First Impressions 023: Pop contortions, fogged-up microhouse with dub crackles, celestial doom-psych and more.

Initial vibes on new music

Hello,

You may not be familiar with New Orleans rapper B.G, but he did invent the term ‘bling-bling’ before a near-12 year stint in prison. This week, a judge in America has ordered that now he has paid his debt to society, he must submit his lyrics for any new recordings to the government for approval, in case they contravene the terms of his supervised release. He may, however, rap about gun violence in concert, so as not to violate his right to free speech. This begs the question: if Donald Trump raps about insurrection at any time if he regains office this year – does he have immunity from prosecution?
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OK, let’s go:

Sentir que no sabes - Mabe Fratti: Going full tilt on sass, verve and utter joy, this new album from the thrill-seeking cellist is full of the kind of wilfully weird and intoxicating pop as artful as it is infectious. Matching her love for the energy and possibility of sound while on a melody bender, Sentir que no sabes is a contortion act of big snares, junkyard percussion, synth tickles and Fratti’s jagged, piercing cello riffs, for songs of tough funk elasticity mixing it with sweetly oddball orch-pop and avant-balladeering. Fratti’s instrumental thicket is countered by her voice and its emotional core, where you sense both dislocation and euphoria ride high together. It’s where Fratti puts a premium on this album’s deep substance alongside its giddy swirl.  

I want to be good so bad - J. Albert: New York producer Jiovanni Nadal has apparently been scurrying sideways out of clubland with his house and techno works for some time, though as he’s new to me, I have no reference point for this latest detour. This latest work dials down dancefloor heat into a suggestive presence, moving into a crawlspace filled with fogged-up microhouse and dub crackle. More thump 'n squelch than bump 'n grind, any creamy textures are reduced to curdling bubbles shrouding each track’s percussive kick. Occupying a similar upturned space to Actress or Vladislav Delay, where dance music is reduced to a rumbling rubble of subterfuge, J. Albert is similarly blowing on its embers to let it smoulder into new forms.

Alien Intelligence - Jasmine Guffond: Berlin resident Jasmine Guffond has long been fascinated by the political implications of advancing technological infrastructure in her work. Her music has an ever-searching and infinite quality about it, where technology is both embraced and undermined – Alien Intelligence may be her most tender reading of that tension to date. Acting as a conduit for more rogue elements to run through cooler synth modulations, with her deft touch for the charge of chance moments, Guffond’s measured approach shows there are ways forward with technology that aren’t a march towards inevitable collapse. Rather, we need greater understanding and active participation to thrive under its constant presence and direction. We don’t always need to rage against the machine – sometimes we should tickle it to the point of submission. This gorgeous, tingling work is a beautiful and sensitive realisation.

Jinxed by Being - Shackleton & Six Organs of Admittance: Look, if we can have Run-DMC and Aerosmith, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and Eddie Vedder, Nick Cave and Kylie Minogue, surely we can have Shackleton and Six Organs of Admittance (Ben Chasny) enter the hallowed hall of strange pairings. Now that's settled, what do we have here? It's definitely not any psychedelic folk reckoning of dub techno fit for any bush doof, though at times its rhythms have the feel of chopped n’ screwed bhangra. Shackletion’s spartan approach excises the heady pulse of his dubstep-techno for more a watery and wobbly terrain of doomy rhythms, matching synths and the kind of percussion Laraaji codified into his own cosmic realm. Chasny roams free, splaying across proceedings with twisted riffs, fuzzed-up drone puddles and slipstreams of wild, winding soloing. Each sing with an incantatory force, coursing through the teeming elements of what’s a wicked kind of pleasure to partake in.

Arc of Night - Danny Paul Grody Duo: Last year’s Arc of Day from Saan Francisco’s Danny Paul Grody enriched the openness and fluidity that are hallmarks of the Longform Editions alumni’s guitar sensibility, particularly with the unanchored approach of drummer and percussionist Rich Douthit adding a new dimension to his compositions’ humbling energy and higher purpose. This sister album extends on the symbiosis between the pair with these recordings from the same sessions,  Grody exclusively using electric guitar to charge these pieces with a shimmering overlay, teased out by the rush of Douthit’s glinting percussion. The quiet majesty of Arc of Night projects an awe in music’s potential to offer flight from our very being without losing sight of who we are, such is the gift of its invitation.   

Rupture In The Eternal Realm - C Lavender: The main tenet of Lavender Suarez’ 2020 book Transcendent Waves: How Listening Shapes Our Creative Lives, is “that you are a conduit at the centre of the infinite world of sound”. In her work as C. Lavender, the New York artist explores the resonance of frequencies and environmental sounds both inside and around us. Rupture In The Eternal Realm uses her practice of Chöd, a form of Buddhist mediation involving Tibetan instruments and chanting, as a focal point for a work interrogating Suarez’s sense of being and equilibrium. It’s a stormy set of rattling percussion, gongs, voice and stirring synth sequences, suggesting ritual and calm are hard-won within the wow and flutter of our corporeality. Nothing here is elevated in the typical sense: Suarez keeps closer to the ground in her journey to self-awareness.

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