Shall we write a new editorial? Who needs a damn editorial let alone a new one? No time for editorials, let the actual music do the actual walking and the actual talking. Exact same thing again, hang on, this is a different set of things, you have the tin, you can see what it was on the front of the tin, we’re probably not listening to and Enuff ‘Z Nuff records today…
1: Wil Bolton – Rusted in the Salt Air (Home Normal) – What we have here is seven fine pieces of well crafted music and about forty-five minutes of quietly considered rather beautifully soothing composition. Field recordings include insects in the reed beds by the World War II anti-tank blocks in Minsmere, birdsong over the salt marshes and mudflats in Iken, dried-up plants rustling in the wind outside the abandoned atomic weapons research centre in Orford Ness and sea waves beside the decommissioned nuclear power station at Sizewell.
“Rusted in the Salt Air takes its title from a description of Orford Ness in WG Sebald’s ‘Rings of Saturn’ and features environmental sounds, radio waves and found objects recorded and collected on the Suffolk coast in August 2022 and July 2023″.
Alongside the field recordings we find tones from Buchla 100, Buchla 200, Serge, Erica SYNTRX and Nord Wave synthesisers and AKG BX20 spring reverb (I guess that means somthing to some of you?) all recorded at EMS (Elektronmusikstudion), Stockholm, in October 2022 and September 2023 respectively as part of his ongoing artist residencies there – “and if that means little to you then just note that it all comes together in Wil’s hypnotically effervescent melodic and tonal turns that are instantly recognisable as having his signature sound”.
Not sure about a signature sound? It does rather sound like a lot of pieces of this nature that land here although, yes, it does stand out from the crowd, I’m sure those who pay far more attention to the world of sound art and field recording compositions will be more familiar with Wil Bolton’s signature than I am, all I can really tell you is this is a really rewarding collection of pieces; soothing, simple, clever, never too cluttered, plenty of space to breath, never too dense (although the warmth of Longshore Drift might contradict that), beautifully put together, quiet, easy and tather highly recommended. Don’t know if the cover art works, although the white frame does somehow make it work.
2: Insect Factory – There is new Insect Factory, as much of a delight as Insect Factory mucis always is, this one feels alive with the warm buzz of insects and sunshine or is that just wishful thinking on this rather rainy Summer day in Hackney? I imagine this is what somewhere called Silver Spring, Maryland sounds like, I’m probably wrong. Here’s the Bandcamp
Previously…
ORGAN: Our best 43 albums of a very musically busy 2023. Who did we rate?
3: Chris Pitsiokos / Weasel Walter – Cauterized (uG EXPLODE) – Chris Pitsiokos and Weasel Walter have a new album, you might say another day another Weasel album, if nothing else he is productive! It is far from a case of ‘if nothing else though’ this one sounds very much like a improvised one take affair. We can only here one track as a taste. We know Weasel well don’t we? The Flying Luttenbachers and such, Chris Pitsiokos is a New York-born, Berlin-based world-renowned saxophonist, improviser, composer, the one track you can hear before you buy he whole thing (Weasel isn’t big on sending out promos or letting people hear too much before buying, fair enough but it does mean you don’t get much of a review), the one track we can hear, an eleven minute twenty-eight second track called 11:28, the longest track on the album, is classic Saxophone flavoured jazz improv, Weasel’s drumming is, well not a perfect foil, it is more than that, the colour he brings along with the anchors he throws make for a brilliant frame for the colour of Chris Pitsiokos, actually for the colour of the two of them, this is very much an duo and an excellent dynamic or chemistry or whatever you wish to call it… Bandcamp
“Chris Pitsiokos is a New York-born, Berlin-based world-renowned saxophonist, improviser, composer, and multi-instrumentalist. He has performed extensively in North and South America, Europe and Japan. Chris has been praised by Rolling Stone for his “startlingly original vision” and “astonishingly fleet sax work.” Downbeat has identified his band CP Unit as “A persuasive combination of harmolodic jazz and contemporary noise rock.” As a soloist he has developed a unique voice on the alto saxophone: his expansion of the instrument’s vocabulary has served to multiply its emotive and formal possibilities. He has performed at dozens of major festivals across the globe, including (but not limited to) Wels Unlimited Festival in Austria, Sapporo International Arts Festival in Japan, Moers Festival in Germany, Tempo Reale Festival in Italy, Rewire Festival in the Netherlands, Jazz Jantar Festival in Poland and Festival de Jazz Lima in Peru. In New York he has presented his work at Roulette Intermedium, ISSUE Project Room, and during a residency at John Zorn’s club the Stone. Lately, he has developed interactive electro-acoustic systems for saxophone and computer. He also composes music for film. His list of collaborators represents a who’s who of the luminaries in 20th and 21st century improvised music, experimental music and jazz: he has worked with Jaimie Branch, Luke Stewart, Peter Evans, Tyshawn Sorey, Lea Bertucci, Weasel Walter, Otomo Yoshihide, Nate Wooley, Axel Dörner, Julien Desprez, Sachiko M, Mazen Kerbaj and Paul Lytton to name a small few”.
And then there’s also…
4: James McKain / Damon Smith / Weasel Walter – ….seeing the way the mole tunnels… (uG EXPLODE – “I made a free jazz cd with my friends. it’s better than you deserve, but i’m used to being in this position, historically” said Lesaew Retlaw on his Facebook page, That’s the album the backward written Weasel made with his friends just up there, a rather excellent album called ….seeing the way the mole tunnels… find it on Bandcamp
5: feeo – London-based experimental artist feeo opens a new phase for the project (whatever the project might be?) with a new single both jagged and slick, a rather beautifully refined new single called The Mountain, a single that is landing on AD 93, here comes the Bandcamp
“feeo is the solo project of vocalist, songwriter and artist Theodora Laird. At the heart of the project lies song and story, through which she seeks to investigate the feedback and tension between micro and macro narratives. Through deconstructing and recontextualising songform using production, performance, and written word, feeo situates hyperpersonal stories of her lived experience within broader overarching depictions of the cultural and political backdrop, hoping to expose a fundamental meaning and attain a greater sense of understanding.
Also one half of the duo Crosspiece with bassist Caius Williams and a member of the GRAIN Residency for improvised and experimental music, Theodora Laird’s songwriting practice finds new forms within improvised music, through which she explores linguistic phonetics and interpersonal dynamics”.
feeo has independently released three solo EPs to date, has featured as a vocalist on the Loraine James track ‘For You and I’ and has performed alongside artists such as Mica Levi, Tirzah, Contour, Lol K & John T. Gast.
Got to go, field recordings of container trains anyone? Coming soon, last night at Stratford Station sounded like this….
THE ORGAN 