Notable recordings of 2018

Sometimes when my buddy Bruce Lee Gallanter, proprietor of my favorite extant NYC record store, Downtown Music Gallery, is compiling an annual best-of feature for his newsletter, he asks me to kick in a top ten. And because I’m undisciplined this way, I give him a top thirty or thirty one. After drafting the list, I thought I’d do some re-listening, to make sure, and also draft some notes, a bunch detailed, others not, and having done THAT, put them up on the ole blog, which craves content. If any of these items interest you, you can likely order them from Bruce’s place.

AMM, An Unintended Legacy (Matchless) Reconvening with guitarist Keith Rowe for the first time in over ten years after a break occasioned by disagreements over practice, some aired by percussionist Eddie Prevost in a book of essays, this three-disc set presents three performances…it would not do to say “sounds like they picked up right where they left off,” because obsessive followers of the conglomerate know it’s not even close to being that simple. Nevertheless, the set does not contradict the now-decades-old observation that AMM recordings are as alike and unalike as trees. The title is not ironic, and the recording commemorates something final to be sure, as Keith Rowe, living with Parkinson’s disease, can no longer play guitar. (His October 2018 presentation at the New School made his condition its subject, and was performed on rudimentary electronic equipment, and was one of the most moving pieces of art I’ve ever experienced.)

Simon Barker/Henry Kaiser/Bill Laswell/Rudresh Mahanthappa,  Mudang Rock (Fractal Music) Korean-inspired jams as heavy as the players would lead you to believe they would be.

Peter Blegvad Quintet, Go Figure (ReR) My old friend Mr. B is, finally, not an art rocker, but a singer songwriter, and finally, a sui generis one, with a splendid band including some art rockers behind him…Chris Cutler, Bob Drake, John Greaves, Karen Mantler. This record, his first collection in almost twenty years, highlights Peter’s humor, which, as befits several contemporary conditions, is frequently mordant. It is also wonderfully melodic, and played and sung with a warmth that’s a balm.

Peter Brötzmann/Heather Leigh, Sparrow Nights (Trust) First studio recording of this galvanic duo, he a veteran of the very emphatic reed playing, she a relative newbie on the very emphatic pedal steel guitar. Live, as they’ve only been chronicled on disc before, they can and will tear the roof of the sucker (boy did they ever at Issue Project Room in June of 2017). Here, they opt for less volume some of the time, and a ragged, inventive lyricism a surprising part of the time. There’s a lot they can do.

John Butcher/Eddie Prevost Visionary Fantasies (Matchless) One of three discs Matchless released in 2018 featuring Prevost with other improviser. The other two, The Whole Moon Rests in a Dewdrop on the Grass, with Ken Ikeda on electronics, and Darkened, Yet Shone, with John Edwards on bass and N.O. Moore on electric guitar, are equally extraordinary. I highlight this one just because, and also because I now consider Butcher the preeminent living fee improvisational reeds player. The music here, starting with solo statements from each player before a series of duets has the quality ancient architecture in motion, a series of stone corridors in which one hears the echoes of musical notes, vestigial groans, ghosts perhaps.

Ceramic Dog, YRU Still Here (Noise) Angry personalized protest music with a super-sophisticated studio approach. The content aside, there’s some great production here; the vocal mix on “Pennsylvania 6 6666,” for instance, is very What’s Going On Marvin Gaye (not that Mark Ribot and Shahzad Ismaily have voices like Marvin Gaye in the least but you will get the idea).

Steve Coleman and Five Elements, Live At the Village Vanguard Volume 1: The Embedded Sets (Pi) First time in a long time that a record from this genuine contemporary jazz hero — an engaging and inventive composer, player, and particularly here, bandleader — has grabbed me so hard.

Andrew Cyrille, Lebroba (ECM) The master drummer with guitarist Bill Frisell and trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith. Rich, deep stuff that gets richer and deeper with each listen. The way the players respond to each other in these unhurried but sometimes spectacularly intricate meditations is a privilege to earwitness.

DKV Trio, Latitude 41.88 (NOTTWG) Quicksilver free jazz spectacle with soul; bleating, blaring, honking from Ken Vandermark on the reeds, tumbling gymnastics from drummer Hamid Drake, a racing pulse from Kent Kessler on bass. Unlike a trio like Air, which sometimes made you think you were listening to something wholly other than what they were, this unit specializes in restless but non-metamorphic invention.

Kevin Drumm, Inexplicable Hours (Sonoris) Electronic drones, field recordings, and other like materials make for a collection of wary quietude.

Wendy Eisenberg, The Machinic Unconscious (Tzadik) Inner Space Power Trio Extraordinaire: guitarist Eisenberg is joined by Trevor Dunn on bass and Ches Smith on drums. Lot and lots of what Beefheart called “nerve” guitar. Gratingly cool.

Jurg Frey, 120 Pieces of Sound (Elsewhere) The new label Elsewhere, founded by Yuko Zama, has a close affiliation with Erstwhile, and here it issues a sort-of sequel to Frey’s epic composition “l’ame est sans retenue,” released on a multi-disc set on Erst back in 2017. That piece is a lesson in both hearing and listening. This one-disc presentation is a trifle less daunting — the title track’s pieces are individual chords held for short durations, struck by a small ensemble and surrounded by silences. It’s both haltingly beautiful and peculiarly charming.

Bill Frisell, Music Is (Okeh) A superb solo guitar collection, replete with loops and some little touches of that Line 6 DL 4 box that Mary Halvorson gives such a workout to…all BF compositions, some of them very vintage indeed. A friendly record, but not a complacent one, one into which he pours almost the entirety of what he knows as a jazz player into a sound that lays down a bed of impressionism atop which he improvises with a clean, precise attack.

Satoko Fujii/Joe Fonda, Mizu (Long Song) Protean piano/bass improvisations: searching, energetic, tense and exuberant.

Gosta Berlings Saga, Et Ex (Sony) Swedish post-prog combo that’s more Univers Zero that Jaga Jazzist but nevertheless very snappy with a varied tonal palette and some guest METAL DUDE vocals.

Mary Halvorson & Bill Frisell, The Maid With The Flaxen Hair, A Tribute To Johnny Smith (Tzadik) Lyrical, loving and a little cockeyed.

Harriet Tubman, The Terror End Of Beauty (Sunnyside) The title track could be Pharoah Sanders sitting one out during the recording sessions for Ask The Ages. On the other tunes, though, guitarist Brandon Ross evokes McLaughlin and Sharrock, as Christgau says. Although I think he does so  without ever sounding too much like either of them. Bassist Melvin Gibbs of course is Melvin Gibbs. Drummer JT Lewis is…well, the whole band is three bold players being their own selves and kicking against the pricks.

Henry Kaiser, The Deep Unreal: Solo Guitar 2017 (Metalanguage) Beyond mad-scientist virtuosity, beyond assault-with-intent on conventional guitar language, Kaiser is now a peerless creator of aural narrative. The first track, one of three that go over 20 minutes, is called “The Story of My 2017 Austral Spring At The McMudo Intake Jetty” and it is that story. The final, fourth track is less than three minutes and called “First You Fall In Love With Antarctica And Then It Breaks Your Heart”

Henry Kaiser/Max Kutner, Wild Courses (Iluso) This double-twelve-string excursion may be my favorite Kaiser duet record since…could it be…With Friends Like These, the stunning 1979 first summit with Fred Frith?

Manna/Mirage, Rest of the World (New House) Old school down to earth Maryland art rock in opposition.

The Necks, Body (Northern Spy) Starts out like a regular Necks record…that steady pulse and hum and percolation…then…oh hell, I don’t want to spoil the wonderful surprise a little over 20 minutes in.

Brandon Seabrook Trio, Convulsionaries (Monofonous Press) Rather than a bassist and drummer, BS’s trio comprises as bassist and cellist — hey, just like Don Shirley! Seabrook’s playing sometimes evokes Derek Bailey going through Sharrock’s amp. Lotta banging for a record with no percussion. Definitely bracing.  

Soft Machine, Hidden Details (MoonJune) In which the formation long known as Soft Machine Legacy drops the “Legacy,” because they’ve earned the right to. Tricky, not too tricky, lots of exemplary playing, cool and a little hot. Caught them at Iridium in October during what will likely be their last tour, and they were splendid.

Tyshawn Sorey, Pillars (Firehouse 12) An unusual series of sonic events. Where Henry Threadgill’s work (see below) highlights rhythmic MOVEMENT, this long piece (about four hours on three CDs), as its title suggests, encompasses playing within stasis, or as much stasis as the passing of time itself affords/allows, which is, paradoxically, none. The music then intends, among other things, to wrestle with that paradox.

Stephen Thelen, Fractal Guitar (MoonJune) Just what the title makes it sound like. Lotsa intricate patterns, nifty atmosphere, ferociously detailed soloing (from the likes of David Torn and Henry Kaiser among others).

Henry Threadgill, Double Up/Dirt…and More Dirt (Pi) Two different ensembles, two different ideas. Double Up deals with sound in unmitigated and unapologetic motion, parallel lines of notes running at different speeds, anecdotes in rhythm. Dirt conveys a rather different sense of motion, like pages of a book turning.

Thumbscrew, Theirs/Ours (Cuneiform) The protean trio (Mary Halvorson on guitar, Michael Formanek on bass, Tomas Fujiwara on drums) released a set of other people’s tunes and a set of their own tunes. Lots of super deep cuts on Theirs, and somewhat surprisingly (although I couldn’t tell you exactly why) nothing even resembling a pop nod or move. The least obscure is Wayne Shorter’s “Dance Cadaverous.” (My only complaint is that the CD artwork/design makes the song list hard to read.) On Ours MH’s compositions and performances provide melodic juice and sonic character; she’s playing guitar just like a-ringing a bell that goes a bit funny sometimes. Formanek grounds things while Fujiwara floats like a butterfly while flirting with what seems to be a rock backbeat. Neat stuff. Formanek’s compositions are a little more wide-open spaces, while Fujiwara’s are postcards from walking/waking dreams

Mark Turner/ Ethan Iverson, Temporary Kings (ECM) Tenor and piano duets (mostly). Delicacy, sensitivity, dialogue both dramatic and humorous

Dan Weiss, Starebaby (Pi) Intricate and heavy, a beguiling mix of acoustic and amplified timbres (two keybs, often but not always electric, bass and guitar always electric, drummer/leader who plays loud).  Knotty and ominous but never oppressive. Jazz-rock of a sort that can sound menacing and playful simultaneously.

Comments

[titch]

Thanks for posting this - what a tremendous music store! Such music recommendations would only come from a store like this, as nothing in mainstream magazines has anything of interest these days. Korean-inspired jams.

[titch]

Thanks for posting this - what a tremendous music store! Such music recommendations would only come from a store like this, as nothing in mainstream magazines has anything of interest these days. Korean-inspired jams.

[titch]

Thanks for posting this - what a tremendous music store! Such music recommendations would only come from a store like this, as nothing in mainstream magazines has anything of interest these days. Korean-inspired jams.

[JM]

"President's dumber than an artichoke" cracked me up the first time I heard "Fuck la Migra" on the Ceramic Dog record. I liked their first album a lot, but the last two have been total aces.

[Steve Erickson]

I don't know If DMG stocks their album, but if you like the rock-oriented side of John Zorn's work, Imperial Triumphant's VILE LUXURY, which combines extreme metal with jazz and prog (and even opera and Ennio Morricone soundtracks), is well worth a listen.