thread for all these sounds is a sheer physicality, positively apocalytpic in their accumulated turblence.

Coral City - Jonathan Sielaff: Happy to see this pop up from one half of Golden Retriever, especially since these recordings have been locked away for five years. There’s a luminous presence to these airy solo bass clarinet ruminations, exquisitely treated and affected with guitar, electronics and field recirdings towards a gently levitational quality. The pace is glacial on this soft wonder: a cooling force to reckon with the heat of our times.

Thanks for reading.

Longform Editions 36 was released yesterday! Four works inspired by ideas of transformation and possibility, open to seeing the world and our place in it anew through the physical experience of sound -

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Andrew Khedoori is the curator of Longform Editions.
First Impressions visual by Mark Gowing.