First Impressions 010: Jazz-not-jazz, transcendent guitars, flower-powered rock and more.
Initial vibes on new music
Hello!
I hope everyone had a great break. The long weekend has kept this short. This may break the momentum for my introductory thoughts - maybe less is more?
However, I would like to point to an article from an artist whose music I value very much, Yasmin Williams. Yasmin posted last week on X how Beyoncé’s new country album is a misfire when it comes to the artist’s stated aims of reconnecting country music to its black heritage, or worse still, a cynical crossover exercise that only reinforces the pop commodification of what originally was true working class roots music. The ensuing pile on was brutal, but in the midst of it, Damon Krukowski suggested a publication commission a thinkpiece, and here we are. Here is a scholar and artist who seeks to engage as well as enlighten with their music, doing the same fpor the first time in the written form. When music has history, it goes deeper than listening and Yasmin reminds us that even in our forever future-facing world, the past has an agency to be understood and respected.
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OK, let’s go:
Reverberations of Non-Stop Traffic on Redding Road: Pan American & Kramer: Suggest that Mark K. Nelson’s work as Pan American has long been the guitar-drawn ambience that feels like a natural progression of post-rock terrain, and you unfairly consign him to death by a thousand drab Spotify playlists. His work is so much more evocative and elevated, and this first collaboration with composer, producer and Shimmy Disc label owner Kramer sparks his hauntingly spare approach into new realms of transcendence. Kramer’s lofted tones oscillate between the celestial and grainy, his flickering detail counterpointing Nelson’s curling, elongated guitar lines in its delicate sense of flux. Nelson’s work always mainlines from the heart. Together with Kramer, its inner glow is tuned inside out to cover the space around us.
The Messthetics and James Brandon Lewis - The Messthetics and James Brandon Lewis: Inflecting a jazz-like dynamism into the staid hardcore template from the late 80s, Fugazi’s rhythm section – bassist Joe Lally and drummer Brendan Canty – were the axis for that band to take the push-and-shove of US punk towards a firestorm of emotion, their dexterity and invention channelling a thrilling positivity in the face of growing global complexities. And now here they are, making jazz. Sort of. Teaming up with saxophonist James Brandon Lewis for this album along with guitarist Anthony Pirog who completes The Messthetics, they often sound positively genteel. I did not expect to hear shuffles and ballads, but they maintain a cham next to chainsaw contortions of funk, rock and fusion. Where this really takes off though is where Lewis isn’t the default lead, becoming more of a wildcard dropped into the core trio’s signature thrust and surge. In this setting, his presence has a bright pinwheel effect upon the undoubted charisma of this open-hearted grouping.
Bite Down – Rosali: In a chirpier take on her wonderfully loose carry of American guitar rock, strength and yearning remain cornerstones of Rosali Middleman’s songwriting, her tempered optimism couched in flower-power melodies and ragged riffing. Neil Young gets frequent mentions around Rosali’s work. That’s fair, though for me, it’s Fleetwood Mac’s Tusk in all its sweet and unruly splendour that Bite Down dials into. Full of smart, deep thoughts with no easy conclusions, it feels like a great road trip album for the lone driver, the joy of the ride complete with some supreme extended wig-outs in the name of just letting it all go.
The Last Wave - Kane Pour: Playing like Vini Reilly if he’d skipped the English countryside and headed to the beach, Florida’s Kane Pour’s guitar instrumentals are often slowed to a cooled jangle to linger with stronger feeling than their breezy front. His playing is not quite spectral, not quite New Age and barely angular, the sea analogy evoked in the album title coming to life in these pieces that gently ripple with both poise and fragility. This softly chiming album hangs with a beautiful shimmer.
paris paris texas texas - more eaze, pardo & glass:
Funny title this, given Longform Editions alumni More Eaze is probably the only person on the planet who could give Auto-Tune vocals the emotional resonance of a Harry Dean Stanton monologue. Pining pedal steel, rambling guitars and the sounds of dusk cook in digital fission, evoking the spooked but alluring warmth of the desert in newly cracked fashion. And just as with the original soundtrack for the film that this album’s tile echoes, listening to this becomes a way to disappear completely
Hey Panda – High Llamas: Ever fascinated with intricately orchestrated and kaleidoscopic pop craft in making a diamond row of inspirations like the Beach Boys, Steely Dan, Martin Denny and Os Mutantes, Sean O’Hagan’s High Llams return after eight years. Updating their glassy concoctions with folds of electronica and auto-tune gives their knowing irony new definition, and in matching things ups with their endearing whimsy, O’Hagan’s carefully cradled compositions feel the liveliest and loveliest they’ve ever been. With a humble focus and outlook, Hey Panda’s greatest trick is its disarming soul.
LETHIMCOOK - Crimeapple: The Colombian-born, New York based rapper follows the brassy rush of the recent El León album with this lower-key set of slow-cooked and smudged soul burners. In his melodrama of the mind, Crimeapple’s street posturing is lifted out of the grime into a piece of symphonic theatre, mirrored by high-level braggadocio (“now I just piss Cliquot”) cemented by the sampling of Tony Soprano mouthing off on two tracks. His wordplay does not cover ambiguity: the man is minted in the kind of self-belief where his present is the only thing that counts.
https://www.manteca-worldwide.com/
Thanks for reading.
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Andrew Khedoori is the curator of Longform Editions.
First Impressions visual by Mark Gowing.