Laurie Anderson - Home of the Brave

 Laurie Anderson - Home of the Brave - Part 1

 

 Laurie Anderson - Home of the Brave - Part 2

 

Home of the Brave is a compelling, visually dynamic concert film and Laurie Anderson’s directorial debut. Compiled of live performances filmed during her first world tour,  the film includes songs from her 1984 album “Mister Heartbreak” and selections from her 1983 “United States” show, along with eclectic, experimental visuals blending film, animation, dance and electronics.
As Anderson describes, “My work is a combination of film, music, electronics, storytelling, dancing, social commentary, impersonation, animation and anything else I come up with. What I do has been  described as ‘high-tech opera,’ ‘live art,’ ‘electronic stand-up comedy,’ ‘avant-rock,’ and that clumsy label ‘performance art,’ which always sounded to me like a bad translation from German. Fortunately, nobody knows what ‘performance art’ refers to.”  From: https://cinema.cornell.edu/home-brave

 

 

Bayonne - Drastic Measures

Bayonne, also known as Roger Sellers, is an American minimalist composer and electronic musician based in Austin, Texas. His latest album, Temporary Time, showcases the intricate looping melodies and layered compositions of his mesmerizing musical style. Rather than rely on catchy hooks strewn cyclically throughout the verse, Bayonne’s music builds upon itself. Throughout the composition, his loops increasingly layer onto each other, culminating into a symphony of sound. As a result of this layering, Bayonne’s style seems to lie somewhere between electronic and ambient. At the beginning of each song, when he’s starting to establish his loops, his manual curation of the sound comes across as very electronic. But as the song progresses, and the loops build upon themselves, the self-sustaining nature of the melody veers toward the ambient. 
There’s no greater phenomenon than watching this take place live onstage. If Bayonne’s music is mesmerizing in itself, then his performance borders on the hypnotic. The beginning of each song is dedicated to establishing the perfect base melody on which to build from. Essentially, to the audience, this is Bayonne playing around with different instruments until he gets just the perfect combination of rhythm. From that point on, each layer is built on another, while Bayonne physically swirls through each elevating measure. Every succession is like another step into the ethereal, and every loop a voyage into the nonlinear. The reality is that each song is simultaneously endless and yet frustratingly curt. But you don’t listen to Bayonne to watch the clock. 
In our sit-down interview with Bayonne, he reminisced on the revised creative process he had in creating Temporary Time. He describes the pandemic as a “crazy emotional period of time,” and that for him, music creation served as a tool to get better, not just in his craft, but also emotionally and mentally. Creating Temporary Time helped to serve as an outlet for the turbulent emotions that he was going through. A big help for him during the creation of the album was extensive collaboration. Working with the likes of Danny Reisch, John Joseph, and Matt Toman really helped to streamline his vision and perfect the final product.  
“Like, just, you know, my music is really dense so sometimes I can just over, just go overboard and just having them to help set parameters and just help make it sound good without me having to you know, go crazy. So, I think it's something that I'm gonna carry with me for the rest of my life, probably in terms of me making music, you know, I need, I need help.”
With the release of the album have come several new changes to Bayonne’s live touring set. The addition of Matt as his full-time drummer has injected unparalleled energy into his shows, often even rivaling his own. Additionally, the introduction of new stage projections custom-made for each performance envelops the audience in an immersive visual experience, enhancing the overall ambiance and creating an otherworldly atmosphere. 
The tour has also come with the opportunity to partner with new talent: the first leg of the tour had Jaws of Love as an opening act, and the second leg, including this Chicago performance, had Mmeadows open the show. When asked about his experience with working with Mmeadows during the tour, Bayonne described them as having the “best voices he’s ever heard.”  From: https://firebirdmagazine.com/concerts/bayonne

Twen - Automation

Though Twen got their start in Boston's D.I.Y. scene, their sound was less rough-edged indie or punk and more hard-edged pop with jangly tendencies. The duo released a recording of their very first show and toured incessantly before offering up a more detailed reading of their moody yet hook-heavy songs on their 2019 debut full-length Awestruck.
Twen was formed in 2017 by vocalist Jane Fitzsimmons and guitarist Ian Jones when they were living in the Boston area. Both were playing in bands or putting on shows in the area's fertile D.I.Y. house show community, and they soon got together to write songs that were part slightly psychedelic rock and part moody pop. Fitzsimmons' vocal style in the band's earliest days relied on emphatically sung but hard-to-discern lyrics, designed to draw the listener's attention away from prescribed narratives. After moving to Nashville, the duo released a cassette called Twen Live, consisting of five songs recorded at their first show. The band toured steadily throughout the next two years. In 2019 they signed on with indie label Frenchkiss for the release of their studio debut Awestruck.  From: https://www.allmusic.com/artist/twen-mn0001092229

Earthquake Hair - The End of Jupiter Straw

Ronan Byrne founder member of highly acclaimed Dublin Band ‘Lir’ established Earthquake Hair developing a unique infectious style of music. Their Debut album ‘Upper Volta’ is highly regarded and plans are underway for a 2nd album along with a number of film projects through 2026. Current members include Pete Cheevers on bass, Kieran Doyle on keyboards, Paul Bermingham on Drums, with recent additions Dave Griffin on Guitar, Elizabeth Bukola on Vocals and Sile Ryan on strings adding a new dimension to the sound.  From: https://www.whelanslive.com/event/earthquake-hair/ 

 

Kazdoura - Hmool El Safar

Kazdoura’s “Hmool El Safar” is built in the shape of a taalila, the call-and-response folk style sung across villages on the banks of the Euphrates. Written by Mosab Al Nomairy, the verses are carried by Syrian singer Leen Hamo, whose delivery holds close to the form’s cadence. The lyrics speak of falcons circling the river, shawls lost to the wind, and the burden of leaving home. Around her voice, John Abou Chacra layers electric guitar and synths, joined by Tom Nixon on additional synth and Kareem El-tyeb on riq, giving the taalila a contemporary frame while keeping its imagery intact. The track is accompanied by a video filmed in Cairo by director Khaled Khaled, where the sense of travel and dislocation becomes a visual motif.
The duo’s story is inseparable from displacement and diaspora. Hamo, who left Syria during the war, and Chacra, who came through the upheaval of Lebanon, met at a Toronto fundraiser following the 2020 Beirut port explosion. That encounter became the spark for Kazdoura, a project that holds Levantine Arabic music at its core while testing its reach across instrumentation and setting.
“Hmool El Safar” is part of Ghoyoum, their debut album. Recorded between Canada and Egypt, the record weaves maqam-based melodies with electric textures, percussion, and saxophone improvisations. Ghoyoum treats heritage—the taalila, dabke rhythms, and other Levantine references—as living forms, repositioned through psychedelic guitar tones and jazz inflections. Its tracks move between village-rooted imagery and a cosmopolitan lens shaped by exile and survival.  From: https://rhythmpassport.com/daily-discovery-kazdoura-hmool-el-safar/

Cambrian Explosion - Umbra of the Mind

Cambrian Explosion

1. Geology. The rapid diversification of multicellular animal life that took place around the beginning of the Cambrian Period. It resulted in the appearance of almost all modern animal phyla as demonstrated in the fossil record.

2. Musicology. A Portland based jam rock outfit noted for it's diversification of elements traceable back to the 'psychedelic' period. Not recommended for fossils.

"The Sun" is this four piece's debut E.P, and it's an extremely confident first step. Combining riffy alternative rock with nebulous prog rock song structures, swathes of trippy psychedelia and huge ear tugging choruses, these guys have nailed it from day one here.
Opener "Umbra of Mind" offers an immediate crash course of this E.P's contents; monolithic alt rock riffery taylor-made for the Queens of the Stone Age generation, sinuous eastern scale keyboard leads, vocals with a distinct Mike Patton edge, and a huge, open space rock sound that leads me to assume that their jam space (where this was recorded) is not on this planet.
And there's plenty more where that came from with not a wasted second among the six tracks on offer here; the title track slows the tempo and increases the feeling of weightless spaciousness, with treated vocals and some massive guitar leads, while "Black Maven" introduces some falsetto, a stack of reverb and enough swaggering cock rock to send Mick Jagger back to his kennel, tail between legs.
There's a sustained feeling of hugeness here that most big name producers can't coax out of a major label band, and these four have captured it effortlessly all on their lonesome.

From: https://active-listener.blogspot.com/2013/11/cambrian-explosion-sun-review.html 

Al Andaluz Project - Morena

The Al Andaluz Project is a multicultural fusion experiment that combines two European folk and early music bands who share a common interest. L'Ham de Foc are from Valencia in Spain, where they have specialised in reviving the music of the Jews who flourished in Spain under Moorish rule until the end of the 15th century, when they were expelled by Christians. Estampie, from Germany, are medieval revivalists also fascinated by the music of that era. Both are known for their powerful vocalists, and in this project L'Ham de Foc's Mara Aranda and Estampie's Sigi Hausen are joined by a third female singer with a fine, clear style, Iman Kandoussi from Morocco. The result mixes Sephardic Jewish, Christian and Arabic styles, with the three singers all handling lead vocals and adding harmonies, against a lush backing that includes Middle Eastern instruments such as the saz and qanun, and hand-percussion such as the Indian tabla. The playing is sturdy rather than emotional, but there are some powerful fusions, with North African-influenced backing on the Sephardic Yo Me Levantaria, or the Christian Quen a Omagen da Virgen.  From: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2010/aug/12/al-andaluz-project-cd-review 

Psychedelic Porn Crumpets - Terminus, The Creator

New music from Psychedelic Porn Crumpets is here, baby. The WA group have released their fifth album, perfectly titled Night Gnomes – it’s a wild romp from the band who brought us SHYGA! The Sunlight Mound only last year. That’s right. The dust has barely settled on their last stacked collection of material by for Psychedelic Porn Crumpets, the work never stops. The band is heading out on tour this June and July but in the meantime, sink your teeth into this break down of Night Gnomes, direct from Psychedelic Porn Crumpets songwriter Jack McEwan.

1. Terminus, The Creator

From the get-go, I wanted Night Gnomes to be strung to the teeth with hybrid flavours, a conglomerate of perception that twitches your auditory reflex. So, song one had to rectify that and carry the listener from whatever emotion they were on before, lose all that and blissfully disconnect them into this record. An unrecognisable barrage of glitching melody felt a good point to start.
The beginning of ‘Terminus’ was originally a longer track intended to be the intro for a song we were working on for Shyga! Myself and Rish were sending over files to each other, building upon the layers of noise the previous person had created until it reached the pulsating defected sandwich it is now. I liked the idea of something that was scrapped/dead having a new beginning, hence where the name comes from. The section that follows draws inspiration from that same passage, ending an older relationship with a new beacon of light on the horizon, staring at an unpredictable future but feeling confident that’s where I needed to head.

From: https://musicfeeds.com.au/features/psychedelic-porn-crumpets-dissect-new-album-night-gnomes-track-by-track/

 

Kabbalah - Abomination

‘Leuk’ is a Dutch word that has no proper equivalent in English. The most direct translation would be ‘fun,’ but without any adjectives, ‘fun’ still sound enjoyable and worth the effort, while ‘leuk’ (pronounced approximately like ‘löwk’) has the flavorless, bland feel of ‘okay,’ as in “This mermaid fin soup is okay.” Of course, a lot depends on inflection, but it should speak volumes that it’s among the most-used words for sarcasm. Generally, if it’s sort of vaguely enjoyable and doesn’t really have any significant negatives, but it has all the personality and excitement of unsweetened custard, ‘leuk’ is your friend. And if by now you have not picked up on which direction this review of Spectral Ascent by girl power trio Kabbalah is headed, you require a course in interpretative reading (not to be confused with interpretative dancing.)
The formula for Spectral Ascent is quite simple. The music is rooted in classic, 70s style hard rock with a Coven–inspired occult atmosphere, draped over the bones of Black Sabbath and Blue Öyster Cult. If that makes you think: “Well golly gee, this here description sure do sound like Ghost,” I would tell you two things: learn some grammar, and you’re almost right. Although the overall sound is close, and the vocals specifically have just enough of a sardonic edge to be sisters of Papa Emeritus, it’s kept much smaller, foregoing the grand ritualistic strokes in favor of stoner- and psychedelic-inspired buzzing and rocking out. Small touches of other contemporaries can be traced as well, such as the bouncing Clutch riff on “The Darkness of Time,” the Palm Beach vibes on “Phantasmal Planetoid” and the Gygax-like rocker “Dark Revival.” The subtle occultism in particular works rather well and ensures the album isn’t just another 70s revival band. Jorn knows we have plenty of those already.  From: https://www.angrymetalguy.com/kabbalah-spectral-ascent-review/ 

Swans - No Cure For The Lonely

"Love of Life" is, for better or worse, a continuation of "White Light from the Mouth of Infinity." As with the previous record, the first thing to grab one's attention is the cover art. It's an evolution of the previous cover. But, this one is much darker, like it's a destruction of the previous painting. Similarly, the sounds on this album are like the ashes left behind when the fire of "White Light from the Mouth of Infinity" has burned out for good. This is where Gira and company put a conclusion to this brief, two-year era of Swans. It's not as great as the previous record, but it's still another fantastic album that fits naturally in the Swans chronology.
The most notable difference on this record compared to all previous Swans releases are the interludes. The entire record is tied together by untitled tape recordings overlaid with samples and instrumentation, mostly by Larry Seven and Jarboe. They're not great to listen to in isolation (with the exception of interludes 3 and 5), but they tie the record together in an interesting way. It's unfortunate that some of these are separated into their own tracks on the record. For example, the first interlude is mostly percussive noise, and people rank this track lower on the album. However, "Love of Life" is one of the stronger songs on the album and comes right after this interlude. If the sounds of the interlude had simply been prepended to the start of "Love of Life," maybe people wouldn't have complained about it. Indeed, the first track on "White Light from the Mouth of Infinity" starts with a baby's cry. Would people have complained if this baby's cry was separated into its own track on the album? We'll never know, but the tape recordings, interview recordings, and field recordings are all welcome additions to Swans' sound in either case. Indeed, such soundscapes would become an integral part of some of Swans' later, more acclaimed releases.
Interludes aside, the songs on "Love of Life" are great, but it's difficult to judge them on their own merits. For every song, I find myself asking whether it stands up in comparison to anything on "White Light from the Mouth of Infinity." It's frustrating, because that's not the question I should be asking myself. Instead, I'd prefer to be able to listen to this record without comparing it to it's "sister album." Unfortunately, probably mostly due to the album artwork, this record is forever doomed to be viewed as b-sides for the record that came out the previous year. However, that comparison is doing a massive disservice to this record, which has its own identity.
The songs on this record reveal a softer side of Swans (though, don't worry, there are still some heavy hitters, like "In the Eyes of Nature"). It's clear that Gira was losing some of the aggression and pain he channeled into previous releases from Swans. Indeed, with this record, we are getting closer to the point where Gira would disband Swans to focus on Angels of Light, his much softer, prettier folk project. If anything, this demonstrates the authenticity of Gira. He plays the music that comes to him, rather than forcing Swans to conform to the expectations set by their more critically acclaimed releases. This is best encapsulated by the conclusion of the record, "No Cure for the Lonely." It feels like you're sitting alone in a room with Gira and his guitar. It's the true calm at the end of the storm that comprises this era of Swans.  From: https://www.albumoftheyear.org/user/infinityguru/album/17161-love-of-life/

L'Rain - Pet Rock

Taja Cheek’s experimental music as L’Rain is free-moving, unmoored from typical song structures and genre restrictions; instead, it pulls from many drifting elements at once. On 2021’s Fatigue, stories of grief and personal change were amplified by eddying, unraveling melodies and orchestral accompaniments, clearing away some of the static of her stirring, minimal debut. With “Pet Rock,” a single from upcoming album I Killed Your Dog, Cheek’s music evolves yet again by drawing on familiar rock hallmarks and recasting them to a buzzing, feverish pitch.
Though Cheek has used guitars in the past, they were often woven into her musical tapestries as texture; here, a flanged, Strokes-style guitar melody is the focal point, winding behind her diaphanous voice alongside rolling drums. “Cut the bullshit and make me into something else,” she insists, before pleading, “Why would you go without me?” The sense of loss is intentionally undefined—at the halfway point, the song bursts open with woozy synths and a searing psych-rock solo as Cheek sings a refrain about feeling like a “dead girl with shades propped up by captors,” tilting the song toward the macabre to explicate a deep alienation. Like the best L’Rain songs, “Pet Rock” finds meaning in ambiguity, leaving unforgettable images in its wake.  From: https://pitchfork.com/reviews/tracks/lrain-pet-rock/

The Jimi Hendrix Experience - The Wind Cries Mary

"The Wind Cries Mary" is a rock ballad written by Jimi Hendrix. Hendrix wrote the song as a reconciliatory love song for his girlfriend in London, Kathy Etchingham. More recent biographical material indicated that some of the lyrics appeared in poetry written by Hendrix earlier in his career when he was in Seattle.
According to Hendrix's then-girlfriend Kathy Etchingham, he wrote the lyrics after an argument with her about her cooking lumpy mashed potatoes, using "Mary" (Etchingham's middle name). Etchingham suggested that the line in the song "a broom is drearily sweeping up the broken pieces of yesterday's life" represents Hendrix sweeping up the broken dishes she threw as a result of the argument. In a later interview, Hendrix commented that the lyrics represent "more than one person". Music journalist David Stubbs pointed out that Hendrix also used the line from the song “Somewhere a Queen is weeping / Somewhere a King has no wife" in a poem he wrote to another Mary who had been his girlfriend, Mary Washington.
Billy Cox, Hendrix's long-time friend and later bassist, has noted Curtis Mayfield's influence on the song. Hendrix performed elements of an early version in the summer of 1966 with his band Jimmy James and the Blue Flames in New York City.
The Experience recorded it at De Lane Lea Studios in London in February 1967, during sessions for their follow-up single to "Hey Joe". Hendrix producer Chas Chandler commented on the recording:
That was recorded at the tail end of the session for "Fire". We had about twenty minutes or so left. I suggested we cut a demo of "The Wind Cries Mary". Mitch Mitchell [drummer] and Noel Redding [bassist] hadn't heard it, so they were going about it without a rehearsal. They played it once through [and Hendrix then suggested overdubs]. In all he put on four or five more overdubs, but the whole thing was done in twenty minutes. That was our third single.  From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wind_Cries_Mary

Mates of State - Staring Contest

Kori Gardner and Jason Hammel aren't the first married couple to write songs about the challenges and celebrations inherent to lifelong love, but few focus more intently on a sense of play. Still, there's nothing naive or unrealistic about their songs: When they sing, "Love loud / Don't lose loud" in 2008's "The Re-Arranger," they're taking care to package a sweet little two-word slogan with a subtle but potent reminder that loving loudly is a job of endless maintenance.
"Staring Contest" opens a new five-song Mates Of State EP with a June 16 release date and the characteristically optimistic title You're Going To Make It. Casting the heady swoon of courtship as a game of intense focus, "Staring Contest" practically bursts with the giddy excitement of new love. But, taken in the context of Mates Of State's long history — nearly two decades as a couple, complete with two children and seven full-length albums together — newness is a state of mind rather than a reality. Like loudness, it never needs to fade.  From: https://www.npr.org/sections/allsongs/2015/04/27/402035942/listen-to-a-new-song-by-mates-of-state

The Mars Volta - L'Via L'Viaquez

Frances the Mute is a concept album, of sorts, based on a diary band member Jeremy Ward found in a car he was repossessing. The book told of the author’s search for his biological parents, something Ward could relate to. The album’s lyrics – part English, part Spanish — were written by Cerdic Bixler-Zavala and the music by Omar Rodriguez-Lopez, who also acted as the album’s producer.
It weaves a story about Vismund Cygnus, son of Frances and the product of a rape. He was adopted and is now determined to find out where he comes from.
“L’Via L’Viaquez” is Frances’ sister (Cygnus’ aunt) who witnessed the rape. Miranda is their mother. There’s much more to the story but you’ll have to reach your own conclusions about it.
This cut isn’t for everyone; I have to tell you that up front. It’s a very challenging 12+ minute piece of music that has more stylistic layers than a Kim Kardashian wedding cake. There’s a healthy dose of Santana, a strong hint of Led Zeppelin, a bit of Chili Peppers funk (John Frusciante provides the first two guitar solos) and a sprinkle of Can. Sputnikmusic.com’s Jared W. Dillon wrote a very descriptive synopsis of the song’s structure:
Quiet skipping of a record is heard for 40 seconds until John Frusicante comes in with a huge rock riff. Then we break into some classic sounding heavy metal with Spanish lyrics coming from Cedric. While some of Cedric’s slurs and such are not perfect, he still uses Spanish pretty greatly throughout the song. The pretty normal sounding song sticks the same until about 2:40 when it breaks into a small piano beat that has an extremely Latin feel to it. Cedric starts to sing in English in this section sprouting off phrases like ‘With every clamor that they mine’ and ‘I will never forget who I’m looking for’ After the short interlude we come back to some heavy soloing on John’s behalf that brings the song back to the Latin rock feel. There are no changes in this section from the previous except for the solo that started it off and so at around 4:53 it breaks back into the piano Latin section. Cedric’s lyrics have changed here but they are still in English, and eventually he reprises the ‘I will never forget who I’m looking for’ section.
After a minute of piano play we go to another solo who is by Omar this time I believe, and instead of returning back to the similar rock beat of the past two sections we are given a rousing drum beat and some very deep singing from Cedric in Spanish. Soon after the Spanish is complete Cedric breaks into English saying, ‘When all the worms come/Crawling out of your head, Telling you/ Don’t be afraid’ The drumbeat eventually breaks into a short solo and then a gong sounds off the return to the piano section. The reprise of the piano sections is different than the previous two though as it has the sampling of people talking behind it. Although it has this new effect the same chorus is returned but towards the end the vocals of Cedric start to be drowned with effects.
Following Cedric’s vocal arrangement the famous pianist Larry Harlow plays a piano solo, with the help of Omar providing some back up soloing in response to the keys. This goes on for until 11:03 when the song drowns out and we hear a highly distorted Cedric spouting out the chorus of ‘And with everybody that I find/And with every clamor that they mine, I won’t forget who I’m looking for/ Oh mother help me I’m looking for’. After the ending of the small vocal solo, a quiet squeaking is heard that takes us into the next track.  From: https://rockremnants.com/2014/08/30/song-of-the-week-lvia-lviaquez-the-mars-volta/

Sarah McLachlan - Ice

Meaning in a Popular Song - 

The Representation of Masochistic Desire in Sarah McLachlan's "Ice"