Genius 8.5 - August Scrap Heap

Battles; Ambient/Electronic, folk/rock, jazz, punk, pop, metal, Krallice

Every month, I am listening to 80-90 albums and every month only 30ish of them are worth writing about. What does this say about society? Probably not much. The other 50-60 albums are also probably not bad, but I heard them when I wasn’t in the mood or I was busy or whatever. I’ve noticed that I’ve been drawn more towards specific things (folk, proggy metal, classic rock) — I will prob need to adjust accordingly. Ok it’s scrap heap time, let’s all scrap heap.

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Battles Boiler Room Set

Instrumental quartet (no wait trio, no wait duo) has long straddled the line between electronic and math rock — it’s kind of wild that it took until 2019 to get them their first Boiler Room set. Their album from the same year Juice B Crypts is maybe my favorite Battles release? There’s a lightness to the compositions and, while music SHOULD be able to stand on its own… watching how they walk the tightrope to make the songs work live is crazy. What a treat to see them both caked in sweat and working their asses off to make sure every blinking light is addressed correctly — surrounded by the whitest, weirdest looking kids you could find.

Album Recommendations

Please listen to some new tunes, your brain and your body both need it, it’s like food.

Esoteric Electronic Music

Poeji - Nant (Squama, Jul ‘24)

Pretty cool duo of percussion (tonal & otherwise) and vocals — percussion from German abstract expressionist Simon Popp and vocals from Mongolian jazz hero & modern Bjork-like figure Enji. Start your day off right, put on some music that sounds more like a sculpture than a song.

Lucy Liyou - +82 K-Pop Star (self-released, Jun ‘24)

This one went way over my head — a mix of spoken word, ASMR noise, a little free improv. Most of the “dialog” is in Korean with no subtitles, but I bet there’s some really interesting tidbits in there! I was mostly puzzled.

Newband - Microtonal Works (Mode, 1991)

At times jarringly hard to listen to, at times sublimely beautiful. What more would you want from this compilation of classical works by Harry Partch, John Cage, Joan Labarbara (featured performer), and Dean Drummond (also featured)? Intriguing soundscapes, a mix of different instruments all making tones that start off sounding “wrong” and over the course of the piece become “right.”

Folk(ish) & Rock

Billy Bragg - Talking With The Taxman About Poetry (Go! Discs, 1986)

The GOAT. I’ve had “Greetings To The New Brunette” stuck in my head for weeks. This guy really knew how to make the personal political and vise-versa.

Richard Dawson - The Ruby Cord (Domino, 2022)

If you’re into questionably-voiced bleaters like The Mountain Goats or Joanna Newsom then you will maybe also enjoy Dawson’s distinctly English vision of modern folk music — and maybe also you will have the calluses necessary to respect his elastic delivery that whips from resonant shouting to a whimpering falsetto, with charming voice-cracks along the way. Caveat: the opening track (“The Hermit”) on this album is 45min long and I would say it IS a compelling composition, but could probably have 10-15min shaved off without losing anything of value. That said, “Museum” is simply one of the best songs that I’ve ever heard.

Big|Brave - A Chaos Of Flowers (Thrill Jockey, Apr ‘24)

If you’re hip to Big|Brave, then you know that this is another beautiful and doomy release, but this one is a little less apocalyptic than their last, hewing a little closer to the pretty side. Vocal melodies are steeped in Appalachian folk songs, with gritty and spitty, grimy backing tracks.

The Softies - The Bed I Made (Father/Daughter, Aug ‘24)

I’m admittedly not a historian of K Records, so this was the first Softies record I’ve listened to. Simple songwriting & instrumentation, but the 2 singers’ ethereal harmonies and descriptive lyrics do a great job holding the songs up. I’m a guitar tone snob and would have probably mixed this album differently, but they don’t pay me the big bucks to armchair produce.

Jazz

Ingrid Laubrock & Tom Rainey - Brink (Intakt, Aug ‘24)

Wonderfully noisy and fun jazz record from the sax & drum duo, featuring production from noise rock jock Weasel Walter and liner notes from rock jazz nerd Nels Cline, this album unites the high school lunch tables.

Bill Frisell, Julian Lage, & Gyan Riley - Lamentations (Tzadik, Aug ‘24)

Acoustic guitar trio performing beautiful renditions of John Zorn pieces as an ode to poet Dylan Thomas(?). If you thought John Zorn could only write screeching grindcore songs, guess again because these are just so pleasant to listen to.

The Lounge Lizards - The Queen Of All Ears (Strange And Beautiful, 1998)

I truly did not realize that The Lounge Lizards continued beyond their early 80s no wave bent jazz. This album features some cascading saxophone lines that merge with guitar counterparts and a huge drum kit sound. Kind of straddles a third-way sound between jazz and classical, but with more rock and roll sensibility. Cheers, John — and thanks to Annette for this rec.

Louder punkier/other

The Cure - Pornography (Rhino, 1982)

Sitting in my car maybe 10 years ago, my friend Donald recommended this early Cure album to me as a gateway into the band’s output. They figured I’d appreciate these noisy, proto-posthardcore compositions more than their poppy new wave later era. I got into The Cure, but I forgot to listen to this early album! What a mistake, this was sick as hell. Weird guitar approach almost lends a Deerhoof-y element to some of these songs.

Bardo Pond - Melt Away (Matador, Aug ‘24)

Psychedelic music that actually feels like you might be dead or dying. Bardo Pond have so many albums, you get the sense that recording music is like breathing for this Philly group. Recommended listen while meditating on your corporeal form. Do not listen while intoxicated on psychedelics, you might flip your skin inside out.

Pop, etc.

Bianca Scout - Pattern Damage (sferic, Mar ‘24)

Swirling ambient textures, especially strings and classical/opera type samples form the basis for these electronic pop songs, with virtually no percussion to speak of. A good mix of naturalistic ambient/electronic stuff & some more glitchy stuff. Each track’s guest vocalist brings a good energy to these abstract compositions.

Girl Ultra - Blush (Big Dada, Jul ‘24)

I just really like this sad girl album from the CDMX singer. Been spinning it on repeat a lot, but don’t have enough to say about it for a full Genius Dot Com entry. Just give it a listen, it’s simply good.

Masayoshi Tanaka - An Insatiable High (Kitty/Universal, 1987)

Wild and wacky Japanese city pop with big vocal harmonies on the “oohs” and “aahs” and some real sexy guitar solos. The silliness of the album art is matched by the silliness of the music, this is good time party rock and roll stuff.

Metal

Emma Ruth Rundle & Thou - The Helm of Sorrow EP (Sacred Bones, 2021)

Cool kinda 90s alt rock vibes from the extreme metal band & goth rock vocalist. There’s a sick Cranberries cover on this thing. These were outtakes from their other collab album and tbh it makes sense that these were cut, but they’re still a nice listen together.

Plebian Grandstand - False Highs, True Lows (Throatruiner, 2016)

Cool soundtrack for violently scraping the drywall off of your walls to expose the truth and shrieking about the capitalist class. The songs were all pretty cool, but “Tame The Shapes” is a really well-written and thoughtful 7min burner.

Uniform - American Standard (Sacred Bones, Aug ‘24)

You want to hear a guy scream about being made out of meat over industrial sounds? You want those sounds to give way to huge sweeping synthy black metal? Uniform’s latest finally does more for me than their other offerings — great live band, but for whatever reason, this is the first record of theirs’ that I enjoyed listening to.

Endon - Fall Of Spring (Thrill Jockey, Aug ‘24)

Another wild and intense release from Endon, this one is mostly made up of 3 ingredients: static shrill noise, shrieking, and a pinch of percussion that’s so overdubbed that it turns into more static noise — until about halfway through the last track, where they find the kick drum. Absolutely worth a listen if you’re into harsh stuff.

Krallice

Krallice - Years Past Matter (self-released, 2012)

I’ve listened to the first 3 Krallice albums a few times, but my black metal phase started in 2010ish and had functionally ended by 2013 — I had never given this release an honest shot. Each track is named “IIIII” (with successively longer titles) and is mostly a straightforward black metal album, but with some more muscular riffing that shows a pathway towards where they were heading.

Krallice - Ygg Huur (self-released, 2015)

This album is wild and a perfect fulcrum point between the old and new stuff. The tempo lurches literally made my stomach hurt. Listening to this album, a few times I shook my head and said “ugh” because it was simply too heavy and too nasty. Still a lot of black metal riffing, but really squarely something “different” than their previous 5 years of material.

Krallice - Demonic Wealth (self-released, 2020)

This is a wild one — recorded in quarantine, Marston recorded all of the guitars at their regular studio, Mick Barr performed the vocals in his car “by the swamp” and Lev Weinstein performed his drums into an iPhone mic. The bass “was recorded.” The lofi quality to these songs and the introduction of the synthesizer brings a new dimension for Krallice; the songs are also cool with good compositions and fun twists and turns. I straight-up couldn’t tell you how to track drums on an iPhone and have it line up with the rest of the music.

Krallice - Inorganic Rites (Hathenter, Jul ‘24)

This record is such a sick mix of Krallice’s various interests: black metal, primordial swamp garbage, dungeon synth, nearly-classical knotted up composition. If you want to scratch your head and imagine what this planet looked like 4 billion years ago while a synthesizer does a filter sweep, this is the move. Glad to have finally caught them live (see last month’s Genius for my thoughts) and for it to have been in support of this record.