Patrick Higgins, Tocsin (Telegraph Harp Records)
Just before the election, there was a pretty good meme making the rounds, in which God scolds Gabriel for filling the year 2020 with all the events that were supposed to happen during the entire decade instead of spacing them out. This New York based noise/classical composer is perfect for this apocalyptic period, focusing his efforts on creating “crisis music” with his combo of overeducated, over-Manhattan-ed music nerds. After serving in bands both rock and classical, Higgins’ goal these days is creeping you out, or at least bringing the listener awareness of how creepy everything is these days, this by making his music act as an organic, brain-bending x-factor. In the beginning (“SQ3 (I) Aletheia”), it’s a cross between maximum-crazy Jim Thrilwell and the hope-destroying soundtrack to There Will Be Blood. But there are other things too, of course, such as angry piano-bonking, slasher-movie string assaults (“SQ3 (III) Passagio”), chime concertos (“Tocsin 01”), etc., all of it washed off most elegantly in the end with a stab at Bach’s Contrapunctus XIV. World-renowned contributors include Wet Ink Ensemble, pianist Vicky Chow and the Mivos Quartet. A+
Suuns, Fiction EP (Joyful Noise Recordings)
This Canadian band has been around since 2007, making an artsy mix of neo-psychedelic art-punk. They’re arguably most famous for their 2013 tune “2020,” a wub-wubbing freak-electro joint that sounds pretty much exactly like what you’d expect to hear from a band of Martians trying to sound like Clinic, which I, at least, am fine with. This shorty EP is the product of Covid-enforced isolation and sounds it; the basic tracks for these songs come from older recordings that have been micro-analyzed and reworked with their trademark futuristic mindset as tempered by the sense of doom that pervades human life these days. Opener “Look” is a bizarre noise essay combining the smooth EDM of The Orb with the reverent nonsense-sampling of The Books, but that’s just the warm-up. “Breathe” features guest Jerusalem In My Heart adding a buzzy Albanian chordophone line to a couple of pretty neat loops; “Pray” bounces along nicely with some bloopy goth soundtracking. A
Retro Playlist
At this point there’s really not much else to do other than commiserate with others on the internet. The other day I got into it on Facebook with a couple of my old alpha-troll friends, a couple of European chaps who, like me, used to chase bad people off the internet for fun. It all started when the British guy posted a SoundCloud clip of himself playing a guitar line to some song titled “So What.” I told him that to me it sounded like Allman Brothers (my default response when light jam-rock isn’t hopelessly wimpy), and our Belgian friend said it sounded like Steve Vai, one of those old guitar hero-type guys, you know, the “rock stars” who nobody really knows except for nerds and other guitar players.
The Belgian and I were surprised to find out that the Englishman was actually playing his “axe” over a rip of a Miles Davis jazz tune. Miles is the most famous trumpet player in history, which you should know if it ever comes up on a test, so the other guy and I felt kind of stupid, which meant that we all had to start throwing mindless insults at each other. Being I’m not a “Miles-ophile,” I led with the defense that I believe “anyone who pretends to like everything Miles has ever done should be dipped in murder hornets.” Things devolved from there, as always, but I think I successfully made the point that I’m a casual jazz fan, not a Miles wonk, mostly familiar with his work with Sonny Rollins.
I’ve gotten a lot of pleasure and serenity out of all these years of reviewing jazz albums, the bonus being that unlike my British friend I didn’t spend many thousands of dollars building my collection, since public relations people send me new ones nearly every day. And the jazz world isn’t just composed of a bunch of bands huddling in unheated recording studios trying to get a good take of “My Echo My Shadow And Me”; there’s always a new angle. I don’t know if any of you remember this — OK, you don’t, but who would — but in 2011 I tried to get you to listen to Mocean Worker’s Candygram For Mowo! You should still check it out; it’s a jazz album but with a ton of hip-hop and house-techno influences.
In 2014 I mentioned Zara McFarlane’s If You Knew Her, which included a cover of Kitty White’s “Plain Gold Ring,” but other than that it was expressionism colored in her African roots, accentuated with such things as bird noises and steel drum bits.
Great stuff, but as always, all jazz is eclectic stuff, so it’s best to sample jazz albums before buying the vinyl versions. Unless it’s the Yellowjackets. If you see a Yellowjackets album, just buy it.
PLAYLIST
A seriously abridged compendium of recent and future CD releases
• Here we go, the holidays are here, as evidenced by all the new CDs slated for release on Friday, Nov. 27! For our first inspection of the week, let’s look at the new Miley Cyrus album, Plastic Hearts, because it’ll probably be interesting if nothing else. Miley has stated that her influences for this record were Britney Spears and Metallica, meaning she’s still officially insane, but let’s not rush to judgment, shall we? I mean, if she can do this, maybe Bruno Mars will do a cover of a Death Grips tune, you know? Wouldn’t that be awesome, guys? But no, I’m kidding, Miley legitimized herself as a metal queen when she did the cover of Nine Inch Nails’ “Head Like a Hole” at the Glastonbury festival last year, but even before that, her appearance on the Worst Episode Ever of Black Mirror Krazy-glued her spurious new image into the public consciousness: She’s basically a hilariously overprivileged, 27-year-old version of Keith Richards, but with Auto-Tune. So this album (by the way, she’s also threatening to make an album of Metallica cover songs) is basically a Kinder Egg for critics, like, I know that when I check out “Midnight Sky,” the single I’ve successfully avoided for two months now, it’s going to turn out to be cheap and dumb, but will its Kinder Surprise be a toy car or a xenophobic Smurf? Whatever, the video is OK, if your brain doesn’t glitch out from being exposed to her usual overacting; it’s like ’80s post-disco, think mellow-mode Taylor Dayne as sung by Britney Spears. It’s survivable, is what I say.
• Ho ho ho, anyone notice that Billy Corgan from Smashing Pumpkins is looking more and more like a clown version of Uncle Fester these days? I mean, there’s nothing inherently wrong with that, per se, I was just making an … oh just drop it, the ’Kins are back, with a new double-album, called Cyr, this week! The only thing that’s ever stuck out to me about the ‘Pumps is that they have a real knack for making headlines, in rock ’n’ roll magazines, while only ever delivering room-temperature grunge-pop made even more inedible by Corgan’s Steve Urkel singing voice. But that’s just me, and you may disagree, which is fine, and I will simply agree to listen to the title track. Hmm, it’s like Kraftwerk, but with a catchy chorus. Does it seem weird to anyone else that the good old ‘Smashies are a ’90s band, and the ’90s were supposed to be an improvement over ’80s music, but here they are doing phoned-in krautrock? No? Never mind then.
• Billie Joe Armstrong is that little fake punk guy from whatever-their-name, Green Day. Since Green Day’s music hasn’t made enough money to buy all the Twizzlers he could ever eat, he’s solo now, with a new album, No Fun Mondays! The album consists of all cover songs, including Kim Wilde’s “Kids in America,” which was a finalist in the 1981 “Worst Songs Ever Made” competition as selected by the legions of Beelzebub.
• We’ll end the week with holiday cheer, as spread by Nova Scotia-born folk-popper Jenn Grant on her new album, Forever On Christmas Eve! It includes “White Christmas,” blah blah blah, and an original, called “Downtown Christmas Eve,” a sexytime chill-out with binking piano and an aimless but pleasant melody.
