Tag: Mary Halvorson

In From the Storm: My Favorite Records from ’25, January 1st to August 1st

  • 1.90.3-MZ3QFTV76J3TIOVOFV34APR5CE.0.1-2

I fell behind in June but revved up to as close to the front of the line as can be expected, I suppose. I still have much business swirling around my head—every time I’ve dealt with the last piece of post-mortem paperwork, something new arrives in the mail, and there’s always grief—so I’m not going to say much other than what a rush of recorded matter has there been into this deity-forsaken world, and I’m thankful.

I have provided album cover images to stimulate you (above) and links in the items’ titles to lead you to purchase (please buy musicians’ music—please?). Later, I will add an updated Spitify playlist with a track a piece from everything on the list if you want to have a…song tasting. If an item is bolded, it is new to the list; if an item is italicized, it is a newly released record that contains older music (there are a few late-’24 entries that might have flown under your radar); if an item is asterisked, it’s very good up to the everlovin’ shit, depending on the number of *s; if an item you think is dandy isn’t on the list, I might not have caught up to it yet (or it didn’t move me, so it got real gone for a change). A truckload of new thangs have been loosed as I hunt and peck this morning; I’m just gonna have to wait until September 1st for the best of those. I hope you find something that can distract you beatifically (but temporarily) from the destruction at large. And…try the Red Hot Org EP that mixes the Kronos Quartet, Dylan’s most surrealistic protest song, and Terry Riley. It ain’t a spinach ice cream cone—it’s brilliant, and necessary.

AND OH YEAH! Do not overlook two shining 5-asterisk discs: jazz guitarist Mary Halvorson’s most mesmerizing recording in a career of them (special assistance from Patricia Brennan) and Irish folk giant Christy Moore’s powerful take on the troubles nouveux in his country (and the world).

MY LIST OF RECENT AURAL PLEASURE – SAMPLER PLAYLIST BELOW
BOLD = New to the List
ASTERISKED* = Damn good! to Holy SHIT! (one day, I will organize them)
ITALICIZED: Excavations from the Past / Reissues


Aesop Rock: Black Hole Superette (Rhymesayers) ****
Zoh Amba: Sun (Smalltown Supersound) ****
Ale Hop & Titi Bakorta:  Mapambazuko (Nyege Nyege Tapes) *****
Marshall Allen’s Ghost Horizons: Live in Philadelphia, Volume 1 (Otherly Love Records) ****
The Ancients: The Ancients (Eremite) ***
Ichiko Aoba: Luminescent Creatures (Psychic Hotline)
Artemis: Arboresque (Blue Note) ****

Backxwash: Only Dust Remains (Ugly Hag) ****
Bad Bunny: DeBI TiRAR MaS FOToS (Rimas Entertainment)****
Julien Baker & Torres: Send a Prayer My Way (Matador) ****
Gina Birch: Trouble (Third Man)
The Bitter Ends: The Bitter Ends (Trouble in River City)
Black Milk & Fat Ray: Food from the Gods (Computer Ugly / Fat Beats)
Blacks’ Myths Meets Pat Thomas: The Mythstory School (self-released) ***
Yugen Blakrok: The Illusion Of Being (I.O.T. Records) ***
Booker T & The Plasmic Bleeds: Ode To BC/LY… And Eye Know BO…. da Prez (Mahakala Music)
Benjamin Booker: Lower (Fire Next Time)
Johnny Bragg: Let Me Dream On (Org Music) ***
Brother Ali & Ant: Satisfied Soul (Mello Music)
Buck 65: Keep Moving (self-released)
Peter Brotzmann: The Quartet (Otoroku)****
Master Wilburn Burchette: Master Wilburn Burchette’s Psychic Meditation Music (Numero Group)***

Joe Chambers, Kevin Diehl, Chad Taylor: Onilu (Eremite) ****
Tyler Childers: Snipe Hunter (RCA / Hickman Holler)
Christer Bothén 3: L’Invisible  (thanatosis)****
clipping: Dead Channel Sky (Sub Pop)
Clipse: Let God Sort ‘Em Out (Roc Nation)***
Common and Pete Rock: The Auditorium, Volume 1 (Casa Loma)
Cosmic Ear: TRACES (We Jazz) *****
Sylvie Courvoisier & Mary Halvorson: Bone Bells (Pyroclastic)
Chuck D: Chuck D Presents Enemy Radio—Radio Armageddon (Soundspeak)

Christopher Dammann Sextet: Christopher Dammann Sextet (Out of Your Head)Deepstaria Enigmatica: The Eternal Now Is the Heart of a New Tomorrow (ESP-Disk)
The Delines: Mr. Luck & Ms. Doom (Jealous Butcher) ****
DJ Dadaman & Moscow Dollar: Ka Gaza (Nyege Nyege Tapes)
DJ Haram: Beside Myself (Hyperdub)
DJ Shaun-D: From Bubbling to Dutch House (Nyege Nyege Tapes)
Big Chief Bo Dollis Jr. & The Wild Magnolias: Chip Off The Old Block (Strong Place)
Doseone & Height Keech: Wood Teeth (Hands Made EP) ****
doseone & Steel Tipped Dove: All Portrait, No Chorus (BackwoodzStudios) ****

Silke Eberhard Trio: Being-A-Ning (Intakt)
Eddy Current Suppression Ring: Shapes and Forms (Cool Death EP)***
Marty Ehrlich Trio Exaltation: This Time (Sunnyside) ***
Electric Satie: Gymnopedia ’99 (In Sheep’s Clothing)****
Marco Eneidi Quintet: Wheat Fields of Kleylehof (Balance Point Acoustics / Botticelli) ****
Ex-Void: In Love Again (Tapete Records)

Fieldwork: Thereupon (Pi Records)
Craig Finn: Always Been (Tamaric / Thirty Tigers) ***
FKA twigs: Eusexua (Young Recordings Limited)
Robert Forster: Strawberries (Tapete) ****
Satoko Fujii GEN: Altitude 1100 Meters (Libra)
Satoko Fujii Trio: Dream a Dream (Libra) ****
Satoko Fuji / This is It!: Message (Libra)

Galactic and Irma Thomas: Audience with the Queen (Tchoup-Zilla)
Girl Scout: Headache (self-released EP)

Keiji Haino and Natsuki Tamura: what happened there? (Libra)
Mary Halvorson: About Ghosts (Nonesuch)*****
Hamell on Trial: Harp (for Harry) (Saustex)
Heat On: Heat On (Cuneiform)
The Hemphill Stringtet: Plays the Music of Julius Hemphill (Out of Your Head Records)
Patterson Hood: Exploding Trees & Airplane Screams (ATO) ***
William Hooker: Jubilation (Org Music) *****
William Hooker: A Time Within: Live at the New York Jazz Museum, January 14, 1977 (The Control Group / Valley of Search) ***

Horsegirl: Phonetics On and On (Matador)
HHY & The Kampala Unit: Turbo Meltdown (Nyege Nyege Tapes) ****
Hüsker Dü: Jan.30, First Ave., Part 1 (Numero EP) ****

Mikko Innanen and Ingebrigt Häker Flaten: Live in Espoo (Sonic Transmissions)
Michael Gregory Jackson: Frequency Equilibrium Koan (moved-by-sound)

Jeong – Bisio Duo (featuring Joe McPhee): Morning Bells Whistle Bright (ESP-Disk) ****
Rico Jones: Bloodlines (Giant Step Arts)
Anthony Joseph: Rowing Up the River to Get Our Names Back (Heavenly Sweetness) ****
JPEG Mafia: I Lay Down My Life for You (Director’s Cut) (self-released) *****

Karol G: Tropicoqueta (Bichota) ****

Kelela: In the Blue Light (Warp) ***

KINGDOM MOLOGI: Kembo (Nyege Nyege Tapes) ***
Kronos Quartet + The Hard Rain Collective: Hard Rain (Red Hot Org EP)

Lady Gaga: Mayhem (Interscope)
Lambrini Girls: Who Let The Dogs Out (City Slang US) *****
Steve Lehman: The Music of Anthony Braxton (Pi Recordings) *****
José Lencastre: Inner Voices (Burning Ambulance)***
Jinx Lennon: The Hate Agents Leer at the Last Agents of Hope (Septic Tiger) ***
James Brandon Lewis: Apple Cores (Anti-)
James Brandon Lewis Quartet: Abstraction is Deliverance (Intakt) ***
Jeffrey Lewis: The Even More Freewheelin’ Jeffrey Lewis (Don Giovanni)
Little Simz: Lotus (AWAL) ***
LOLO: LOLO (Black Sweat)
Rocio Gimenez Lopez: La Forma Del Sueno (Blue Art) ****
K. Curtis Lyle, Jaap Blonk, Damon Smith, Alex Cunningham: A Radio of the Body

Jako Maron: Mahavelouz (Nyege Nyege Tapes) ****
Mazinga: Chinese Democracy Manifest—Greatest Hits, Vol. 2 (Rubber Wolf)
Mean Mistreater: Do or Die (self-released)***
The Mekons: Horror (Fire) ***
Ava Mendoza/Gabby Fluke-Mogul/Carolina Perez: Mama Killa (Burning Ambulance) ***
M(h)aol: Something Soft (Merge) ***
Mac Miller: Baloonerism (Warner Records)
Billy Mohler: The Eternal (Contagious)
Moonchild Sanelly: Full Moon (self-released)
MonoNeon: You Had Your Chance…Bad Attitude! (Color Red) ****
Christy Moore: A Terrible Beauty (Claddagh) *****
Jason Moran/Trondheim Jazz Orchestra/Ole Morten Vågan: Go To Your North (Yes Records)
Matthew Muneses and Riza Printup: Pag-Ibko, Volume 1 (Irabbagast Records)
David Murray Quartet: The Birdsong Project Presents Birdly Serenade (Verve)
Amina Claudine Myers: Solace of the Mind (Red Hook) ****

Natural Information Society and Bitchin’ Bahas: Totality (Drag City)
Louis Nevins: The Fumes (Cavetone Records)
NOBRO: Set Your Pussy Free (Dine Alone) ***

Isabelle Olivier: Impressions (Rewound Echoes)
The Onions: Return to Paradise (Hitt Records)
Bill Orcutt Guitar Quartet: Hauslive 4 (Palilalia) ***
Organic Pulse Ensemble: Ad Hoc (Ultraaani Records) *****
Aruan Ortiz: Creole Renaissance (Intakt)

Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra Led by Horace Tapscott: Live at Widney High December 26th, 1971 (The Village) ***
Ivo Perelmamn and Matthew Shipp: Armageddon Flower (TAO Forms)
Pitch, Rhythm, and Consciousness: Sextet (Reva Records)
Marek Pospieszalski Octet & Zoh Amba: NOW! (Project financed by a scholarship from the Minister of Culture and National Heritage “Młoda Polska” & Katowice City of Music UNESCO)
Public Enemy: Black Sky Over The Projects—Apartment 2025 (self-released) ***

Les Rallizes Denudes: Blind Baby Has Its Mother’s Eyes (Life Goes On)
R.A.P. Ferreira: Outstanding Understanding (Ruby Yacht)
Adam Rudolph, Dave Liebman, Billy Hart: Beingness (Meta)
Bobby Rush and Kenny Wayne Shepherd: Young Fashioned Ways (Deep Rush / RAM Records) ***

Sverre Sæbo Quintet: If, However, You Have Not Lost Your Self Control (SauaJazz)
SAULT: 10 (Sault Global) ***
Serengeti: mixtape 2 (serengetiraps / self-released)
Serengeti: Palookaville (serengetiraps / self-released) 
The Sex Pistols: Live in the U.S.A. South East Music Hall, Atlanta, January 5th, 1978 (UME)
The Sharp Pins: Radio DDR (K / Perennial Death) ****
Matthew Shipp: The Cosmic Piano (Canteloupe Records) ****
Anthony “Big A” Sherrod: Torchbearer of the Clarksdale Sound (Music Makers Recordings EP)
Slick Rick: Victory (Mass Appeal)
Luke Stewart / Silt Remembrance Ensemble: The Order (Cuneiform) ***
Ray Suhy / Lewis Porter Quartet: What Happens Next (Sunnyside) ***
SUMAC and Moor Mother: The Film (Thrill Jockey)
Sun Ra: Nuits de la Fondation Maeght 5 August 1970 (Strut) ***
John Surman:Flashpoint and Undercurrents (Cuneiform Records) ***

Masahiko Tagashi: Session in Paris, Volume 1—Song of the Soil (with Don Cherry and Charlie Haden) (We Want Sounds)
Taj Mahal and Keb’ Mo’: Room on the Porch (Concord Jazz) 
Taj Mahal & Keb’ Mo’: Room on the Porch for Everyone (UMG EP) 
Cecil Taylor / Tony Oxley: Flashing Spirits (Burning Ambulance)
Ebo Taylor, Adrain Younge, and Ali Shaheed Muhammad: Jazz Is Dead 22 (Jazz is Dead)
Three-Layer Cake: “sounds the color of grounds” (Otherly Love)
Trio Glossia: Trio Glossia (Sonic Transmissions) ****
The Tubs: Cotton Crown (self-released)***

Kali Uchis: Sincerely (Capitol) ***
Akira Umeda & Metal Preyers: Clube de Mariposa Mórbida (Nyege Nyege Tapes)
The Untamed Youth: Git Up and Go (Hi-Tide / Nu-Tone)

Various Artists: African Jazz Invites O.K. Jazz (Planet Ilunga) ***
Various Artists: A Tribute to the King of Zydeco (Valcourt)
Various Artists: Democracy Forward (Bitter Southerner)
Various Artists: Prisoners’ Day Compilation (Majazz Project / Palestinian Sound Archive) ***
Various Artists: Roots Rocking Zimbabwe– The Modern Sound of Harare’ Townships 1975-1980 (Analog Africa) ****
Various Artists: Sweet Rebels—The Golden Era of Algerian Pop-Rai (We Want Sounds) ***
Vibration Black Finger: Everybody Cryin’ Mercy (Enid)

The War & Treaty: Plus One (Mercury Nashville)
Wet Leg: moisturizer (Domino)
Alfred White: The Definitive Alfred White (Music Makers Recordings)
Wheelhouse: House and Home (Aerophonic)
Simon Willson: Bet (Endectomorph Records)
billy woods: GOLLIWOG (x) (Backwoodz Studios)
Wu-Tang Clan: Black Samson, The Bastard (All Maf / 36 Chambers)

Jeong Lim Yang: Synchronicity (Fully Altered Media) 
Hiroshi Yoshimura: Flora (Temporal Drift) ***
Brandee Younger: Gadabout Season (Impulse) ***
The Young Mothers: Better If You Let It (Sonic Transmissions)****

SAMPLE THIS SHIT AND PUT IT ON SHUFFLE! We are not alone in the musical cosmos!







	


	


			
				


			

			
Five I Missed That Woulda Made The 2022 List: New Discoveries from the Year That Was (+ a 2023 Addendum)
		
	
	

		

I don’t need to tell you that you can’t listen to everything. In my darkest moments, the thought that if I chose to step off the edge of the world I might miss a fantastic record has brightened my corner; my (and maybe your ambition) to hear it all is doomed to thwartation, but it never keeps me from trying. I didn’t know about these five records until late last month, but they certainly would have made my 2022 Top 40. Thank the stars or whatever for other blogging rekkid obsessives!





Santigold: Spirituals (Little Jerk Records) — During her early years she was a favorite of favorite students of mine, and thus she was a favorite of mine. I’d largely forgotten about her until I was tipped off about this moving, grooving, and consistent record that, despite the title, begins with this track:














Moonchild Sanelly: Phases (Transgressive Records) — 2022 was a great year for South African dance music, and I stayed well-informed, so don’t ask me why I just know learned about this act. Sanelisiwe Twisha began her career, according to Wikipedia, in “sex entertainment,” and she ain’t shy, for sure, but when I read (not on Wikipedia, though it’s there, but two days ago from a source I already can’t remember) that she called her music “future ghetto punk,” I was all in. Clicked to sample it and was dancing and bouncing around the house. I am 61 and have vestibular neuritis, so that’s saying something. Would’ve been in my Top 20, methinks. I think I’ll send a copy to the the Missouri state capitol of creeps.














Various Artists: Ghost Riders (Efficient Space) — Talk about “other blogging rekkid obsessives”: I am not alone in being grateful for Chuck Eddy‘s existence. He’ll try anything, which is a compliment, and he recommended this Australian collection of strangely moving, eerie, and funny songs from what one Bandcamp user called “garage nobodies” early enough for me to get it onto my 2022 list. I didn’t get it in the mail until late December, then it sat on a stack waiting for me, then in early January I finally dug in. Aside from those other adjectives I used above, it’s also…naively ethereal and lovably camp. Special prizes are a non-country sequel to “Ode to Billie Joe” and a seemingly ill-advised cover of The Beatles’ “Here, There, & Everywhere,” probably my favorite McCartney-sung tune of theirs, that The Common People (heh heh) not only survive but excel on. Thanks, Chuck!














Mary Halvorson: Belladonna and Amaryllis (Nonesuch Records) — A) For some reason I back away from any artist no matter how much I enjoy their work when they release two records at once (except for Ka). B) I have usually been disappointed by “with strings” albums by artists I’m not totally nuts about (Belladona is such). C) I didn’t have time for this project. I’m just being honest. Plus Mary with strings did not appeal to me, despite the fact I dearly dig her even if it were just for this clip that I always show my women’s college students. BUT the strings album is quite beautiful especially because (not in spite) of plectoral soundwave warping, and I discovered too late that the Halvorson-influenced vibraphonist Patricia Brennan, whose 2022 record More Touch is mesmerizing, plays with and around Halvorson on it. So…fuck me, live and learn!














Mary J. Blige: Good Morning, Gorgeous (300 Entertainment Records) — One of the records my wife and I courted to was What’s The 411? I happen to think her team-up with Method Man, “All I Need”, is ETERNAL. I’ve liked everything I’ve heard by her, and enjoyed her in the film Mudbound. I recently taught the mother of her road band’s guitarist (Ma is three days older than me!), who told me many stories and showed me cool pics. I have no reason not to keep up with Mary, but I don’t. Too bad, because I think I love this record more than others who also do–there’s something about the production (by 17 different individuals? but it coheres!) that fits her like a silk glove. Now, I need to play it for Lady O.














BONUS 2022 ALBUM I ALSO FORGOT BUT I SHOULD HAVE PUT AT THE TOP:





Alaide Costa: O Que Meus Calos Dizem Sobre Mim (Tres Selos) — Truly one of the most gorgeous and richly detailed recordings of last year. It’s bossa nova of the highest order sung by the 87-year-old Costa couched in imaginative settings created by the Brazilian production team of Marcus Preto, Emicida, and Pupillo. Thanks to the intrepid Rod Taylor at Brazil Beat, my connection to the country that seems to create a wider and more consistent variety of interesting music than any I’m aware of. I would love a vinyl copy of this but it’ll be a pretty penny. Yesterday was pay day, so maybe I’ll jump. Check this out:



















NOW, if you’ve read this far, last post I was moping about being driven half-insane by listing records month by month, year by year–it feels like a competition, governed by the law of diminishing returns, that inhibits my actual full enjoyment of music. Maybe I was in a bad mood–or maybe that post and this post are the emerging answer (now I need to quit Goodreads). Anyhow, here are two records from this year I inexplicably left off that post! I think I was trying not to lean to jazzward, but fuck it–this is good stuff, Maynards!





Lakecia Benjamin: Phoenix (Whirlwind) — Saxophonist Benjamin’s previous album was a tribute to John and Alice Coltrane that held up very well. In between that and this, she was involved in a car wreck that literally busted her chops. She’s rehabbed that problem–and how. This is a blazing set of original compositions augmented by some very notable guest appearances (Angela Davis? Sonia Sanchez? Wayne Shorter? Georgia Anne Muldrow? Patrice Rushen (my favorite of those names to see the light), and I’m not sure they’d have appeared if they hadn’t recognized the power of Benjamin’s playing and writing. Strongly recommended to Trane fans, but she’s got a sound all her own–and style. Dig:














Jason Moran: From the Dancehall to the Battlefield (Yes Records) — Moran’s last tribute, to Fats Waller on his last album for Blue Note, didn’t move me, and as a deep-down Wallerite that was deeply disappointing. This tribute (in Moran’s words, “a meditation on”) to the magnificent and hugely important bandleader and 369th Division Harlem Hellfighter and bandleader, the ill-fated James Reese Europe, is something else entirely. It is going to take a minute for me to fully unpack this varied, exciting, educational, and RICH record, but my sense is it will be in many Jazz Top 10s in December. It mixes takes on Reese’s tunes (and others they played), Moran’s compositions, and even a perfect contribution by none other than Pauline Oliveros, and makes a unified statement about someone most of us don’t know or at least know little about. Here’s a good original starting place: Europe’s “Memphis Blues.”