Satoko Fujii Orchestra Berlin, Second Attempt (Libra Records)
Jazz artist Fujii is known for her world-class improvisational piano work and finding the best collaborators available, talents that combine here in an oft-unsettling but undeniably musical form of ad hoc aural dada. On paper, a near-full horn section comprises the “orchestral” part of this experiment, but many other sounds come into play as well, including nontraditional ones (reflecting on all the turmoil that’s engulfed the world of late, one of the Lego-like sound-blocks inserted here has newspapers as its “instrument,” that is to say the musicians were tasked with extracting sounds out of them through tearing, crumpling or reading them. Other bizarre things are aboard, of course; in “Part 1” we hear Liz Kosak’s synth emulate humpback whale-song; “Part 2” features the drummer tandem of Michael Griener and Peter Orins futzing around with glitch sounds under a classic-sounding brutalist Japanese cinematic theme reminiscent of Akira Ifukube (of the earliest Godzilla films), all of which eventually starts spiraling into some noisy ad hoc jamming. “Part 3” reaches for a woozy, ethereal, unsettling vibe. As always, “good” improv is in the eye of the beholder; I had no problem dealing with the majority of this. A-
Desolat, People As Idiots & Idiots As Leaders (Reptilian Records/Exotic Fever Records)
To be honest, the things that got me interested enough in this Vienna, Austria “hardcore punk” band’s new LP to put this on the docket were (1) the album title, because come on, and (2) the fact that there are count ’em nine record labels helping to distribute the record worldwide, a factoid I wanted to bring to the attention of local bands who are putting out their own records. The band’s contracted with nine different labels to release this one, you see, including ones in France, Germany, Austria, U.K., Netherlands and two in the U.S., a pretty smart strategy that just wasn’t ever done in the past by DIY bands. Regarding the snarky quotation marks around “hardcore punk,” I wouldn’t say they’re that, more of a raw, stripped-down indie metal band similar to the ones Earache Records was hawking in the Aughts, the shorthand of which would go something like “Boris with no budget whatsoever,” a sound that actually works in our end-times. Put it this way: This was what I’d envisioned “punk metal” evolving into when the term first surfaced in the ’80s; it’s part Black Flag and part Black Sabbath, what one might call “awkward doom.” It’s quite cool. A+
PLAYLIST
A seriously abridged compendium of recent and future CD releases
• No brakes, baby, we’re suddenly into the first CD release Friday of October, on the 2nd! Now, in case you don’t know — and why would you? — Cancel Me (I’m Tired) is the second album by South London seven-piece electro-punk band Fat Dog, a group that could be considered England’s techie answer to The Hives, which means they act crazy and insane on stage, but since they’re from England and play expensive synthesizers that would fritz out if someone barfed on them, they’re more polite, as opposed to The Hives, who are Swedish and therefore don’t care about what Americans think of them, and besides, they have slightly better universal health care than Britain, so they’re just like “Neener America, come beat our heads in, at least we don’t have to sell our houses to pay for a poorly timed chipmunk bite.” So there’s that, and just to clue into what Fat Dog is about, not that it’d ever be on the test in any sane world, I watched one of their live videos, taken at the Pinkpop festival in the Netherlands earlier this year. The band’s two drummers are pretty lively, but the rest of the guys were even more tame than I’d expected, more like Daft Punk or LMFAO, like, you can’t get too wild when you’re plugged into all sorts of electronic gear, you know how it goes (let’s admit it, most soundsystem shows are about as exciting as watching someone try to correct a formula in an Excel spreadsheet). But whatever, the album’s title track is the first single; it’s fun and kind of funky and the vocals have a sort of Gravity Kills bullhorned effect on them, which I’ve never minded.
• That brings us to Walt Disco, a glam-rock/art-pop crew from Scotland that’s been making albums since 2022 and yet almost no one in the U.S. has ever heard of them, let’s change that now shall we, especially since they’re going for broke by making their third album self-titled. Well, will you listen to that, the newest single “Don’t Do This Alone” isn’t bad at all, kind of like a 2020s version of Bowie mixed with The Cure. There’s really nothing wrong with it at all; it definitely has a sleepy-chilly autumnal feel to it, and no, that doesn’t mean that I’ve suddenly stopped hating pumpkin spice, that’s something that’ll never happen, I assure you.
• Much to the disappointment of my first-ever editor from back in the days, I’ve never been big on The Smiths, mostly because I’ve wholeheartedly disliked every song of theirs I’ve ever heard, but that doesn’t mean there might not be something to like about this next one, The Age Of Everything, the fifth solo album from original Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr, so I’ll try it. Morrissey isn’t on this record, which bodes well, Yup, the kickoff single, “It’s Time,” is appropriately ’80s and jangly and harmless in the vein of The Alarm or whatnot. It’s got a little energy to it, it’s not bad.
• Alt-country musician Greg Freeman is based in Burlington, Vermont, but is nevertheless on the rise, sort of. If you’re a confirmed hipster you may know him from his 2025 single “Curtain,” in which his voice sounds like a cross between David Byrne and the dude from Clinic, which I don’t mind at all. His new LP All Set The Bone includes the tune “Cahokia,” a high-energy jangle-pop joint that sounds a lot more put together than his previous stuff but his voice is still delightfully off-key here and there.
• And finally it’s Miranda Lambert, who placed third in 2003’s Nashville Star talent competition but probably should have won, not that I’d know. Crisco, her newest album, spotlights the title track, a syrupy Dolly Parton-flavored trifle that combines cowboy-hat slide guitar with ’70s disco just to annoy me.
Featured Photo: The Church, Lacuna & Ibibio Sound Machine, Chopping.
