Recent WFMU New Bin faves

The Paperhead are a group of teenage psychedelics from Nashville TN. Formerly known as The Looking Glass, the three-piece previously released a now sold-out tape on the label local Infinity Cat, and a
7" on Nashville's Dead. This brand new LP is yet another killer release from Chicago's Trouble In Mind (Liminañas, Vermillion Sands, Fresh & Onlys, Ty Segall). The Paperhead hit the road this summer (stopping by Talk's Cheap / WFMU) with Jeffrey Novak (Rat Traps, Cheap Time) on keyboards, and he also produced the LP. Joining Ryan, Pete, and Walker is a fourth member, Matt, who is credited with "colors, spiritual advice." (Jason Sigal)

 

I first heard Anne-James Chaton via the Ex camp, guitarist Andy Moor recorded some collaborations with him in his continual conquest to seek out textural mayhem. Here's an avalanche of sound poetry in rapidfire French, heavy syllables being a bottom bassline (hear his mantra of "the King of Pop Is dead") delivered in machine-gun style in precise loop treatment on his recent événements 09 (Raster-Noton). It's got a Berlin heroin-house kind of blanketing already, but adding in the distinct Raster-Noton flurry of subsonic instrumental flourishes, gentle/fried electronic winds blowing about while Chaton recounts everyday events (Iranian unrest, Barack Obama's name repeated ad infinitum) slips you into a most alien world for however long you choose to reside. Audio: "événement No 26 Mardi Julliet 2009" (Brian Turner)

 If you like your doom abstract and littered with razors, you could do a lot worse than get into a tight, airless closet with the Lords of Bukkake's Desorden Y Rencor (Total Rust), a Barcelona combo who already win me over by naming a track after Mexican exploito-horror flick Alucarda. Featuring a vocalist who uses space and lungs in a scarifying mode not unlike Khanate/OLD/Gnaw's Alan Dubin (the third of which definitely share an electronic leaning with LoB), this stuff extended out into blissed out destructo realm most diseased in mind. Audio: "Magia Necia". (Brian Turner)

Looking for a Geomancer to activate your location on the Grid? Earth Grid (Thrill Jockey) is the latest release from Lungfish guitarist Asa Osborne's Zomes project, the follow-up to the self-titled debut on Holy Mountain, provides an excellent opportunity. Osborne wrote and recorded this instrumental cycle at home, this time limiting the proceedings to keyboards and tape-loop beats. At times reminding me of a lo-tech, gnarly Cluster, the often distorted, spectral keyboard lines and uncluttered rhythms achieve a unique immediacy thanks to the simple, unhurried melodies and tasty repetition. Great stuff! Gotta say, the graininess of the sounds and hiss of the tape provide a respite from the glossy new age synth revival lurking amongst us today. The limits Osborne places on himself work in his favor - the primitive recording technique, beautiful keyboard drones, and skeletal beats are kosmische but not in a Eurorides on the Autobahn way. What we have here isn't man-machine synergy but simple, human-scale electronic home recordings that slow us down enabling a focus on the bare essentials. Wouldn't drive to this stuff for fear of hitting a telephone pole, but no worries, each track on this album is transportational in and of itself. Pick a location and Zomes will activate a road there. A perfect soundtrack for an imaginary return trip from the international space station or for a night spent dreaming of sacred geometry. Definitely looking forward to the next album, supposedly already in the works. I'll keep my 3rd eye crossed! Audio: "Step Anew" (Daniel Blumin)

A lot of the music that resonates with me most seems like it's trying to hide.  I want to hear melodies, I want expression, but I prefer a layer of haze, gauze, noise, sandpaper, whatever, between it and me - like I don't dig lyrics I can understand. Secret Boyfriend, as the name hints, is definitely hiding.  The 7 tracks on Secret Boyfriend's split LP w/ Horaflora veer from haunted loops of tinkling piano ("Chocolat") to tape-saturated organ harmonies ("Northern America"), through drifts of atonal sadness ("Cool Air"), and out washes of pure white distorted muffler hum ("The Doors"); all impulses interrupt each other at will, as if to further cement the non-committal to any coherent expression.  That's a good thing.  Secret Boyfriend strikes the same chords in me as William Basinski and the Belgian artist Orphan Fairytale. Audio (5 songs from WFMU. (Scott Williams)

Following his debut album on John Fahey's Takoma label, musician, instrument builder, and outsider Charlie Nothing released a handful of copies of Inside/Outside, an intense private press document in 1969 (reissued recently by DeStijl). Inside/Outside contains two sidelong flute/percussion tracks of ritualistic aimlessness. Given that description, this is music that is surprisingly warm, human and accessible, stoned pauses and meandering notwithstanding. If you like No Neck Blues Band, Don Cherry's Mu, the free-er end of the free folk spectrum or UK outsiders like Part Wild Horses Mane on Both Sides than this LP will be a real a treat. Audio: "Holy Stick" (Scott McDowell)

Comments

[Klax]

Yes yes yes, "New Faves" is back...
Thanks BT!