New This Week: Dead Can Dance, Nude Beach, and more

OK, this is an actual slow release week. But the stuff that’s here is real good! There’s just less of it. Let’s start with:

VA,Just Tell Me You Want Me- Tribute to Fleetwood Mac from a host of current indie bands and some artists from an earlier generation.Annie Zaleskisays:

Musics cyclical nature means that every few years, another classic artist becomes influential to a new generation of bands; the current seminal act du jour is Fleetwood Mac. Whats great aboutJust Tell Me That You Want Meis that its willing to explore beyond the obvious hits. Even artists who are Fleetwood Macs contemporaries have insightful takes on the bands music.That newer and older artists alike can find unique angles to approach Fleetwood Macs music is indicative of the bands enduring legacy and a testament to its songwriting genius.

Dead Can Dance,Anastasis First new album from beloved mystical goth-folk duo in sixteen years. They havent really lost a step: they still feel like totemic music, like something old and tribal-seeming you found in the woods at night. Their voices are still transporting and gorgeous, and they still blend musics from different cultures with seamless ease. If youve ever loved a Dead Can Dance album, you will be happy today.

Nude Beach, II Tough, no-nonsense power-pop from NYC band. Brings to mind pub-rock faves like early Nick Lowe, some of the FM-rock hooks of Tom Petty.David Greenwaldwrites:

Singer/guitarist Chuck Betz, a tough guy with a soft spot for true love, does his idols proud, and the album rises above its crate-digging thanks to songwriting as lean and propulsive as an Olympic sprinter. Drummer Ryan Naideau tops any of the guitar heroics: His cymbals crash across the mix on Cathedral Echoes like summer lightning, and he may have grown an extra arm for the breakneck Radio. After storming out the gate, the album shows its range with a handful of acoustic-driven mid-album mid-tempo efforts, but its their race to the finish that thrills.

 

Scott Kelly,The Forgiven Ghost in Me Grim, muted acoustic dispatches from the Neurosis frontman.Jon Wiederhornwrites:

Given that Neurosis frontman Scott Kelly recently released the covers albumSongs of Townes Van Zandtand has issued two other sparse, introspective and largely acoustic solo records since 2001, its not surprising that his latest project, Scott Kelly and the Road Home, is a dark, personal vision of hard living, lost love and the vague hope for redemption inspired by Hank Williams, Johnny Cash and latter-day Leonard Cohen. What is surprising is how effectively Kelly attains maximal impact with minimal design. The songs onThe Forgiven Ghostin Me are almost completely devoid of percussion. Theyre repetitive, but they dont drag, and the playing is simple and unpretentious, welcoming the listener into a world both chilling and filled with wonder.

Peter Gabriels catalogue In advance of the upcoming deluxe reissue ofSo, we got Peter Gabriels excellent catalogue today.

So

Car

Us

Up

Birdy: Music From the Film

Shaking The Tree: 16 Golden Greats

Can,Anthology- Two-disc survey.

2 Chainz,Based On A T.R.U. Story Atlanta rapper of the moment drops his long-awaited marquee Def Jam project. Expect a lot of dumb puns and the best production a Def Jam priority budget can buy.

Matthew Dear,Earthforms New single from Matthew Dears excellent, upcoming, still-not-out-somehow August recordBeams.

Moon Pool and Dead Band,Human Fly Desiccated lo-fi disco bump and wiggly sine-wave synths. Dance music for microbes.

The Babies,Moonlight Mile This is a song called Moonlight Mile that is somehow not the Moonlight Mile everyone knows. It is, however, a great lo-fi rock ramble with some of the same dimly lit mystery.

DAVE SUMNER’S JAZZ PICKS

Huge drop this week. I found myself compelled to utilize words like ‘mesmerizing’ and ‘intoxicating’ and ‘hypnotic.’ This week’s Jazz Picks dominated by the younger generation of jazz musicians, though their sound is as disparate as it comes. A mention of a few label drops at the bottom of the column, with Pi Recordings the most notable of them. A few albums among this group will have a case for inclusion on some year-end Best of 2012 lists. Let’s begin…

Jasmine Lovell-Smith’s Towering Poppies, Fortune Songs: Debut album from soprano saxophonist Lovell-Smith, and I’m not sure she could’ve made a more impressive introduction. A quintet rounded out with trumpet, piano, drums, and bass. Tantalizing melodies, a deft use of dramatic tension, and tunes that nicely straddle the divide between new- and old-school jazz. I’m thrilled with this album, and happy to make it my Pick of the Week.

Francesco Diodati, Need Something Strong: Nice quartet date, led by guitarist Diodati. Guitar, sax/clarinet, drums, and bass. Two feet in modern jazz territory. Jazz that’s not afraid to rock out, though it’s really the softer tunes where this quartet shines. Songs like “Smile” and “Loop Bed” are intoxicating in their own right, but as interludes between the heavier tunes, their effect on the album is made more startling. Find of the Week.

Sunny Kim, Painter’s Eye: Mesmerizing jazz vocals album, featuring Kim’s unusual delivery. A sense that she’d rather give an impression of her subject matter through her intonation rather than via the words themselves, the music is equal parts embraceable and haunting. Leading a strong sextet that includes Chris Speed on sax and Ben Monder on guitar, this is an album that will likely appeal to a diverse cross-section of listeners. Something different, while also undeniably approachable. Highly Recommended.

Jamie Oehlers Quartet, Smoke and Mirrors: Aptly named album for this quartet, who seem to enjoy keeping the listener guessing. Tunes that strike out in one direction rarely maintain it. Sudden changes in tempo, progressions heavy on the angularity, and thematic shifts in emotion from song to song, yet it all kind of works in the end. Likely to be one of those albums that gains appreciation over the course of repeat listening.

Natalie Cressman & Secret Garden, Unfolding: Debut album from the young trombonist and vocalist, who also takes the helm as arranger. Mostly originals, but throws in a nifty cover of “Goodbye Porkpie Hat” and gives “Honeysuckle Rose” a playful groove. Really strong play from all members of the sextet, and just a beautifully put together album. Lots of slow builds of tension to moments of proud soaring. Should appeal even to jazz fans who shy from vocals recordings. Recommended.

Irene Scardia, Risveglia: Peaceful piano album, trio format with soprano sax and bass. Piano is definitely the spotlight instrument, with sax and bass adding support. Bass is more often bowed than not, which adds a delicious tension to songs, and the sax parts are flighty and light, and bring a sublime beauty to the album. Very nice recording.

E.Normus Trio, Love and Barbiturates: For those who prefer post-rock outfits that stray into jazz territory, this one is for you. A trio of clarinet, drums, and an N/S Stick (a stringed instrument that doubles as guitar and bass). Lots of primal screaming and throaty missives, with a pleasant undercurrent of drums and percussion. Some cool music here that sometimes rocks, sometimes floats on a sea of tranquility.

Tyler Vander Maas Sax Quartet, TVSQ: As far as sax quartets go, this one creates an astoundingly textured palette. Way more attention to the harmonic elements than the interplay of honks and skronks. Some very pretty moments, and some thrilling ones, too, like the transition between herky-jerky march and soft cooing on “Syeeda’s Song Flute,” and the switch from low moan to bright trills and cries on “After the Trane.” Young group out of Lansing, Michigan, and a promising start to their careers.

Borna Sercar’s Jazziana Croatica, Nehaj: Nice modern jazz recording that merges Croatian music into the fold. Sax, piano, and vibes all have some strong moments in the spotlight. Most tracks have a pleasant tempo that allows for kicking back and relaxing while also keeping the foot tapping. One of those surprise albums that could’ve easily drifted by unseen, but I’ll take care of that by giving it a mention here.

Masahiko Osaka, Assemblage: Solid straight-ahead jazz recording from drummer Osaka. Quintet date that includes sax, piano, bass, and multi-reedist that doubles up on bass clarinet. Plenty of swing and fire, and a couple nice ballads thrown in for good measure. Classic sound done right.

Max Johnson, Quartet: Avant-garde album from bassist Johnson, making it his debut as session leader. A strong quartet featuring Mark Whitecage (alto sax, clarinet), Steve Swell (trombone), and Tyshawn Sorey (drums). Plenty of dissonance, spastic rhythms, bending and twisting of notes, and the occasional interludes of lullaby warmth.

Nobuki Takamen, Three Wishes: Straight-forward guitar, bass, drums trio. Guest piano on two tracks, and it brings a favorable element to a song like “Greenwich Village Sometimes.” Plenty of hoppin’ tunes. Nothing groundbreaking, but definitely a nice selection for the jazz guitar fans. Takamen’s cover of “Scarborough Fair” is what initially caught my ear.

Trance Katz, From the Window: Interesting release from soprano saxophonist Hirokadu Ishida. Most of the album takes the form of gently rolling hills of Jazz; soprano sax, accompanied by a little piano or guitar or drums. But then some tracks take on an ambient pop persona that, while not completely jazz, gives just enough of an impression of it as to shift the sound in satisfying directions without sacrificing the sense of album cohesion. Really quite neat.

Pat Martino, Alone Together: Culled from Martino’s personal archives, these duo guitar recordings with Bobby Rose are a stripped down affair. Recorded back in the late 70s, they provide a look at an interesting facet of Martino’s sound. It’s great that Highnote puts something like this out, though it likely only has appeal to hardcore Martino fans.

The Clerks, The Minor Fall EP: Likable quintet date, heavy on the saxophones and a rhythms section bolstered by guitar. Modern jazz compositions that went their way along while providing snappy accompaniment. Best moments fall between the statements of melody.

Marimba Plus, Zebrano: A Moscow-based ensemble led by Lev Slepner that builds everything around the marimba (wood instrument, similar to vibes). Backed by a variety of woodwinds, piano, and rhythm section, it’s an intoxicating mix of jazz and folk music that’s tough not to fall for. Three of their albums dropped this week; I’m highlighting their 2005 release Zebrano, which is most accessible of the group, and also my favorite.

Roni Ben-Hur, Our Thing: Pleasant guitar trio album. Plenty here to like for the jazz guitar enthusiasts, though it’s the rhythm-work of Duduka Da Fonseca that kick this album up a notch. Da Fonseca is having a very strong 2012.

Pi Records had a nice drop this week, bringing a bevy of recent releases to eMusic. The one album that I don’t want to let get by, and which only came out a couple months ago is: Henry Threadgill Zooid, Tomorrow Sunny/The Revelry, Spp: Cofounder of the AACM, and jazz innovator for decades, Threadgill shows no sign of creative stagnancy. Working with his wonderful Zooid ensemble (which includes an array of flutes, percussion, saxes, tuba, cello, trombone, and guitar), Threadgill, yet again, provides us with a head-spinning tempest of sound and rhythm. And it’s his ability to mesh sound exploration with a mesmerizing rhythm that makes these exploratory tunes richly listenable. An album of unconventional, yet unmistakable beauty.

A decent drop of albums on the Enja label, including nice ones by pianists Fred Hersch and Abdullah Ibrahim.

The ESP label, known for their dedication to experimental and free jazz recordings, dropped two albums on eMusic this week that I’m pretty sure have never been here before: Frank Lowe, The Loweski, which is previously unreleased material from a live recording that includes Joseph Jarman and William Parker, and Frank Wright Quartet, Blues For Albert Ayler, which features previously unreleased material from a live performance that includes Rashied Ali, James Blood Ulmer, and Benny Wilson. Both albums present unfettered ferocity and improvisation, the music messy at times in that wonderful way that live performances put their hearts on their sleeve, blemishes and all. Awesome that ESP releases stuff like this.

And, finally, a return to the weekly Really-Shouldn’t-Be-Filed-Under-Jazz selection…

Diamond Terrifier, Kill The Self That Wants To Kill Yourself: Solo project of Sam Hillmer, who incorporates sax and electronics into mystifying sheets of sound. Avant-garde and drone, mostly. If forced to make a comparison, I’d throw out a name like Colin Stetson. Not entirely sure what to make of this after just one listen, but it’s too cool and different not to mention.

Nude Beach, II

The escapist dream of half-imagined coastlines has inspired bands of many styles in recent years, at least in name: the synth grandeur of Beach House, the C86 idolatry of Beach Fossils, the greasy Elvis deconstructionism of Dirty Beaches. But Brooklyn trio Nude Beach’s hard-knocks power-pop places them toward the head of a class filled with bands like Wavves, Gentleman Jesse and Mind Spiders who are busy laughing at surfers from the safety of the garage. Like their guitar-toting colleagues, Nude Beach’s influences are classic, just roughed up: “Radio” evokes Tom Petty, “Walkin’ Down My Street” struts with Elvis Costello and so on.

Singer/guitarist Chuck Betz, a tough guy with a soft spot for true love, does his idols proud, and the album rises above its crate-digging thanks to songwriting as lean and propulsive as an Olympic sprinter. Drummer Ryan Naideau tops any of the guitar heroics: His cymbals crash across the mix on “Cathedral Echoes” like summer lightning, and he may have grown an extra arm for the breakneck “Radio.” After storming out the gate, the album shows its range with a handful of acoustic-driven mid-album mid-tempo efforts, but it’s their race to the finish that thrills.

New This Week: Dead Can Dance, Wishmountain + More

Dead Can Dance,AntastasisThe title is Greek for resurrection and, if youre new to Dead Can Dance, it tells you everything you need to know about the art-pop duos first album in 16 years. Brendan Perry and Lisa Gerrard create imposing gothic cathedrals of noise from dark electronica, Eastern instrumentation and solemn vocals, often sung in a phonetic language that Gerrard invented in her teens. Admittedly, that might sound as inviting as an open grave, but the rich textures will more than reward anyone with an interest in darkwave.

Wishmountain,Wishmountain Is DeadConceptual sound scientist Matthew Herbert wrapped up his Wishmountain project in 1999 with this wonderful anthology of songs with self-explanatory titles: Pepperpot, Salad Tosser and Crisps. Royal Wedding samples Charles and Dis wedding vows, while Grand Prix loops snatches of commentary and racetrack zooms. Reissued alongside the new Wishmountain album,Tesco.

Wishmountain,TescoA concept album you can dance to, based on the top-ten selling items in Tesco. So “Nescafe” is made entirely from recordings of Nescafe products, and “Kingsmill Hovis and Warburton” is made from recordings of, er, bread. Herbert has said that the experimental music he makes as Wishmountain is where his heart lies, and while we suspect an anti-consumerist might lurk in here somewhere, if youre at all interested in modernmusique concrte, you should buy, buy, buy.

Cheek Mountain Thief,Cheek Mountain ThiefThis beautiful solo album from Tunngs Mike Lindsay is a love letter to Iceland (the country).

Terranova,Hotel AmourNightporterTerranovas acclaimed futuristic house album is remixed by the likes of Gui Boratto, Tiefschwarz and Rampa.

Toddla T,Watch Me Dance: Agitated by Ross Orton & PipesThe Sheffield dancehall stars debut albumis remixed by local luminaries Ross Orton and Pipes. Stevie Chick writes:

The duos re-imagining brings much thats new to the party, and their vision of Badder Man Runs masterfully streamlines the original, setting its siren wails and chaotic holler to laser-guided pulses and hardfloor breaks, and raising a fine lunatic chaos.

 

DJ Empty,MeaninglessReleased on Matthew Herberts Accidental label, this is a sublime album of machine-made melancholy from 27-year-old Japanese producer Hiroki Mamoru.

Sue Denim,Sue Denim and the Unicorn Denim, One half of Robots in Disguise and occasional star ofThe Mighty Boosh, Denim channels Syd Barrett and Kevin Ayres on this sweet solo album of psychedelic pop, about falling in love, unicorns, and falling in love with unicorns.

Discover: Sublime Frequencies

The Seattle label Sublime Frequencies established its idiosyncratic personality early. Their first few releases were field recording-style documents of street musicians and radio stations in Sumatra, Bali and Myanmarmysterious, thrilling messages from far-off lands that were refreshingly free of the mannered scrubbing and polishing most “world music” receives before it arrives at its inevitable destination near the register at a coffee shop. Sublime Frequencies releases seemed interested in delivering not just sounds, but an experiencethe feeling of tooling around Mali in a taxi at midnight, or uncovering a cache of cassettes from the ’80s at a marketplace stall in Cambodia.

That spirit has grown more apparent with each new release. In 2007, they released the first domestic compilation of tracks by the Syarian singer Omar Souleyman. That same year, they released an album by the Saharan guitar band Group Doueh. In contrast to the initial batch of Sublime Frequencies releases, both Souleyman and Group Doueh were active, touring musicians, expanding the label’s focus from archival to contemporary. What remained, though, was the label’s sense of fearlessness and curiosity and their unending drive to discover.

eMusic’s editor-in-chief J. Edward Keyes talked with label founder Alan Bishop about the mission and distinct personality of Sublime Frequencies.

So, I’d like to talk a little bit about the origins of Sublime Frequenciescan you talk a little bit about how the label developed?

There are many variables as to how and why the label was formed. Several of the first few releases were actually finished or recorded 20 years before we knew we would establish this label. But the idea eventually sprung from periodic meetings held from 2001-03 when Hisham Mayet, Richard Bishop, Robert Millis, Charles Gocher, Mark Gergis and I would get together and screen video clips we had shot over the years. Sometimes the prepared clips would be brief, others would last an hour. We would edit special sequences to amuse each other, or shoot new sequences in the days before the gatherings to keep it fresh and entertaining. It was loose and informal, yet many great ideas would be flying around the room.

We had a focused and fearless tone from the beginning. What we do involves work, dedication, research, savvy, and also some luck. And we all have been travelingfor many reasonssince we were children. So starting the label was more of a result of [realizing] the void we could fill with the material we had been collecting and would continue to collect.

I’m impressed with the locations you’ve chosen to spotlightyou seem to have a very particular focus for the kind of music you’re releasingwhether you’re recording it, or it’s recorded by others. What are your guidelines for “curating” the Sublime Frequencies catalog?

Many people ask us what our aesthetic is, and our answer is always the same: We know it when we hear it. Sure, there are obvious specifics that we gravitate towards: 1960s music everywhere; raw, expressive and unfiltered sound; a focus on North Africa, the Middle East and Southeast Asia. We have so many interestsanyone can perceive this if they study the 70-plus releases we have produced. There never has been a particular template for what inspires us. We are creating that very undefined template as we go.

You’ve also been very good about introducing styles of music that are unfamiliar to a lot of the Western World. I don’t know many people in the U.S. who knew much dabke before you put out the Omar Souleyman records. Does a desire to educate play any role in the mission of Sublime Frequencies, or is that just an added upside?

The fact that so much of what we release is new to everyone living outside a specific geographic location, one could say that our releases educate all who hear them. We “educate” naturally if others are willing to listen. As a label, though, it is not a conscious focus.

Any parts of the world that you haven’t spotlighted yet that you would like to?

Everywhere really, but there is only a certain amount of work each of us can do. We also accept ideas for projects and submissions from anyone who cares to approach us. There is never a time when we are working on less than 75 potential releases. I just looked back at the last six years of project lists, and 75 is the number that seems to average out at all times. When five are finished, at least five new potential releases are waiting to take their place almost immediately.

Tell me a little bit about how you first heard about Omar Souleyman? What qualities attracted you to him as an artist?

Mark Gergis was the one who collected some of Omar’s cassettes inSyriain the late ’90s and sent me a compilation of his favorite tracks. The intensity of the music was the most impressive thing from the start. Omar has a great voice and is a fantastic showman, but the music is irresistible.

I’m wondering the same about Group Doueh. What was the story behind working with them?

My first contact was while I was recording radio inMoroccoin 2005 and when Doueh appeared on the air, my brain immediately exploded.

For compilations like Staring Into the Sun and Night Recordings from Baliwhat’s the process behind capturing the music contained on those records? I have Radio Algeria and Radio Pyongyang, and I can’t imagine it comes together very easily.

Nothing comes easily. The Radio releases are not as effortlessly carved as some people think. It’s not about simply turning on the radio and hitting record and moving around the dial or leaving the room. I have my own highly refined operating system when it comes to how I approach radio collage, and I will collect up to 50 hours of material for each project before editing begins. Field recordings differ depending on each situation. I have my recorder wherever I go and am always looking and listening for something to capture in sound. Almost all of my favorite moments come from random encounters that I would have never predicted. Persistence and patience are essential to these processes.

Scott Kelly and the Road Home, The Forgiven Ghost in Me

Given that Neurosis frontman Scott Kelly recently released the covers album Songs of Townes Van Zandt and has issued two other sparse, introspective and largely acoustic solo records since 2001, it’s not surprising that his latest project, Scott Kelly and the Road Home, is a dark, personal vision of hard living, lost love and the vague hope for redemption inspired by Hank Williams, Johnny Cash and latter-day Leonard Cohen.

What is surprising is how effectively Kelly attains maximal impact with minimal design. The songs on The Forgiven Ghost in Me are almost completely devoid of percussion. They’re repetitive, but they don’t drag, and the playing is simple and unpretentious, welcoming the listener into a world both chilling and filled with wonder.

Kelly clearly believes in the glory of nature and creates colorful imagery of the sun, clouds, sea, rain, light, fire and flowers. But he has trouble seeing past the blackness of mortality. “The blade of the reaper suspend in the eye in the reverence/ all dues in the crossing feed the soul drowning in the breech,” he rasps in “Within in Blood.”

Accompanied by Neurosis keyboardist Noah Landis and ex-Sorrow Town Riders frontman Greg Dale, The Forgiven Ghost in Me flows with grim 3 a.m. folk songs that alternate slow, heavy-hearted strums with picked, ringing notes, and feature an undercurrent of spare, droning organ, brooding bowed bass and haunting slide guitar. It’s a dusky, reflective experience filled with space, and Kelly accompanies the melancholy tones with raw, naked sentiment.

“Death brings the rain to the river and I walk from the shore waiting/ The stones in the river bring hell to the heart/ All truth is denied, we will fall in the sun,” he croons on “We Let the Hell Come.” The last two minutes of the song provide some of the most energetic moments on the album; the strumming doubles in speed and becomes more complex, and a second guitar offers welcome melodic counterpoint.

But it’s the final track, “The Field That Surrounds Me” that most closely resembles Kelly’s more rock-oriented efforts. Accompanied by Neurosis drummer Jason Roeder, A Storm of Light frontman Josh Graham and a saxophone player, the song is a climactic contrast of acoustic and electric elements, and achieves a transcendent vibe somewhat redolent of Pink Floyd.

Even at their gloomiest, Scott Kelly and the Road Home have the gift to uplift. In the end, Kelly may still question the meaning of it all, but the power of his music remains undeniable.

Various Artists, Just Tell Me That You Want Me: A Tribute to Fleetwood Mac

Music’s cyclical nature means that every few years, another classic artist becomes influential to a new generation of bands. Recent recipients of this reputation-boost include Talking Heads, Gang of Four, Joy Division, the Beach Boys and the Band; the current seminal act du jour is Fleetwood Mac. While the band has never really disappeared from the public eyeCamper Van Beethoven did its own version of Tusk in 2002 and everyone from John Mayer to Joe Jackson have performed live coversthe ‘Mac is currently experiencing a huge surge in fashionable popularity.

Appropriately, one of the biggest modern champions of the band, Best Coast, anchors Just Tell Me That You Want Me: A Tribute to Fleetwood Mac. The band’s take on “Rhiannon” is no-nonsense, although the handclaps and bouncy piano make it more pleasantly whimsical than gritty and mystical. The New Pornographers’ jaunty take on “Think About Me” is another treat, a tangle of zooming synthesizers and the spitfire vocal interplay between A.C. Newman and Neko Case, while Tame Impala nails the starry-eyed psychedelic vibe of Lindsey Buckingham’s Tusk album cut, “That’s All For Everyone.”

Indeed, what’s great about Just Tell Me That You Want Me is that it’s willing to explore beyond the obvious hits. Sure, the band’s most successful era is well-representedKaren Elson’s “Gold Dust Woman” has a dusty, twangy edge; Antony croons “Landslide” with appropriate gravitas; and the Kills’ twitching “Dreams” is spare and jagged. Yet there’s a faithful cover of the Peter Green-penned 1969 instrumental “Albatross”interpreted by Lee Ranaldo Band and J. Mascis with bluesy, mournful reverenceand an ominous, fuzzy, electronic-tinged take on the lesser-known Tusk single “Sisters Of The Moon” by St. Vincent and Shudder To Think’s Craig Wedren. And Washed Out interprets “Straight Back” as a synthpop throb full of longing that sounds more like a circa-1991 dancefloor than it does FM radio in 1982.

Even artists who are Fleetwood Mac’s contemporaries have insightful takes on the band’s music. ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons and pals (including recent Fiona Apple tourmate Blake Mills) interpret “Oh Well” as a junkyard blues number, while Marianne Faithfull’s version of “Angel” is urbane, vibrant and reminiscent of Velvet Underground’s droll, proto-indie strolls. That newer and older artists alike can find unique angles to approach Fleetwood Mac’s music is indicative of the band’s enduring legacyand a testament to its songwriting genius.

Who IsDarling Farah

That the electronic-music producer Kamau Baaqi, aka Darling Farah, is just 20 years old and has an album and three EPs to his name may be unusual, but it’s hardly unprecedented. The last couple of years have produced a bumper crop of fresh-faced talent, from Nicolas Jaar to Porter Robinson to Madeon. What’s notable is the fact that Baaqi discovered electronic dance music while living in the United Arab Emirates.

“I moved to the Middle East because my mom found work out thereshe was working as a librarian,” he explains to me when I reach him on the phone in London, where he’s currently studying music production and sound art. “I kind of tagged along. Seeing as I was only 16 when I left, I didn’t have much say in the matter.”

There wasn’t much of an electronic-music scene to speak of there, so he did what kids all over the world do when they feel isolated: He turned to the internet. Originally a hip-hop fan, he discovered electronic music through a collaboration between MF Doom, one of his heroes, and the Los Angeles beat-maker Daedelus, and from there it was a bottomless tumble into a rabbit hole of YouTube clips and MySpace players. Eager to try his hand, he ordered a Monome 40ha smaller version of Daedelus’s performance tool of choiceand immersed himself in online user forums to learn the basics of Max/MSP, a notoriously arcane software platform.

He released his first EP not long after, in 2008, but it was his Berline EP, in 2010, that really marked his arrival. Released on London’s Civil Music, and accompanied by remixes from Funkineven, Clara Moto, and Christian Martin, the single showed Baaqi to be a capable interpreter of the punchy, bass-heavy sound of U.K. house.

On his debut album, Body, Baaqi has clearly found his voice. You can hear elements of contemporaries like Actress and Marcel Dettmann in his smudgy timbres and basso rumble; there are also ample echoes of techno touchstones like Basic Channel and early Kompakt. But there’s an expressive impulse on Body that sets the album apart from many of its similarly inspired peers.

“I haven’t actually done that many phone interviews,” said Baaqi, as we’re wrapping up our conversation. “I was afraid I might say something dumb, but this actually went pretty well.” One of us should have knocked on wood, because that’s the first time in years that my recorder has failed on me. Fortunately, Baaqi was kind enough to endure my questions a second time around, the following week.

On coming up with the name Darling Farah:

My mom had this book with the word “Farah” on it, and it jumped out at me. I liked the idea of it being a girl’s name, something that was separate from me. I’m pretty active on Twitter, and I actually have all these followers that are dudes that think I’m a girl.

On feeling like a fish out of water:

They tried to teach us Arabic in school, but I never really learned to speak it that well. But you get used to the fact that other people are speaking a language you can’t speak. All I can speak is English, so I just had to get used to it. Maybe it was a bit weird at first. Even if it was weird, it never really bothered me. When everyone is speaking a language you don’t understand, you’re not blocking it out, it’s just that nothing’s making sense to you. I can say that after four years, you can kind of pick up, like, tones, and where the conversation is going. After a while, you’re not completely lost, but you can kind of tell if someone’s being, like, a dick to you, or something like that. It just depends on how engaged you are with the people you’re surrounded by.

On having dreadlocks in the Middle East (and in London):

It’s not hard; it’s just kind of annoying sometimes. It’s no one’s fault. It’s just like, maybe they’re not used to people with dreadlocks. But they already have certain connotations for it, if you know what I mean. If I’m coming into airports in the Middle East, it’s a no-go. It’s really awkward. They always search you. It happens, it happens. I can’t really blame anyone. I was telling my mom a few days ago, in Londonand this goes back to the language questionnow that I’m here, people still have a funny opinion of dreadlocks, but it’s in English, and now I can actually understand what they’re saying. In the Middle East, they were probably talking about it the whole time, but I wouldn’t know. Here, it’s the same thing, but I can actually understand what they’re saying, or why they’re shouting. I don’t know which is better!

Emphasizing the “kid” in “rave kid”:

I went to the Detroit Electronic Music Festival a few times as a kid. My dad took me. He was also a musician, and he listened to all types of music. When I was a kid, I didn’t really know where I was going; I just knew it was a festival. I remember, because this is around the time he had bought me turntables, this is when I was trying to do scratching, like hip-hop stuff. And he was telling me there was a DJ called Mad Professor that does a similar approach, but in dub. So he took me down to see the show. Mad Professor didn’t actually have any decks at the timehe just had a massive mixing board with effects and all kinds of crazy stuff. I went there thinking he was going to mix with turntables, but what I ended up seeing was like a science project. And I was just a kid, so I was like, “What is this?” It was cool.

On long-distance learning:

The Middle East is where I found out a lot about music, more than what I was hearing in Detroit. Techno is there if you know where to look for it in Detroit, but I didn’t really go looking for it. I was listening mostly to rap. I really liked MF Doom, and through one of his tracks, “Impending Doom,” I discovered Daedelus. And that sent me off on a search to discover more music like he was making. A lot of the hip-hop I was listening to had samples, and the choices they were using would be like orchestral samples, acoustic stuff, just weird instruments from around the world. And Daedelus had that kind of approach with the sounds he used and the samples he chopped up. So maybe I found the connection between that and hip-hop. When I heard Daedelus and MF Doom, the beat made sense and the rapping over it made senseit just clicked.

After that, I was doing my own research, just surfing the internet and finding out about new things, finding out about what was big at the time. That was basically just MySpace and YouTube. YouTube clips of gigs, songs, all that kind of stuff. I remember the French electronic scenemost of those artists are the first wave of producers or DJs that I was into, the first ones I was really following up and researching as a fan. Ed Banger, Institubeswhatever was happening in Paris from, like, 2006 to 2008, I was heavily into it. From there, it was just like going deeper into the tunnel, starting from the surface and going deeper and deeper. There was U.K. garage and drum ‘n’ bass, even dubstep, later on down the line. That was all through the internet.

On starting out the hard way:

When I started making music, I started out with the Monome and Max/MSP, because that’s what I had seen Daedelus was using. I didn’t know anything about the softwareI just thought that was normal. I thought that was how everyone made electronic music. It’s like when you look up to someone, you just kind of follow what they’re doing. In terms of making music, I didn’t even know where to start. I just saw him and saw how he was doing his live thing, and I thought I’d try it myself.

I wasn’t too nervous, I was more excited to just get it started and get everything set up and start cutting up samples. I remember I had a demo video of how to cut up samples live, and I was like, “Oh, I have to be doing this.” At that time, it wasn’t a serious thing anyways. It was kind of like a hobby, just to mess around and see what happens.

The people I looked up to, I would be studying themlike, how did they do it? I’d just go back and replicate itbut just the part that I liked the most, like a sawtooth synth or something. But I guess that’s less the case now, because I know how to express myself a bit better. I don’t have to worry about ripping someone’s style off.

On his Berline EP and the Berlin/Detroit connection:

For me, it was kind of like paying homage to something I didn’t know too much about, but I knew that I was really excited about it. At the time I didn’t really know what to think of Berlin. I knew it was a big place for techno and electronic music, but I didn’t know as much as I probably should have. But I listened to the music, I was heavily into it, so I was paying homage to something that I wanted to take further, down the line. It was a fan kind of thing.

It is a little weird that I come from Detroit, and I was fascinated with Berlin. But I didn’t really think of it like that. I thought about it more as exploration. People do make these connections, and it’s soit’s not a bad thing, but it’s very analytical. I don’t see why it should have to be that way, like a Detroit kid and this or that.It’s weird.

The more I look back Detroit techno’s history and legacy, it became a self-aware kind of thing. My eyes kind of opened and I was like, “Oh, now I get what they mean by that legacy.” I’m not intimidated by it, but I’m way more aware of it. I don’t think it’s going to ever be too intimidating. I would be lying if I said I always knew about the Detroit scene or I always was involved with it. I’m just coming around to that now. So I think it’s only natural to embrace all different types of electronic music, rather than just one city, even though it is such a crucial reference point for a lot of places that have taken on the sound.

On the evolution of his sound and the creation of his debut LP

Once Berline came out, that’s around the time that I realized I was moving toward something different. Something new, I guess. In the three or four months that I did the album, it was a start-to-finish kind of thing. I would just start making tracks, but I didn’t have any outtakes or tracks I didn’t use. All the tracks I made for the album are ones I knew I was going to put on there. The thing is, I had music I had before the album, just tracks sitting around, but I knew I wouldn’t put them on the album. I was at a different point in my life, and they were just old, musically.

A lot of the soundsI would record like a shot, like a stab or something like that. And from that one little piece, I would go into Fruity Loops and manipulate it and find different ways to flip it or reverse it or pitch it down, put different effects on it. It was seeing what alterations made it sound better. It’s more sample-based than synths, but by sample-based I mean I would take a kick and resample it, and turn it into some sort of pad. There’s not so many actual synthesizers on it. The synths were a part of it, but they were more like tools to create other sounds.

“Aaangel”that is the one track that uses the most synths. It’s nothing but an arpeggiated synth. That was pretty simple as well. There was a one-hit note for a synth, and I made it into an arpeggio, and I remember I put it under some effects I was using, and that was just it. I liked the arp enough to keep it on its own. It had that isolated feeling I wanted to emulate. That’s the fun thing about making an album. You can do these sorts of thingsactually have the chance to have these two-minute beatless tracks, or different things that you can’t really do for an EP or a single. Doing an album gives you a lot more freedom.

On moving to London:

It had more to do with music than anything. When I was thinking about places to go when I finished high school, I knew that I was going to study music. And I knew I was going to have to be somewhere where the music scene was something I’d be interested in, and interested in being in. If you’re going to live somewhere, you want it to be where the music is good and good artists come over to DJ and perform. I didn’t get to see many artists play in UAE. They had a few of the big commercial names but it was more like a concert. I wanted to be involved in the music scene, and I thought London was a good place to check out, a chance for me to get close to all the things that I was waiting to check out, in terms of clubs and DJs and bands.

On live performance and DJing:

When my dad bought me turntables, I was more into the turntablism, like scratching and mixing hip-hop records and breaks. I’m not actually the best DJ. I can’t beatmatch that well. I know my way around turntables, but I don’t really consider myself like a DJ-DJ. I’ve done it in the past and I still do from time to time, but I’m not like a guru. But the live shows have been really fun. Every time I do a show, I learn something new, so after every show I can come back and build upon a set, and add to it and make changes, get the feedback that people give me after shows and put it to use. The most recent show was at the Boiler Room. It was Tom DeCicco and Objekt and Ryat. I was happy about that, because I got to see all their sets, and they all killed it. Plus, it was Ryat, and that’s a Brainfeeder artist. I’ve been into Brainfeeder for way too long anyway. So it felt pretty huge to be on the same bill with someone like her.

Interview: Gossip’s Beth Ditto

In the late ’90s, an 18-year-old Beth Ditto moved to Olympia, Washington, from Searcy, Arkansas, with her best friends. In less than a year they started the best punk band in town. When I first met them, they were all working as “Sandwich Artists” at the Subway across the street from the offices of Kill Rock Stars, where I worked at the time. I was a huge Gossip fan from the beginning, and remember telling the label to sign them before someone else did.

Watching Beth Ditto grow up to become an internationally known feminist icon and pop singer has been amazing. But I miss seeing her band play raucous basement punk, and I miss hanging out and shooting the shit. This interview gave us a good excuse to catch up. As a Beth Ditto fan, I couldn’t wait to talk to her about how she navigates the world as an uncompromising radical feminist working in the pop realm.

Where are you today?

I am in Portland, in my living room!

Oh that’s awesome I’m at The Capitol Theater (in Olympia) using a landline.

That is hilarious.

I know, right?

“Hi. Can I come over and use your landline?”

Exactly.

That’s like coming over to use somebody’s microwave.

So what do you wanna talk about?

I don’t know, I’m just excited and nervousI’m like, “What is she gonna ask me?”

Well, I have to ask this question because I’m always very curious. Are there any stories behind the new songs that you’d like to share?

I wanted to make a really bitchy songI don’t feel bad about it. It’s called “Get a Job.” When Olympia moved to Portland, all the same people were still roommates. There was one really rich kid who didn’t ever pay bills and never took care of anything. And it also gets at this idea that I’m like absolutely sick and tired of being called “Girl.” If something devastating happens and someone comes in and says, “I’m sorry girl”, I’m like “What? Are you kidding me? Seriously? I’m 31 years old.” Casually, like “Girl, that is hysterical“, that’s great, that’s sincere. But this is different.

So, “Get a Job” is about this one person who didn’t know what it was like to worry about money. They never had to live with that fear of poverty. Living with that worry is what the song’s about. I’m like, “You know what? You need to get a job. And pay your bills on time. It’s not fair what you’re doing. You’re my friend.” Explaining this to other people has been very hilarious.

Well, it’s interesting to hear your story, because that song works on other levels too. It could be about female economic empowerment. It could be about a woman who is getting divorced who has to get a job as a matter of survival, but also as a means to independence.

I like that take. The record was going to be called Get A Job, but I didn’t want it seem insensitive to people who couldn’t get a job. Coming from someone who is obviously really privilegedin what I’m doing, and on many levels, for many reasonsI just didn’t want it to seem insensitive.

A Joyful Noise is very descriptive of the album.

Thank you. That is from the Bible.

Can I ask you a feminist question?

Yeah. Make it hard.

Last night Spider and the Webs played a show in Olympia, so I asked if anyone had any questions for you. The basic thing that people on the street want to know from you is this: What is the difference between being a radical queer feminist in a punk band, and being a radical queer feminist in a pop group?

Oh wow. Well first of all, The Gossip turns 15 this year.

Congratulations.

Thank you. As someone who is a feminist and who was influenced by radical feminism, not mainstream feminism, I’ve learned 1. You can’t live your life to please other people, and 2. There’s all different kinds of approaches. The beauty of punk feminism was that you never really had to explain yourself. We were lucky enough to come along when we did, obviously, because it was summer of ’99 and 2000 andI don’t have to tell you thisbut what y’all did for us [the decade before]you have to keep that going, hoping that people pass it on and keep it alive. When I hear stories about Team Dresch going on tour and things like that, I’m like, “You know what? I didn’t ever have to deal with that,” because so many of the barriers had been broken down already. Kicking the barriers down must be really interesting.

And that’s the thing. Being a feminist in a pop band is really hard, honestly. Sometimes you feel extremely lonely. But sometimes you feel really good, because you’ve exposed people to things they’ve never thought about. Getting into arguments in interviews is likesometimes being hated never felt so good, you know what I mean? You feel like you’re really doing something when you feel that resistance. To resist means that something is pushing back against you, and sometimes being a feminist in a punk band, I didn’t feel like there was resistance.

I feel really at home there, but I also feel like I’m explaining myself to my punk feminist friends who are like, “Well, how do you justify doing this or that?” And sometimes I’m like, “I did that for money.” I will tell you blatantly. I do not want to live in poverty. I do not want to do that. I do not want my friends to have to live in poverty. But I do find myself justifying things I did or making excuses and things to people who ask. And then there are people I can talk to about the pros and cons. For me, the most important thing is being able to live with myself. Like, going to bed and night and saying, “OK, does this feel good or bad? Is it worth it on my conscience? Is this gonna hurt people, or is this gonna help people?” Or even, “Is this gonna hurt me or is this gonna help me?”

Talking to you and knowing what you knowdoing an interview with you can be harder, in a way, because I’m like, “What do you say, what do you not say?” Kill Rock Stars was so welcoming, and it felt so good and such a dream to me at first. But being on an independent label is being a part of the music industry, too, and that can be really hard in different ways. Being on Sony, they are all so afraid of youwhich is really empowering, but in this other way. They wouldn’t dare cross what I say. But am I thinking the reason they are afraid of me is because I can’t believe that these people actually respect my opinion or my vision and ideas? So I’m thinking, are they doing this out of fear? That’s really interesting too. But it’s just a different set of rules.

I’m sure when you first started, at 18 years old, that was really difficult because a lot of people were so much older, and all that stuff (riot grrrl, queercore) had come first. So you were walking into a lot of history. I can see that being inspiring but also intimidating.

It was very intimidating. What I think is really interesting about being a part of a radical community with political thinking is how we are so quick to judge each other and be so harsh to each other. You have to accept that life is a learning process for everyone, and we’re all the same. We’re all the victims of the same system, and we are all trying to de-program ourselves.

Have you heard Elizabeth Martinez’s term to discuss infighting? “The Oppression Olympics,” where oppression become a contest. She is a Chicana writer and activist who was talking about barriers to coalition building within anti-racist struggle.

The Oppression Olympics! That is a really good term. I really cannot just believe, being a part of the pop world and realizing how honestly, genuinely, sincerely, people don’t know. They just don’t know! They just never thought about it! It’s mind-blowing. It’s just like when you talk to your grandma, and you’re like “Grandma, that’s not cool” and she’s like, “Well I didn’t even think of that!” Ding ding ding! Of course you didn’t! I would have never thought about either it if I wasn’t reading zines and discovering Gloria Steinem when I was like 12. I wouldn’t have thought about that kind of stuff. People are so quick to write other people off. But there has to be people who are willing to put up with other people’s bullshit, or I don’t think change is possible.

Where do you find that patience?

My family. Because I’ve seen them come so far with me. And knowing how I was raised with racismjust blatant racism. We’re not talking about things that are hard to see. We are talking about just blatant racism. And my mom was a person who was not a feminist, and not exposed to anything like that. She was pregnant by 15, came from an abusive situation with an absolutely crazy storyand then having the patience to just be kind and forgiving is mind-blowing. That is really inspiring. And to see them be like, “Oh my daughter, my niece is gay”

To see that progress is incredible. And I know that it is possible, but you can’t do that when you’re screaming at people that they are stupid and backwards and wrong. There’s a time and a place for that, but there has to be a part where you are willing to listen and be heard. That’s really important. That’s where I get it from. I know that the most backwardfor lack of a better wordpeople are not born that mean. They’re just not. The idea is just being a good personit isn’t hard. Even if you’re not the nicest person or the warmest person. It’s not hard to just be a decent person.

I really like that you always name-check Divine as one of your style inspirations but I would like to hear you talk more in depth about that a little bit. What does Divine mean to you?

When I first heard of Divine, I was with my best friend Jerry. I was probably 15. Hairspray was always on TV, but it never registered that that was Divine. Then we watched Pink Flamingos and that wasjust.(long pause) insane. Seriously? I was like what?! My brain was on fire. We were watching it and I remember trying be cool, but inside I was like “What. Is. Going. On?!” Especially the chicken scene, the butthole sceneThe end, where she eats real dog shit?! I remember thinking, “I don’t know why but that is the most amazing thing I have ever seen.” And that was the first time I ever understood art. It was the first time I ever really got it. It was amazing. I remember thinking, “I wanna look like that!”

But I was also obsessed with Mary Tyler Moore. I wanted to have Mary Tyler Moore’s hair from The Dick Van Dyke Show. You know the Huggy Bear song ["Blow Dry"] that goes “I’m the lady with the bouffant hair”? And also, Miss Piggy! A great feminist icon. She knew karate! Amazing. Where are the Miss Piggys now?

The next question is personal but it goes along with what we’ve been talking about. What would the grownup you tell the teenage you?

It’s such a hard question. Jerry and I were talking about this the other day, how we always saw the world through the same eyes that we see through now, but we’re grown. There’s so much fate involved. It would be hard to convince me, had I not met those three [Jerry, Gossip member Nathan Howdeshell and former Gossip member Kathy Mendonca] It’s hard to separate myselfthe teenage mefrom them. But you know what? You know what I would say to me? I would say, “Beth, Nathan is not as cool as you think he is.” [Hysterical laughter]

[Laughing] Oh my god!

Not in a mean way! You know, he’ll even tell you this, it’s not mean, I swear. When I met him I was 14 and he was 16. I was a nerd, but I was also obsessed with bouffants, I was obsessed with Gloria Steinem. You know, we didn’t have Sassy magazine, we didn’t have that kind of shit [in Arkansas] All we had were zines. That was it. And we were lucky that ‘zines made it there. Nathan was the reason why that happened and he really did hold court. I just thought he was the coolest thing ever. Jerry and Kathy too. Especially as a 14-year-oldKathy was 17 and Nathan was 16they could drive, they would bring zines over, we could go record shopping, we could go to thrift stores. And all that was great, but Nathan was pretty protective of this little bubble that he had made. He was really defensive and would just make fun of you to your face. He was a mean boy, he was too cool. So I guess I would tell [the young me], “Beth you are just as cool as Nathan.”

You could abstract that to be about any guy that you look up to as a teen. Calvin Johnson was that guy for me. When we met I was 14 and he was 21. He had a radio show, he was in my favorite band and, from my point of view, he knew everyone and everything about independent music.

You wanted them to like you so bad, but they were such a hard nut to crack. But at the same time you are one and the same.

I’ve been writing a song this weekend and having a hard time. I know what I want to communicatethe song has a clear messagebut I’m having a trouble with imagery and crafting a story around it. Which is something I think you’ve always been really good atyou make it seem effortless.

Thank you. Thanks Tobi, that is so sweet of you to say.

What’s your songwriting process?

Whatever is in your brain, any sentence, whatever your message isit will come through. For me, I never think about what’s gonna happenI don’t think about it, it just comes out. I never say, “I’m gonna write a song about this,” except for maybe on the first record. Whatever you are feeling, your subconscious is gonna come up with it.

Are there any songs you worked super hard on for this album or did they all write themselves?

There is one. [The song is "Linda Lovelace," which didn't make the final version of the record.Ed.] It was actually about my dad. And I didn’t realize that until it was done, but I couldn’t get through it. My dad died that night. I remember thinking, “I hate taking music this seriously.” Which is another thing that comes up now that I’m olderI realize that not letting myself take things seriously was something I thought was a punk attitude: “You will not take songwriting seriously.” I don’t know where I got that. Maybe from Nathan? It was also sexism getting into my brain and not realizing it, but shutting that off by saying, “You know what? It’s OK to take things seriously.” That song about my dad, I couldn’t not take it seriously, because I couldn’t get through it without choking up. It’s the first time I’ve ever felt that way, where I was like, “You know what? I just can’t do this. I can’t write this song.”

How do you balance your work ethic and ambition with burn out? What do you do to take care of yourself?

Feminism. I swear to god. It is what keeps me focused and alive. My mom and my family keep me ambitious. I tell myself I’m so lucky to be my own boss, to have all these opportunities. To be able to take care of my mom is the biggest honor. Helping Rock & Roll Camp for Girls and being able to help different groups like that financially really inspires me. I come from a place of actual poverty. We are not talking lower-middle class, we are talking “Do you choose electricity or do you choose groceries?” Living like that from a very young age, I never want people to have to worry about that. And that always goes back to feminism for me, and empowerment. Every time I get burned out I’m just like, “I’m so lucky that I get to have all these experiences that have made me this way.” I’m really lucky that I was born at the time I was born and that I got to move to Olympia and actually meet you. That is a big fucking deal.

Thank you.

I hope you realize that, because it’s really fucking cool. Even in interviews, all the time, in interviews people are like, “Who changed your life?” and I’m like, “Fucking Tobi Vail,” and you are still doing really cool shit all the fucking time. It’s really inspiring!

What are some of the other musical influences of the new album?

On the new album? I was seriously obsessed with Paul Simon and Loretta Lynn. I was really obsessed with rhyme schemes. What I love about Loretta Lynn is that she can write the hokiest shit. “The Pill” is a hokey song, but it’s so important and so empowering. I was getting the idea that it’s OK to take myself seriously, and listening to Loretta Lynn, I was like, “Now see, that is someone who does not let [those thoughts] get into her brain.” You can tell she thought, “The first thing that came into my head is rhyming garbage with yardage and it works!” Actually, I have a question for you. When you write songs is it melody first or lyrics first?

I actually got this from Kurt Cobainwe were close friends for a short time when he was writing a ton of pop songs and listening to The Beatles a lot. The first thing I do is choose the singing style I’m going to use.

Yes, me too.

It’s definitely singing style and melody first, words second. Actually, I often come up with a list of song titles first.

But not lyrics first?

No, never. Singing style and melody come first. OK, so, we’ve been talking for a while and I don’t wanna take up too much more of your time but I would like to ask another question I got from people who were at the Spider and the Webs show in Olympia last night: What’s it like to be a fat activist in the world of high fashion?

It’s awesome. I’m gonna be honest, this is my thing. Like I told you before, it’s that thing with resistancewhen you are discussing fat activism with Nomy Lamm, you feel sisterhood, but I need more. To me it’s another side of performing. That’s my personality. I’m such a ham, such an exhibitionist. Even my astrological chart says, “This is what you were born to do.” Also because I do have feminism and I do have radical context, things don’t hurt my feelings. Feminism has always been my filter. When someone says, “I hate this song,” that is a different thing than saying, “That fat bitch.” Being called a bitch doesn’t hurt my feelings. Being called fat doesn’t hurt my feelings. Things like that don’t hurt my feelings, because I come from a punk background.

Another thing: I feel way more at home in the fashion industry than I do in the music industry, because so many of those people also came from punk backgrounds, believe it or not. One of the most amazing people I’ve ever come into contact with is Vivienne Westwood. She is incredible. Talk about punkshe is so serious. The falling out between her and Malcolm McLaren? I am so obsessed with it, and I’m almost sure it has to do with something really awful.

Also the idea of “all these skinny models”I don’t understand how people can talk about sex-worker activism and at the same time talk [negatively] about size zero. I know there’s a huge difference, there’s a huge income difference, there’s all of these things we are talking aboutracism, sexism, classism. But on this basic level, women have so few options to make a substantial living without going to college, without having to climb some crazy fucking ladder. I am really glad I was exposed to it, because I’m not hating from the other side without knowing what’s going on. There’s a huge level of sisterhood that’s really incredible that I never would have seen had I not seen it firsthand.

I also learned that there’s a lot of skill to modeling. We’re not just talking about body size but actually what you’re giving. There’s a lot of knowledge about where to put your face and how to hold somethingit’s really crazy. You start to see the actual talent that goes into what they do. You have to separate these things and then put them together and then you can decide what your feelings are about it.

I refuse to hate on models, because they are also women and they are also victim of the exact same body standard that I am. I refuse to hate people for being thin and I refuse to hate people for feeling the absolute pressure to be thin. If anybody knows how that feels I totally fucking get it.

It’s almost like being a journalist and getting to sneak into this secret world that you hear people talk about constantly, but they’ve never even seen. I always think about Gloria Steinem working at the Playboy bunny mansion and how awful, how amazing and bad ass that was. There were times when she was like, “Sometimes it was fun.” But she actually got to see what it was like, and the appeal, and why it was awful and why it was appealing. And I see that now.

Willits + Sakamoto, Ancient Future

The second pairing of prolific Californian experimentalist Christopher Willits and venerated composer Ryuichi Sakamoto explores lush, beatless textures framed by fleeting whispers of jazz, electronic and modern classical music. Sakamoto is no stranger to collaborations with younger electronic musicians, and Ancient Future inhabits territory similar to his work with contemporary ambient hero Fennesz. In Willits’s hands, though, the compositions take on lighter, subtler hues. Based on six original piano sketches by Sakamoto, the post-production applies swathes of atmospheric fuzz to create hypnotic and vaguely haunting music that defies recent ambient trends for ominous drones and morose melodrama.

The unpredictable key shifts of opener “Reticent Reminiscence” should be unsettling, but the pace is so gentle their elegant lurches feel comforting instead. It’s the same with the wintry echoes and dissonant chords of “Abandoned Silence.” More conventionally, “I Don’t Want To Understand” swaddles Sakamoto’s piano in blissed-out waves of melody, before veering into blanker, more abstract territory with “Levitation” and “Releasing.” Closing track “Completion” is less electronic than the rest, delicately balancing introspective melancholy and smooth, jazz-flecked serenity. Concise and carefully structuredthe album clocks in at just 32 minutes, but never feels rushedAncient Future quietly immerses you in its world, offering a brief but beguiling meander through experimental music’s more plaintive fringes.

Interview: Chain and the Gang

I first met Ian Svenonius in 1989 after The Go Team (my band with Calvin Johnson and Billy Karren) played the venue DC Space. It was my first extensive U.S. tour and I was searching for comrades and co-conspirators. Ian hung out with Fugazi. I was friends with Beat Happening. We were both kids growing up in the shadow of the ’80s independent music scene of our respective home towns, and we were both ready to branch out on our own as the next decade was dawning. We hit it off immediately, which started a mutually inspiring and everlasting conversation about music and culture.

The next time I saw Ian was a year later. He was on tour with his group, The Nation of Ulysses, who I considered to be the most powerful band in the universe at that time. I had just started Bikini Kill, and we were preparing for world domination. Within a year, our groups would join forces and bring the sound of revolution (girl style now) to the deadbeats of young America. We shared a group house called The Embassy in Washington, D.C.’s Mount Pleasant neighborhood. Having access to Ian’s extensive record collection and getting to hear his take on politics, music and aesthetics at that time was like being given an opportunity to earn an honorary Master’s Degree in the history of righteous youth culture.

Fast forward 20 years. We are both still active in a DIY underground that supposedly died around the time we met. It is my pleasure to share a snippet of our ongoingand usually secretdeliberation with a wider audience.

Additional commentary comes from Chain and the Gang’s latest chanteuse, the lovely and loquacious Ms. Katie Alice Greer.

Who is in Chain and the Gang? Is it a revolving membership?

Ian Svenonius: Everyone is permanent in Chain & the Gang, though Katie and I are the only constants. We made this record [In Cool Blood with Brett [Lyman], Fiona [Campbell], and Chris [Sutton] for the most part, but some other Gang members chipped in.

What is the aestheto-political imperative behind Chain and the Gang?

Katie Alice Greer: We’re anti-debt, pro-corruption, interested in hairstyles, supportive of homelessness and vagrancy.

What is your favorite part of being in Chain and the Gang: practice, recording or playing shows?

Svenonios: Recording and playing live. Chain & the Gang don’t really practice.

Do you have any daily tour rituals?

Greer: We like to tie the newest member of the band to the hood of the car and drive for at least 80 miles as a test of their endurance, and to give them an opportunity to consider the journey from a different perspective.

Ian, what is your role in the creative process making songs with Katie?

Svenonius: Chain & the Gang is an assortment of slogans, sung with the slightest hint of melody. The emphasis isn’t on passion or tunefulness but on banging on things hypnotically, like shoes in the dryer.

How did you write the album? Did you have the songs before you went into the studio?

Svenonius: The songs start with an idea we want to get across. Everything else just falls into place instantaneously once you know what you need to say.

Was there any specific musical inspiration for the sound of the new album?

Svenonius: We wanted to make something more dancey and upbeat, less introspective than the previous two Chain records.

The song “Certain Kinds of Trash” makes me wonder if there’s a difference between trash and garbage? I’ve noticed that thrift stores today are kind of a drag compared to the thrift stores of years past. Thanks to the eBay economy, thrift stores are now actually more expensive than chain stores

Svenonius: That’s a good question. You rarely hear a defense of “garbage,” but [the notion of] “trash culture” is used as a rallying cry for enthusiasts of bubblegum, B-Movies and the like. In a sense, punk rock is the child of trash connoisseurs like John Waters and Andy Warhol, who were archivists, curators and appreciators of lowbrow, or “camp,” forms that were dismissed by the bourgeoisie. This culminated with the Ramones. Now, [we have] the rampant triumph of trash everywheregross-out films, the internet, reality TV, George Bush, Killing as a national sport, i.e. Qaddafi. There is really no “highbrow” in America anymore.

Americans’ defense of trash could be read as nationalist posturing, since “good taste” was, and still is, typically determined by a European standard (as evidenced by the yuppie’s affection for artisanal espresso, Italian cooking, and hand-crafted housewares as well as the critic’s veneration of Euro sensibilities in film, art, etc.).

Either way, “trash” has been utterly assimilated by the culture at large. There are no longer art films, and the art shown in galleries is as grotesque, lowbrow, and kitsch as can be. TV news is interchangeable with pornography and the populaceof every classflaunts its illiteracy, ignorance and idiocy at every possible opportunity.

The bourgeoisie has taken up the trash trend quite literally, with the “eco,” “recycling” and “green” trend, where people hoard trash on their porch and in special bins which are set outside for conspicuity, in classic “Keeping Up With the Joneses” style. All this trash-loving and trash hoarding, while the garbage is just shoved in landfills, stuck in lakes and rivers and compacted mercilessly. Garbage goes unloved, unappreciated, despised. Garbage still stinks and includes old diapers, rotten eggs, medical waste and coffee grinds.

Since punk themes are tired, toothless and tedious, garbage power might be the next revolutionary frontswitching trash for garbage. Lauding garbage, collecting it and putting it in galleries while rejecting trash would be a real kick in the pants to all these self-satisfied trash collectors.

The song “Surprise Party” begs the question: What is Chain and the Gang’s idea of a good party?

Greer: Well, I really like board games, and I’m very fond of structured or themed activities, I am really bad at “hanging out,” I think.

Svenonius: I think lighting is the most important thing for a party. It should be dark, but not too dark. Think Claudine Clark’s “Party Lights.” Also, the party should take place in one room ideally, or on one floor of a building at least.

What’s the story behind “I’m Not Interested In (Being Interested)”?

Greer: We live in Washington, D.C., which is full of advertisements. I think one of the many billboards that advertise shit that is totally irrelevant to our lives inspired this sentiment. Like, “OK, well, I’m really not interested in being interested in that.”

“Where Does All the Time Go” makes me wonder if being in a band impacts your concept of time passing.

Greer: It doesn’t, because someday I will still be dead.

Svenonius: Pre-industrial, agrarian humanity had the seasons to mark their time. Each one required very different modes of workplanting, weeding, watering, harvesting. The modern group is in the post-seasonal era and is oblivious to the traditional months, but has replaced them with their own seasons; writing, recording, releasing and touring. This endless, repetitive cycle can eventually become mind-numbing, and sometimes the band member wants to jump off the Ferris wheel. But the sudden, “seasonless” existence of post-group life can make for confusion and depression.

“If I only had a brain” references The Wizard of Oz! What’s going on there?

Svenonius: In The Wizard of Oz, they’re saying the agrarian proletariat has no brain, while industrialism has no heart. These are old fashioned aristocratic sentiments, leaving us to wonder about Frank Baum’s possibly revanchist political tendencies. Chain & the Gang, though, is saying post-industrial electro-magnetic life is both brainless and heartless!

“In Cool Blood” sounds a bit vampire-esque. Would you say that is inspired by hanging out in the Pacific Northwest?

Greer: I think I am very sensitive to environmentsjust sensitive in general, really. Are there vampires in the Northwest?

Svenonius: Possibly! It is quite blood-sucking out there. Lots of goths in Portland.

Discover: Jamie Records

Harold Lipsius was perfectly positioned to take advantage of the integral role the City of Brotherly Love played in the music business of the 1950s. Even before American Bandstand placed Philadelphia on the teen map, there was a homegrown scene that emphasized group harmony and rhythm and blues. As a record distributor and lawyer who owned a share of a pressing plant, Lipsius realized he could do it all for himself. Though he didn’t aspire to be a creative visionary, and despite his protests that he was “tone deaf,” he had undeniably savvy business instincts. Leasing material from inventive producers around the country, he built an enviable roster of artists in a variety of genres, his family of labels (Jamie, Guyden, Arctic, Phil-LA of Soul, Dionn) surviving well into the late ’60s even as tastes in music morphed at a dizzying pace. Here’s a roundup of some of the most notable releases on his Jamie roster.

Discover: Jamie Records

Harold Lipsius was perfectly positioned to take advantage of the integral role the City of Brotherly Love played in the music business of the 1950s. Even before American Bandstand placed Philadelphia on the teen map, there was a homegrown scene that emphasized group harmony and rhythm and blues. As a record distributor and lawyer who owned a share of a pressing plant, Lipsius realized he could do it all for himself. Though he didn’t aspire to be a creative visionary, and despite his protests that he was “tone deaf,” he had undeniably savvy business instincts. Leasing material from inventive producers around the country, he built an enviable roster of artists in a variety of genres, his family of labels (Jamie, Guyden, Arctic, Phil-LA of Soul, Dionn) surviving well into the late ’60s even as tastes in music morphed at a dizzying pace. Here’s a roundup of some of the most notable releases on his Jamie roster.

Interview: Chain and the Gang

I first met Ian Svenonius in 1989 after The Go Team (my band with Calvin Johnson and Billy Karren) played the venue DC Space. It was my first extensive U.S. tour and I was searching for comrades and co-conspirators. Ian hung out with Fugazi. I was friends with Beat Happening. We were both kids growing up in the shadow of the ’80s independent music scene of our respective home towns, and we were both ready to branch out on our own as the next decade was dawning. We hit it off immediately, which started a mutually inspiring and everlasting conversation about music and culture.

The next time I saw Ian was a year later. He was on tour with his group, The Nation of Ulysses, who I considered to be the most powerful band in the universe at that time. I had just started Bikini Kill, and we were preparing for world domination. Within a year, our groups would join forces and bring the sound of revolution (girl style now) to the deadbeats of young America. We shared a group house called The Embassy in Washington, D.C.’s Mount Pleasant neighborhood. Having access to Ian’s extensive record collection and getting to hear his take on politics, music and aesthetics at that time was like being given an opportunity to earn an honorary Master’s Degree in the history of righteous youth culture.

Fast forward 20 years. We are both still active in a DIY underground that supposedly died around the time we met. It is my pleasure to share a snippet of our ongoingand usually secretdeliberation with a wider audience.

Additional commentary comes from Chain and the Gang’s latest chanteuse, the lovely and loquacious Ms. Katie Alice Greer.

Who is in Chain and the Gang? Is it a revolving membership?

Ian Svenonius: Everyone is permanent in Chain & the Gang, though Katie and I are the only constants. We made this record [In Cool Blood with Brett [Lyman], Fiona [Campbell], and Chris [Sutton] for the most part, but some other Gang members chipped in.

What is the aestheto-political imperative behind Chain and the Gang?

Katie Alice Greer: We’re anti-debt, pro-corruption, interested in hairstyles, supportive of homelessness and vagrancy.

What is your favorite part of being in Chain and the Gang: practice, recording or playing shows?

Svenonious: Recording and playing live. Chain & the Gang don’t really practice.

Do you have any daily tour rituals?

Greer: We like to tie the newest member of the band to the hood of the car and drive for at least 80 miles as a test of their endurance, and to give them an opportunity to consider the journey from a different perspective.

Ian, what is your role in the creative process making songs with Katie?

Svenonious: Chain & the Gang is an assortment of slogans, sung with the slightest hint of melody. The emphasis isn’t on passion or tunefulness but on banging on things hypnotically, like shoes in the dryer.

How did you write the album? Did you have the songs before you went into the studio?

Svenonious: The songs start with an idea we want to get across. Everything else just falls into place instantaneously once you know what you need to say.

Was there any specific musical inspiration for the sound of the new album?

Svenonious: We wanted to make something more dancey and upbeat, less introspective than the previous two Chain records.

The song “Certain Kinds of Trash” makes me wonder if there’s a difference between trash and garbage? I’ve noticed that thrift stores today are kind of a drag compared to the thrift stores of years past. Thanks to the eBay economy, thrift stores are now actually more expensive than chain stores

Svenonious: That’s a good question. You rarely hear a defense of “garbage,” but [the notion of] “trash culture” is used as a rallying cry for enthusiasts of bubblegum, B-Movies and the like. In a sense, punk rock is the child of trash connoisseurs like John Waters and Andy Warhol, who were archivists, curators and appreciators of lowbrow, or “camp,” forms that were dismissed by the bourgeoisie. This culminated with the Ramones. Now, [we have] the rampant triumph of trash everywheregross-out films, the internet, reality TV, George Bush, Killing as a national sport, i.e. Qaddafi. There is really no “highbrow” in America anymore.

Americans’ defense of trash could be read as nationalist posturing, since “good taste” was, and still is, typically determined by a European standard (as evidenced by the yuppie’s affection for artisanal espresso, Italian cooking, and hand-crafted housewares as well as the critic’s veneration of Euro sensibilities in film, art, etc.).

Either way, “trash” has been utterly assimilated by the culture at large. There are no longer art films, and the art shown in galleries is as grotesque, lowbrow, and kitsch as can be. TV news is interchangeable with pornography and the populaceof every classflaunts its illiteracy, ignorance and idiocy at every possible opportunity.

The bourgeoisie has taken up the trash trend quite literally, with the “eco,” “recycling” and “green” trend, where people hoard trash on their porch and in special bins which are set outside for conspicuity, in classic “Keeping Up With the Joneses” style. All this trash-loving and trash hoarding, while the garbage is just shoved in landfills, stuck in lakes and rivers and compacted mercilessly. Garbage goes unloved, unappreciated, despised. Garbage still stinks and includes old diapers, rotten eggs, medical waste and coffee grinds.

Since punk themes are tired, toothless and tedious, garbage power might be the next revolutionary frontswitching trash for garbage. Lauding garbage, collecting it and putting it in galleries while rejecting trash would be a real kick in the pants to all these self-satisfied trash collectors.

The song “Surprise Party” begs the question: What is Chain and the Gang’s idea of a good party?

Greer: Well, I really like board games, and I’m very fond of structured or themed activities, I am really bad at “hanging out,” I think.

Svenonious: I think lighting is the most important thing for a party. It should be dark, but not too dark. Think Claudine Clark’s “Party Lights.” Also, the party should take place in one room ideally, or on one floor of a building at least.

What’s the story behind “I’m Not Interested In (Being Interested)”?

Greer: We live in Washington, D.C., which is full of advertisements. I think one of the many billboards that advertise shit that is totally irrelevant to our lives inspired this sentiment. Like, “OK, well, I’m really not interested in being interested in that.”

“Where Does All the Time Go” makes me wonder if being in a band impacts your concept of time passing.

Greer: It doesn’t, because someday I will still be dead.

Svenonious: Pre-industrial, agrarian humanity had the seasons to mark their time. Each one required very different modes of workplanting, weeding, watering, harvesting. The modern group is in the post-seasonal era and is oblivious to the traditional months, but has replaced them with their own seasons; writing, recording, releasing and touring. This endless, repetitive cycle can eventually become mind-numbing, and sometimes the band member wants to jump off the Ferris wheel. But the sudden, “seasonless” existence of post-group life can make for confusion and depression.

“If I only had a brain” references The Wizard of Oz! What’s going on there?

Svenonious: In The Wizard of Oz, they’re saying the agrarian proletariat has no brain, while industrialism has no heart. These are old fashioned aristocratic sentiments, leaving us to wonder about Frank Baum’s possibly revanchist political tendencies. Chain & the Gang, though, is saying post-industrial electro-magnetic life is both brainless and heartless!

“In Cool Blood” sounds a bit vampire-esque. Would you say that is inspired by hanging out in the Pacific Northwest?

Greer: I think I am very sensitive to environmentsjust sensitive in general, really. Are there vampires in the Northwest?

Svenonious: Possibly! It is quite blood-sucking out there. Lots of goths in Portland.

New This Week: Opossom, Janka Nabay & More

Opossom,Electric HawaiiMint Chicks singer Kody Neilson sounds like he has cherry-picked the psyche-pop archives for this lush, breezy debut that recalls everything fromRevolverto The Zombies. Matthew Perpetua writes:

Opossom dresses up its stoner pop in crisp, clean tones that evoke sky-blue swimming pools and impeccably stylish lounges.

Janka Nabay & The Bubu Gang,En Yay SahThe hottest Afrobeat record this side of the equator is by Sierra Leonean ex-pat Janka Nabay and his band of Brooklyn hipsters. Ben Beaumont-Thomas writes:

The finest thing about this record is the tension between the propulsiveness of the tempo and the melancholy of the music. This is party music, certainly, but with every human emotion churning through it.

Willits + Sakamoto,Ancient FutureThis is the second pairing of prolific Californian experimentalist Christopher Willits and venerated composer Ryuichi Sakamoto, and its highly recommended. Lee Smith writes:

Ancient Futurequietly immerses you in its world, offering a brief but beguiling meander through experimental musics more plaintive fringes.

David Lynch,Crazy Clown Time (Deluxe Edition)Lynchs debut album, released last year, was a surreal diversion for the film-maker. Essentially dance music that no one would actually want to dance to, this deluxe version adds to the weirdness with remixes from Underworld, Moby and Skream. Maybe somewhere higher up the astral ladder it all makes sense.

Luke Haines,Outsider/In: The CollectionHainess third greatest hits collection reminds us he once wrote songs, not just very funny books. From the arch pop of The Auteurs to the conceptual black comedy of his Baader Meinhoff project, this is a wonderful introduction to his stubborn outsider art.

R. Stevie Moore,Lo Fi High Fives A King Of Best OfThis is another best of from an outsider artist who has had precisely no hits. Tim Burgess boiled down more than 500-albums by the godfather of home recording to a collection of wonky pop gems.Recommended.

Antibalas, AntibalasThe fifth album from Afrobeat band Antibalas – who found fame as the live band for a Broadway musical about Fela Kuti – shows their mastery of his style, with its insistent rhythms and punchy brass. Andy Beta writes:

For all the international accolades, [this] avoids any trace of hubris for what might be their most workmanlike set to date.

Frankie Goes To Hollywood,Sex MixArchive Tapes and Studio Adventures, Volumes OneThis includes rare mixes of Relax and Two Tribes alongside the original versions of Welcome to the Pleasuredome and The Power of Love and a 17-minute remix of Rage Hard. Its great and everything, butSex Mix? Really? Havent they heard of Barry White?

Franz Nicolay,Do The StruggleThe former Hold Steady man enlisted New Jersey hip-hop producer Oktopus for this dark cinematic opus thats about as different from his old bands sound as its possible to get.

Korpiklaani,ManalaThe eighth album by Korpiklaani is the best Finnish fantasy folk-metal record weve ever heard.

New This Week: Opossom, Janka Nabay & More

Opossom,Electric HawaiiMint Chicks singer Kody Neilson sounds like he has cherry-picked the psyche-pop archives for this lush, breezy debut that recalls everything fromRevolverto The Zombies. Matthew Perpetua writes:

Opossom dresses up its stoner pop in crisp, clean tones that evoke sky-blue swimming pools and impeccably stylish lounges.

Janka Nabay & The Bubu Gang,En Yay SahThe hottest Afrobeat record this side of the equator is by Sierra Leonean ex-pat Janka Nabay and his band of Brooklyn hipsters. Ben Beaumont-Thomas writes:

The finest thing about this record is the tension between the propulsiveness of the tempo and the melancholy of the music. This is party music, certainly, but with every human emotion churning through it.

Willits + Sakamoto,Ancient FutureThis is the second pairing of prolific Californian experimentalist Christopher Willits and venerated composer Ryuichi Sakamoto, and its highly recommended. Lee Smith writes:

Ancient Futurequietly immerses you in its world, offering a brief but beguiling meander through experimental musics more plaintive fringes.

David Lynch,Crazy Clown Time (Deluxe Edition)Lynchs debut album, released last year, was a surreal diversion for the film-maker. Essentially dance music that no one would actually want to dance to, this deluxe version adds to the weirdness with remixes from Underworld, Moby and Skream. Maybe somewhere higher up the astral ladder it all makes sense.

R. Stevie Moore,Lo Fi High Fives A King Of Best OfThis is another best of from an outsider artist who has had precisely no hits. Tim Burgess boiled down more than 500-albums by the godfather of home recording to a collection of wonky pop gems.Recommended.

Antibalas, AntibalasThe fifth album from Afrobeat band Antibalas – who found fame as the live band for a Broadway musical about Fela Kuti – shows their mastery of his style, with its insistent rhythms and punchy brass. Andy Beta writes:

For all the international accolades, [this] avoids any trace of hubris for what might be their most workmanlike set to date.

Franz Nicolay,Do The StruggleThe former Hold Steady man enlisted New Jersey hip-hop producer Oktopus for this dark cinematic opus thats about as different from his old bands sound as its possible to get.

Korpiklaani,ManalaThe eighth album by Korpiklaani is the best Finnish fantasy folk-metal record weve ever heard.

Antony and the Johnsons, Cut the World

As a live album, Cut the World, is, like most things by or about Antony and the Johnsons, quite singular. It leads with a studio recording of Antony Hegarty’s delicately elliptical yet piercing new song, this album’s title track, from The Life and Death of Marina Abramovi?, a biography of the Serbian-American performance artist staged by experimental theatre pioneer Robert Wilson. The next cut is Hegarty’s speech, “Future Feminism,” in which he discusses his theory about the ways patriarchal religions postulate humanity’s destiny on another paradise beyond the one in which we live, how this belief contributes to the Earth’s demise, and how a feminist way of regarding our planet and our spirituality on it can help to rectify mankind’s ecological destruction. The rest is devoted to symphonic renditions of songs from his albums and EPs recorded last September in Copenhagen with the Danish National Chamber Orchestra. Applause is heard only during his speech and after the final track.

Unlike most musicians making strikingly contemporary art, Hegarty isn’t beholden to technology; his voice-and-piano-based, largely acoustic studio arrangements only occasionally draw on electronic effects. The orchestral renditions heard here open the music up with heightened dynamics that compliment the fragile nuances of his expression. “Cripple and the Starfish,” for example, is far more romantic than the 1998 album version, and the change heightens the contrast between the brutality described in the lyric and the gentleness with which the singer regards his abusive lover: This discrepancy is devastating, and the rest of the album is nearly as exquisitely powerful. Already one of his most succinct songs, “Another World” now floats in sustained symphonic chords that imply the vastness of the galaxy, the sincerity of Hegarty’s love for nature, and the intensity of his sorrow over the Earth’s continuing destruction. The result feels like weeping, and soaring, at once.

David Lynch and Alan R. Splet, Eraserhead (Original Soundtrack Recording)

Thirty-five years after it first flummoxed undergrads, weirdoes, film scholars and midnight-movie buffs alike, David Lynch’s debut film Eraserhead continues to defy explanation or elucidation. No matter how often one regards the Man in the Planet, the befuddled high-haired Henry, the Lady in the Radiator, or that monstrous, screaming, foaming “baby,” the film places its viewers wholly within the realm of nightmare. Though Variety originally panned the film as “sickening,” they did praise Lynch’s sound design, which returns in this reissue from the similarly crepuscular Sacred Bones label. Across the two epic suites, industrial throb turns to rust-belt ambience, which turns to cryptic dialogue and banal family-meal chatter and then back to alien drone and radiator shriek. An oasis in such oddness and clamor, the eerie incant by the Lady in the Radiator that “in heaven, everything is fine” (actually sung by cult figure Peter Ivers) still beguiles; everyone from Devo to the Pixies to Bauhaus and Modest Mouse have referenced it.

Fergus & Geronimo, Funky Was the State of Affairs

Ever since their first singles in 2009,Fergus & Geronimo have been a scattershot affair. One minute they were offering a pitch-perfect, soulful love song; the next they’d deliver a jokey number with a prominent recorder solo. ButFunky Was the State of Affairschanges things — it’s a statement. The duo are still tourists in different musical styles (post-punk, punk, Krautrock, astral jazz, funk), but their travels are in service to an album with direction, unifying themes and its own universe.

Paranoia and the idea of “being watched” are pervasive. There’s an early monologue and a spoken-word track about phone tapping and a handclapping R&B track called “Spies” (who, the chorus informs us, are outside in a van).Those conspiracy theories are paired with catchy melodies. “Drones” features an earworm guitar hook and a near-motorik beat, and “No Parties” has a fairly buoyant synth for its Orwellian lyrics. Regardless of the genre the duo invoke from moment to moment, “funky”is an apt descriptor; Fergus & Geronimo are covering the same manifesto-laden, sci-fi, interplanetary, “the man is watching” territory funk music covered around four decades ago. And as a bonus, the album’s funkiest two songs, “Off the Map” (about going off the grid to avoid Big Brother) and the album’s mostly instrumental title track, legitimately compete on the same level as early Funkadelic.

Opossom, Electric Hawaii

Opossom mastermind Kody Nielson is the brother of Unknown Mortal Orchestra leader Ruben Nielson, and there’s a clear family resemblance in their music — they share a taste for loose bass grooves, blissful psychedelia and a sort of cryptic whimsy. But where UMO sounds like three dudes jamming in a chilly basement, Opossom dresses up its stoner pop in crisp, clean tones that evoke sky-blue swimming pools and impeccably stylish lounges. Nearly every track on Electric Hawaii calls back to the clattering rhythm of the Beatles’ “Tomorrow Never Knows,” but Nielson’s skill with hooks and shifting dynamics keep the record from feeling too repetitive. The sunny opener “Girl” thrives on the tension of a melodic turn that threatens to shift into the Velvet Underground’s “Femme Fatale,” while “Inhaler Song” climaxes with a sudden jolt of digital distortion that sounds more like a sickly game-show buzzer than a band rocking out. These moments are outliers, though: Electric Hawaii is mostly appealing for how effortlessly its light funk, breezy beats and supremely relaxed vibe can nudge you into a carefree vacation mindset.

Janka Nabay & the Bubu Gang, En Yay Sah

In the wake of Yeasayer, Fool’s Gold and Vampire Weekend, it has become almost a clich for Brooklyn bands to fold in African influences. But while those bands were generally accessing music such as Ghanaian highlife and Nigerian psych via blogs and YouTube, The Bubu Gang has, in frontman Janka Nabay, a deeper link to the continent.

The Bubu Gang is a band whose members have previously played inBrooklynmainstays like Gang Gang Dance, Skeletons and Zs; Nabay is a Sierra Leonean ex-pat who escaped the civil war there in 2003. He had found fame in his home country by electrifying and recording the folk music of Sierra Leone’s Temne people, called bubu, but he came toAmericawith nothing. After a stint working in a Philadelphian outlet of Crown Fried Chicken, his music reached a Brooklyn radio producer, and he was connected up to the borough’s underground scene.

Their resulting album is a faithful African pop record, with little in the way of American influence, although the warm, clear production is a satisfying step up from the tinny cassette-tape sound that you get with much of the continent’s homegrown music. The Bubu Gang are no slouches when it comes to the polyrhythmic roll of the bubu sound, nailing its taut cadences with rapid-fire organ chords and almost surf-style guitar. The bewildering pace of tracks such as “Ro Lungi” and “Rotin” is like an organic version of South Africa’s digital Shangaan electro sound. And Nabay himself is a charismatic vocalist, singing in four languages, including English, with an earnest delivery that intertwines with the sweeter backing vocals of Boshra AlSaadi. The effect is similar to the dynamic between Fela Kuti and the singers in his band The Africa 70.

But the finest thing about this record is the tension between the propulsiveness of the tempo and the melancholy of the music. Opening track “Feba” shimmies sadly and determinedly with an unforgettable returning melody, while the guitar effects on “Somebody” echo mysteriously above its two note bassline. This is party music, certainly, but with every human emotion churning through it.