Rock & Indie 464 Items

A majority of the music Drew Gardner has made over the years has been deeply collaborative, in contexts where his skills with improvisation can shine: with Elkhorn, Jeffrey Alexander + THE Heavy Lidders, and his own Flowers IN Space band. Cygnus A, where Gardner is playing and multitracking all the instruments, marks a shift in his approach as well as his intention, drawing the audience closer for an inward listening experience. With an earthy yet cosmic vibe, this multi-instrumentalist solo foray explores themes of distance and nearness. The album title Cygnus A refers to a distant galaxy that is one of the brightest radio sources in the sky. Its broadcast from space comes from a supermassive black hole generating energy as it consumes material, causing electrons to emit radio waves as they spiral outward in magnetic fields. Recorded in Gardner’s home studio in Harlem, Cygnus A forms a suite of serene pieces that create a soothing, mesmerizing psychedelic flow. The songs are named for our closest stars, and the album is voiced using instruments best heard at an intimate range—the mbira and zither. And while his electric guitar still plays a role, Gardner has stepped away from guitar soloing on this effort in favor of celestial leads on the zither. Fittingly, Gardner’s ability to play a variety of instruments runs deep and serves him well in guiding listeners beyond this earthly sphere.

"The Beatles' White Album: When bands deliver an unfinished, unwieldy record at a hopeless turning point in their career, they talk about THEIR "White Album" - in any case, this phrase means: their "masterpiece". The EASTIE RO!S we're talking about here don't need any refreshing of the memory: once you've had anything to do with them, you won't forget them, just as traffic accidents, burning school buses and weather disasters stay in your memory for a long time. A band like Eastie Ro!s, who lived out...

Ed Askew, NYCs legendary singer-songwriter / painter is back with another collection of haunting ballads. Last year's '2020' pretty much summed what the world was going through with incredible torch songs filled with hope and mystery. 'Sleeping With Angels' is no less, a tear-inducing album of elegiac and fragile melodies with Ed's unmistakable voice and his 1964 Martin tiple. Recorded mostly in May 2019 this is an extraordinary document of a songwriter at the top of his game, an album of hope and joy.

While Duster went into hibernation in theyear 2000, Clay Parton's four-track neverstopped rolling. Recorded alone at homeover several years, Birds In The Groundis an album of 30-something, post-9/11malaise. Under his Eiafuawn (EverythingIs All Fucked Up And What Not) acronym,Parton hides beneath layers of fuzzy andclean guitars, his hesitant, cottony vocaldisappear into noise. This deluxe pressingis packaged in a gorgeous tip on sleeveand includes the complete lyrics for thiscryptic entry of the Dusterverse.

Elijah McLaughlin and Caleb Willitz lean hard into their improvisational skills on their debut duo release for Centripetal Force, Morning Improvisations / Evening Abstractions. Elijah McLaughlin, a Chicago-based guitarist who has released three well-regarded albums as bandleader of the Elijah McLaughlin Ensemble (Astral Spirits, Tompkins Square), and his long time friend and collaborator, Caleb Willitz, a recording engineer, producer, and sound artist, are in their element on this album, as each musician is constantly feeding off the other’s creativity. The eight tracks that make up Morning Improvisations / Evening Abstractions are replete with experimentation, and each performance displays a building excitement and exudes inspiration. Willitz, who also worked with the likes of Jeff Parker and Bill MacKay, and McLaughlin set up the ideal conditions to invoke the best of their abilities, allowing for even the recording process itself to take on a more spontaneous spirit. The duo set up camp in Willitz’s studio to work without the restraints of time, a move that allowed total freedom to create adventurously. Utilizing a refurbished 8-track tape machine, the pair was only restricted by the 25-minute limit of their analogue reels of tape. With McLaughlin playing an electric guitar routed through stereo amplifiers and various effects and Willitz playing piano while simultaneously controlling a tape delay with a foot pedal, the two developed ethereal and transcendental soundscapes that exist somewhere between free jazz, post-rock, and ambient music. From there, the two artists picked the best takes from their sessions and exhaustively mined them for musical directions to pursue. Once a path was determined, they worked their material into song structures through extensive editing, rearranging, and overdubbing. As they were in the process of shaping these raw jams into well-crafted compositions, Willitz and McLaughlin intentionally left space within some tracks for their guest musicians to jump in. Fellow Chicago improv veterans Edward Wilkerson Jr., Josh Johannpeter, Charles Rumback, and Jason Stein not only assisted in fleshing out the sound of these recordings, they straight up elevated them to new dimensions with heaps of additional color and texture. A prime example being on “Vesper Pt. 2” as McLaughlin's wall of distorted guitar is perfectly met by a surge of cataclysmic drums, howling sax, and whirling clarinet. The finished track is a veritable hurricane of brass, amplifiers, and percussion of Pharaoh Sanders sized proportions. Fittingly, the approach and feel of Morning Improvisations / Evening Abstractions is intrinsically linked to some of the music McLaughlin was consuming during the early phases of its production. The intentionality of Lalgudi Jayaraman’s Violin, Venu, Veena is present on the album, as is the frenetic aggression of Sonny Sharrock’s Ask the Ages. The meticulous editing and rearrangement that famously went into Talk Talk’s Laughing Stock certainly played a role, as did the kind of rhythmic and harmonic interplay found on Laurie Spiegel’s The Expanding Universe. Similarly, the album reflects some of the fertile and multifaceted music ecosystem of McLaughlin and Willitz’s Chicago home. Shades of the city’s abstract jazz, minimalist, and free improv scenes can be detected within the very fiber of the record’s being, informing the performances and compositions, as well as the vast palette of sounds and the duo’s unrestrained creative energy. This influence of Chicago’s rich culture is further enhanced by the contributions of their guest artists, each of whom represents a different pocket of the city’s music scene.

Ella Raphael is blessed with an amazing voice, filled with warmth and emotion; it's engaging, like an old friend telling tales and spinning stories. Mad Sometimes is her debut album, release via Fire Records.Brought up in London, surrounded by sound, listening to Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Etta James, while encountering Queen, The Beatles and the Stones from he...