May 2023 Album Round Up! – The Necessary Blues

Sorry I’m posting this round-up of May 2023 albums a few days into June. My lateness is no reflection on the wealth of great releases in May – frankly, it’s just been too stressful to think about writing when the sky is blood red, and the world is on fire. But music is a comfort, a source of wisdom, power, and an example of what humanity can do to create a better world instead of destroying it. So enjoy the great albums of May 2023! Those here are wonderful, as are many others we could not get to.

TNB Pick Hit!
Henry Threadgill – The Other One
(released May 26, 2023)

Personnel:
Henry Threadgill – conductor
Alfredo Colón – alto saxophone
Noah Becker – alto saxophone, clarinet
Peyton Pleninger – tenor saxophone
Craig Weinrib – percussion, electronics
Sara Caswell – violin
Stephanie Griffin – viola
Mariel Roberts – cello
Christopher Hoffman – cello
Jose Davila – tuba
David Virelles – piano
Sara Schoenbeck – bassoon
Adam Cordero – bassoon

The Other One is a welcome return to form for Threadgill after the slightly underwhelming Poof. This album documents a three-part suite of music that shifts back and forth between a chamber music feel and the power of this 12-player orchestra. On The Other One, Threadgill writes and conducts the orchestra, and it’s a sign of how good the compositions are that you don’t miss the acidic intensity of his horn. David Virelles plays the album’s introductions and transitions with authority, filling a key role that makes you wonder why Threadgill didn’t use pianists for years. When the whole band comes in, it sounds terrific, with essential contributions from the strings (two cellos and violins and viola), two bassoons, a trio of saxes, and that trademark Threadgill tuba. The audio fidelity is good enough that only when I heard the applause of an audience at the end, did I realize I’d been listening to a live recording (taped last year at Roulette when the suite was premiered). The release of this album coincides with the publication of Threadgill’s incredible autobiography, so this is the time to celebrate one of the great voices in music. TNB will be doing a more extensive Threadgill post shortly – in the meantime, get your copy of Threadgills’ book and make sure you listen to this album!

TNB Pick Hit!
salami rose joe louis – Akousmatikous
(released May 19, 2023)

Salami Rose Joe Louis – Korg Polysix, Moog, Rhodes, synth clav, synth bass, drum machine/programming, vocals, guitar, Polybrute, Microkorg, with various musicians featured, including Danalogue (synths), Betamax (drums) (Soccer96), Jason Lindner (synths) and others.

The world needs pop music this experimental and strange. Salami Rose Joe Louis is Lindsay Olsen, a California-based musician building complex and trippy electronic tracks with her Roland MV-8800. The title for Akousmatikous (Ah-coooz-mat-e-koi) draws from “a sect of Pythagorean mystics from the 5th century BC that were called the “listeners” who focused on ritual, harmony, and ethical behavior.” The music is a dreamy mix of club drum tracks, enigmatic pop vocals, synth backgrounds employing jazz harmony, and oblique mystery. The album comes from an open place that makes it all sound fresh; as Lindsay says, “I am enamored with the concept of listening to a sound when you don’t know the source. The act of listening in this great expanse of the universe, for answers, for questions, or just for something undefinable that we seek.” Wise words for winning tones.

Tineke Postma – Aria
(released May 5, 2023)

Ben Monder – Guitar
Robert Landfermann – Bass
Tristan Renfrow – Drums

Looking up into the environmental hellscape over NYC on June 6, I thought of “The Sky Is Everywhere” from Tineke Postma’s new album, Aria. The song captures urgency and foreboding, which says a lot about the expressiveness of the music throughout this album. Tineke Postma has a powerful sound, both on alto saxophone with her compositions (Aria is all originals by Postma.) I didn’t know of Postma before this recording (her 8th!), but after hearing her expressive playing and intricate arrangements, I look forward to what she does next. Aria is also an ideal place to hear Ben Monder’s electric guitar – here, he’s given a lot of space to use his trademark effects and distortion to craft moments of energy or simple beauty.

Pat Thomas & Steve Beresford – One Or Two Pianos
(released May 5, 2023)

Pat Thomas & Steve Beresford – “Pianos are featured because on some tracks, one of the pair plays toys and other objects”

One Or Two Pianos is one of a pair of new albums from Pat Thomas, which continue to show why he’s one of the most compelling music makers in the world. Here Thomas is joined by pianist Steve Beresford for a meeting that Beresford calls “Pianos, Toys, Music, and Noise,” an apt description of the weird clash of pianism and chaotic noise-making. I’m especially fond of the maniacal honky-tonk nine-and-a-half minutes into “Fred” and the brilliance of paying tribute to the iconoclasm of Cecil Taylor with electronics and percussion rather than piano (on “Cecil”). All the tracks are fascinating, and the imaginative use of “toys” leaves you wondering, “what was that noise?”

Pat Thomas – Burdah Variatrions
(released May 21, 2023)

Pat Thomas – Electronics

More Pat Thomas! I almost did not put this album in the round-up. When you first play this album, mind your volume button/dial – Burdah Variations starts with some of the most unremittingly assaultive electronic noise I’ve ever heard. This album’s opening notes caused my ears to hurt, and I could feel tingling in my nose. Dangerous music! I had to shut it off, and only later, when I returned to this album (and corrected my volume), I discovered a record of inventive, imaginative, and exciting noise experiments that sound like nothing else. The music is much more varied than the first track led me to believe, exploring many different electronic textures and often contrasting synthetic sounds against “organic” ones such as bells and woodwinds. The religious motivation is also notable – the album’s title is drawn from a poem by Sufi poet Imam al-Busiri recited for its spiritual and healing qualities. But Thomas avoids any cliched genre or “world music” references – instead, he states, “These are pieces which are concerned with combining various timbral characteristics to make new sonic soundworlds. In my view music works best as music, and I hope the listener can enjoy the pieces as much as I did when I created them.” A fascinating and stimulating record that I will be returning to.

Fire! Orchestra – Echoes

Link to purchase from Rune Grammofon
Link to Apple Music

The legendary Fire! Orchestra, formed around 2000 by sax player Mats Gustafsson, bassist Johan Berthling and drummer Andreas Werliin, has upped the ante with one album after the next. Echoes, their seventh, is the most audacious record from this group yet, clocking in at almost 2 hours long and employing up to 43 players. That massive orchestra sometimes plays in a riotous, overdriven sprawl, but more often patiently develops something even more rewarding. The first track, “Echoes: I See Your Eye Part 1,” exemplifies this approach, building around restrained playing by bass, drums, and a string quartet. The rhythm section gets lots of room to create a sophisticated, slinky groove until, five minutes in, Gustafsson’s wild baritone sax enters and thrillingly tears the whole thing apart. Drama, melody, and noise are all playing in the same sandbox. In Echoes, sometimes you get beauty, and sometimes Fire!

Kate Gentile | International Contemporary Ensemble – b i o m e i.i
(released May 19, 2023)

Isabel Lepanto Gleicher – flute, piccolo
Jennifer Curtis – violin
Joshua Rubin – clarinet, bass clarinet
Rebekah Heller – bassoon
Ross aKarre – vibraphone & percussion
Cory Smythe – piano
Kate Gentile – drums & percussion

In a recent radio interview with Gentile, host Dave Lake commented on the increasingly blurry line between classical and improvised music. Gentile’s new b i o m e i.i (pronounced “Biome two”) is right at this intersection, with Gentile shepherding music in an exciting new direction. b i o m e i.i is a suite of 13 compositions that segue into each other seamlessly. The musicians comprising the International Contemporary Ensemble (“ICE”) deserve major props here. ICE is co-credited on the album cover and commissioned this work from Gentile. The group’s flair and technique is awesome, with multiple moments of superb writing (by Gentile) and playing (by ICE with Gentile on drums) throughout. As I’ve listened to this album, I’ve found myself getting lost in the music and letting the imaginative combinations of instruments pull me along, then unexpectedly sitting up in wonder at a surprising turn of phrase or an idea executed in a way I didn’t think was possible. The fractured melodies and stuttered rhythms may seem demanding at first, but it goes down easy, with friendly echoes of prog rock and sci-fi soundtracks. I’m sure there is something here waiting for you. And there’s more after this too – b i o m e i.i is the first album from Obliquity Records, a label which Gentile just started with Matt Mitchell – Obliquity # 02 has just been announced and is due July 28!

Samuel Blaser – Routes
(released May 12, 2023)

Summer is here, and you need this album to kick-start your season of sun. If smoke from raging wildfires is choking the sun out, here’s the soundtrack to dance to on the edge of the apocalypse. Blaser revels in Jamaican roots music with the assistance of the late Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, saxophone from Michael Blake, trombone and shells from Steve Turre, with a whole trombone choir. As the liner notes say, “ROUTES is an adventure, a party and a celebration, and you’re invited.”

TNB Archival release of the month:
Milford Graves, Arthur Doyle, Hugh Glover – Children of the Forest
(released May 19, 2023)

Recorded: March 11, 1976
Milford Graves – drums and percussion
Arthur Doyle – tenor saxophone, flute
Hugh Glover – klaxon, percussion, vaccine
January 24, 1976
Milford Graves – drums and percussion
Hugh Glover – tenor saxophone
February 2, 1976
Milford Graves – drums and percussion

For those unfamiliar with Milford Graves’ drumming, go right to the last track of newly released archival material collected in Children of The Forest. There, you can hear the incredible power and complexity of Graves drumming in a solo performance – he can sound like an entire African drum choir. Once you’ve listened to what Graves is capable of, you’re prepared to dig into an hour of this powerful group, which adds scorched earth reads by Arthur Doyle on three blistering tracks and Hugh Glover on another four. Even though the audio is not hi-fi (it was recorded by Graves at his “legendary Queens basement laboratory and workshop”), the absolute passion and awesome capabilities of the musicians are never in doubt. An essential archival release.