Disc Reviews
by Max Ink Staff Writers
LUMP - Animal
LUMP
Album Title: Animal
By John Noyd
Posted: Jun 2021
Label: Partisan
(540) Page Views
A follow-up to their spooky 2018 debut, Laura Marling and Tunng’s Mike Lindsay’s collaborative side project LUMP retains the original’s sophisticated electro-pop zeitgeist, advancing a Twilight Zone persona with spellbound stealth, wishful mystery and jigsaw logic. The duo’s studio glitter whisks the listener into praying-mantis fantasies while improbable topics offer existential menace with twisted quips, decisive riffs and knowing winks swooning then blooming into sweet, upbeat ear-candy. Stripping tender social conventions down to streamlined feline dreams, “Animal,” nonetheless maintains a sane, contained restraint; Laura’s lovely mahogany voice injects stoic focus to Mike’s ghostly gizmo-pop pulling the ear into marvelously odd spots. A surreal collage matching magical thinking to computer grooves where cinematic abstractions package human confusion into alluring curiosity and woozy perusing into connected reflections.
LUMP Online
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Half Waif - Mythopoetics
Half Waif
Album Title: Mythopoetics
By John Noyd
Posted: Jun 2021
Label: ANTI-
(431) Page Views
Patient invitations raise hopes and soothe hurts as the inquisitive, wistful, “Mythopoetics,” grows from hushed cuddly lullabies into firm determined statements, daring transformations whose trade-wind layers take root in glowing interludes casting magnificent shadows between illuminating self-truths. Comfort and surprise greet each operatic song, sonic confidence romps alongside sensitive diary entries revealing deep feelings with fabulous tragedy, coy poise and shaded grace. Nuanced and nurturing, Half Waif welcomes careful examination, well-chosen proposals blossom in emerging percussive climaxes, swirling mercurial melodies and engaging arrangements balancing delicate treasures with heavenly vehemence. Dainty angst wilts beneath sunbeam chamber-pop programmed with pathos; sumptuous and simple as required for maximum impact, Nandi Rose’s third album as Half Waif refines an already primed style that manages to be real and sublime.
Half Waif Online
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Emma-Jean Thackray - Yellow
Emma-Jean Thackray
Album Title: Yellow
By John Noyd
Posted: Jun 2021
Label: Movementt
(468) Page Views
Bold rainbow soul folded into bright cosmic funk and ultra-smooth fusion, Thackray’s full-length debut binges on sinful rhythms swimming in grand big-band communion, enthralling polish topped in feverish divas possessed by astral passions, kickass brass and slick synth flash. Urgent words chase breathless reflexes as tunes zoom in groomed enthusiasm, vital unbridled energy floats over Fender Rhodes space-jazz as hard stops, sharp chops and big-hearted charts mount hip trips, jive dives and cool grooves in a rousing champagne campaign. Uniting and enlightening, “Yellow,” shines, pines, coos and caterwauls through coordinated joy voicing hospitable harmonics hosting appealing ideals, musical utopias where expressive celebrations liberate and captivate. Grounded in structure and forethought, Thackray attaches ecstatic chromatics to spiritual consciousness while brokering cozy flows for involuntary bodily responses.
Emma-Jean Thackray Online
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Ches Smith and We All Break - Path of Seven Colors
Ches Smith and We All Break
Album Title: Path of Seven Colors
By John Noyd
Posted: Jun 2021
Label: Pyroclastic Records
(705) Page Views
A vivid poly-rhythmic village, the invigorating Smith and We All Break rise in pliable alliances and groove-beat treaties performing musical unions with bold diplomacy, cross-pollinating deep pockets in a dazzling modern-jazz coalition energized by effusive Vodou traditions. Led by percussionist, scholar and Diaspora explorer Smith, “Seven,” blends hips to hearts with jump-started brains fired in tireless experimental tendencies. Doubling the group’s size from its 2015 incarnation, the three-drummer octet convulses in bubbling impulses, basing their blazing improvisations of piano, sax, bass and vocals on classic Haitian songs. Sophisticated and passionate, joyful in movement and spirit, the incandescent band’s incessant frenzy rides winding lines where, “Path,” crafts hot thoughts from cool heads, absorbing abstract forms into willful pilgrimages, joining a multi-generational journey and digging the scenery.
Ches Smith and We All Break Online
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The Mountain Goats - Dark In Here
The Mountain Goats
Album Title: Dark In Here
By John Noyd
Posted: Jun 2021
Label: Merge
(794) Page Views
Recorded in Muscle Shoals’ FAME Studios with veteran sidemen Spooner Oldham and Will McFarlane, The Mountain Goats’ twentieth album show no signs of a band slowing down, smoothly unraveling knotted thoughts and furtive worries with naturally pragmatic aptitude balancing crackling accents with transcendent chemistry. Telegraphed passions cast in Morse Code poetry track tactfully jazzy passages as the marvelously prolific John Darnielle’s glory-bound stories draw plausible cosmologies from playful piano and baleful sax flitting beneath bendable bass, inquisitive drums and brisk guitar. Peppered in effortless metaphors riddled in Ritalin rhetoric, “Dark,” glows in intuitive musicianship, handling and channeling gallant indie-rock cantering with folksy commotion and satiny panache, rappelling down deep thoughts, congruous allusions and cross-stitched myths knitting articulate mysteries into search-party bullet points for court-reporter revelations.
The Mountain Goats Online
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Japanese Breakfast - Jubilee
Japanese Breakfast
Album Title: Jubilee
By John Noyd
Posted: May 2021
Label: Dead Oceans
(826) Page Views
Exuberant in luminous double-ply fireworks cushioned in lollipop optimism, Japanese Breakfast emerges from sorting through her mother’s passing to embrace life’s restless blessings with alt-pop frolics whose candy-coated charms hide soft aching centers beneath sweet sheltering shells shellacked in flashy brass and slinky strings and colored in devilish street-parade revelry. Irresistible dance blitzes flit with tree-swaying daydreams in the always sunny, “Jubilee,” where rejuvenated refuge becomes pro-active distractions playing in palatial spaces, languid tangled sprints through tinted synths dodge soft-rock beatboxes with tasty refrains restrained in athletic innocence; coy decoys lavished in bashful infatuations to set the mind at ease while entertaining a carefree mania for melodic tonics and emotional potions. Japanese Breakfast along with musical moonbeam Luna Li play Madison’s Majestic Theater September 18th.
Japanese Breakfast Online
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The Six Organs of Admittance - The Veiled Sea
The Six Organs of Admittance
Album Title: The Veiled Sea
By John Noyd
Posted: May 2021
Label: Three Lobed Recordings
(654) Page Views
Musical goo brewed by electronic swamps give rise to fierce maniacal solos, barbed red-eyed eels preying and surveying as the thick, “Sea,” sails through thorny storms growling and snarling in chomped stomps riding intergalactic taxis crosstown into starship ambience glancing off corrosive solar flares. Grasping leads seizing headless rapture from incredulous shreds and cosmic exhaustion, the enigmatic Six Organs of Admittance turn yet another corner in this extremely electrified version led by a very plugged-in Ben Chasny, whose Hexadic madness and meta-folk masterstrokes give way to scorching space-cowboy joyrides gliding from blistering to blissful down multi-dimensional highways stocked in looped grooves and hijacked acrobatics; centerless messengers ripped in snorting boogie falling deep asleep beneath a throbbing wobbly world then jolted awake by gritty spitfire blues.
The Six Organs of Admittance Online
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Sarah Neufeld - Detritus
Sarah Neufeld
Album Title: Detritus
By John Noyd
Posted: May 2021
Label: Paper Bag Records
(753) Page Views
Plagued by vague layers from simmering violins, plummeting percussion and ghostly vocals, Neufeld’s evocative compositions slice icy waves from tonal oceans, tireless fireflies flitting in velvety darkness. Centerless melodies sway and fade while turbulent forms absorb shadowy passages whose thick pitches and churning surges connect swarming storms to lifeboat solos, “Detritus,” proves victoriously buoyant combatting placid symphonic patterns with mesmerizing finesse, glorious voyages navigating safe havens among rocky shores exploring transient ambience with curious fury and piercing fierceness. Whether solemn soliloquies meditating upon the vast cavernous beyond or cumulative movements exploring torrid flourishes, the brooding, inconclusive, “Detritus,” grows, flows and erodes, taming the brazen in sustaining arrangements and creating corporeal sonority from sensuous energies swirling in nervous searching urgency, chasing the unattainable into immeasurable depths.
Sarah Neufeld Online
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black midi - Cavalcade
black midi
Album Title: Cavalcade
By John Noyd
Posted: Apr 2021
Label: Rough Trade Records
(821) Page Views
Packed in oblique retreats, angular assaults and meteoric metamorphosis, black midi’s flamboyant frenzy explodes in furious blurs brewed in condensed chemistry, tactical magic and blossoming velocity. The band’s jet-propelled melting-pots gel from brisk sprints to halting jogs, dodgeball prog buzzing in microtonal metronomes, a lean machine exacting compact actions through cool attention-grabbing pageantry. Manicured in manic swirls, immaculate hairpin spins and lunging tungsten punctuality, “Cavalcade,” paves panicked dynamics beneath meticulous friction, disenfranchised geysers rising with fervent reverence into orchestrated adventures. Shiny stomp-box romps fuse dueling staccato intrusions through kinetic mathematics and posh geometry while jazz-scorched flourishes roar past starched anarchy, braying brass blasts rhythmic logistics and sophisticated mayhem blooms in fractal collapse. A powerful live band, Britain’s black midi plays Milwaukee’s Turner Hall October 12th.
black midi Online
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Bachelor - Doomin’ Sun
Bachelor
Album Title: Doomin’ Sun
By John Noyd
Posted: Apr 2021
Label: Polyvinyl
(599) Page Views
Deliberate big-picture pop tossed alongside impulsive indie-rock muscle craving flavorful chaos; Bachelor’s glamourous lo-fi clamor blissfully shifts from flash to funk to folk. Dreamy bedroom melodies dishing suspicious wishes, frank statements and taunting confidences inside haunted love-songs, stormy stories and smiling lullabies, Jay Som and Palehound’s songwriter’s skills, eclectic perspectives and potent emotions bolster each other’s best selves, balancing fragile sadness with unbendable strength, instrumental whimsy and lyrical wisdom woven around ominous caution and adamant transparency. Matched in collaborative passions, the fun, cheeky, “Sun,” glows in beautifully mutual alliances where clever effervescence meets intimate sympathies and authentic intent greets open secrets. Merged personalities committed to servicing their art, Bachelor is a marriage made in heaven, fueled by friendship and united in honest attempts to self-express.
Bachelor Online
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Mdou Moctar - Afrique Victime
Mdou Moctar
Album Title: Afrique Victime
By John Noyd
Posted: Apr 2021
Label: Matador
(617) Page Views
Running downhill catching the wind, Nigerian guitar phenomena Modou Moctar bolts from the starting gate, setting the world on fire in sacred, shape-shifting psychedelia feeding screaming electric blues. A cosmic oasis fusing truly communal moods with family ambient vocals, “Afrique Victime,” simmers in brittle nimble acoustics and writhing amplified vibes, blending cohesive heat into rampant trance wired to palpitating rhythms whose steady meditations pits vigorous Tuareg traditions against blazing improvisation. Fleeting stampedes recede beneath crowded beats for lush headrushes whose galloping talents yield tangled textures through relentless cleansing tempests. Confronting a colonial past and a third-world present, Moctar’s sophomore effort channels angry pain and insufferable struggles into searing spirituality and liberating solidarity; embracing nature’s impatience with ecstatic mastery and unwavering faith in music’s transformative importance.
Mdou Moctar Online
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Damon Locks and Black Monument Ensemble - Now
Damon Locks and Black Monument Ensemble
Album Title: Now
By John Noyd
Posted: Mar 2021
Label: International Anthem
(719) Page Views
Backed by nearly a dozen talented singers and musicians, Locks’ word salad acumen and compassionate activism inhabits rabble-rousing house-parties where spliced life bring live vibes to clever edits, micro-managed samples and intriguing social themes. A powerfully woke collage, “Now,” speaks truth to power, re-imagining reality through not-so-subtle cultural montage, hip snippets, communal grooves and fringe synergy intermingling with courtrooms, playgrounds, backstreets and neighborhoods. Musical mosaics engage angelic soul floating over free-jazz blow-outs, African rhythms weave between electronic concoctions while feverish beat-poet choirs spiral around assorted field-recordings, drum-circle furies and gospel-fostered jams. An immersive conversation one experiences rather than merely hears, the vibrant Black Monument Ensemble invites you to witness and absorb, assembling a contemporary sound documentary fortified by individual histories, collective messages and integrated legacies.
Damon Locks and Black Monument Ensemble Online
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