Raz Mesinai and Shahzad Ismaily Live
Today we feature a live duo performance from Raz Mesinai and Shahzad Ismaily.
The Deets:
Raz Mesinai - frame drum, effects
Shahzad Ismaily - bass
Staraya Derevnya :: Boulder Blues
Staraya Derevnya is a psychedelic/kraut-folk collective based in London and Tel Aviv. Active since 1994, the group’s newest album Boulder Blues will be out August 5th on Ramble Records. Recorded between 2020 - 2022 in Israel and the UK, the album percolates and bubbles with creativity. A collective of varying size and members, this iteration consists of 11 people, and album credits include “cries and whispers,” silent cello (which apparently is a very real thing, though somehow it would still make sense even if it wasn’t), “objects,” and a marching band kazoo.
How does one make sense of such music? Maybe that’s not the point, but if we need landmarks to help find our way; then maybe the meditative groovy bass foundations of Oren Ambarchi / Johan Berthling / Andreas Werliin and Natural Information Society or some of the murkier moments from Animal Collective or Paavoharju come to mind, but only as touchpoints. They are the friendly neighbors you meet on the path to Staraya Derev. Like the cover artwork, one is left with more questions than answers, and sometimes that’s the point.
My son calls it “spooky alien music but in a good way.” Krautrock grooves underpin an ever evolving sound collage. Instruments, voices, and noises sometimes float by barely notices and sometimes shock you back into the groove. Concrete Islands uses the phrase “murmurations from unknown tongues” to describe the bands music, and that seems about as apt as any description we’re likely to conjure.
The title track emerges from primordial squigglings over an ever-reliably-chugging bassline and builds upon a repeated phrase dervishly swirling and repeating and building and repeating and building and swirling. The piece doesn’t so much resolve as exhaust itself in experimental ecstasy. ‘Tangled Hands’s fleeting fog swirls through the atmosphere punctuated by skronks and ambient waves.
The album’s centerpiece, the nearly 21-minute ‘Bubbling Pelt’ was recorded live at TUSK Festival 2020. The piece bubbles and swirls over minimal but hypnotic bass rumblings. Percussion skitters back and forth until becoming one with the ether. As the bass returns, wind instruments and electronic squiggles reveal themselves from the fog, forming a nice relaxed groove which gives home to all sorts of vocalizations.
Though heavy on krautrock repetition, this is not background music. Though it requires your attention, it grooves in unexpected ways.
Boulder Blues is out August 05th on Ramble Records and is highly recommended.
Watch ‘Bubbling Pelt’ performed live at TUSK Festival 2020 here:
New Music Monday: In the Running :: Solilians
Their label describes them as “Jewish mystics/drone/space pop explorers” and that gives you a pretty good starting point.
Solilans is the project of keyboardist Benjamin Malkin and began when Malkin wrote a 7” soundtrack for Ian Densford’s Binah Comics, a “super-powers tale sans violence”
Now a quartet featuring two vocalists, Neptune Sweet (Electric Djinn) and Sharon Malkin.
In the Running 2 is the second in I Heart Noise’s ongoing In the Running series and the second featuring Solilans. The first was a split EP with Boston’s Skyjelly. But this release find the attention placed on Solilans. As far as I can tell, “Klezmische” is a clever play on the group’s fusion of Kosmische with Klezmer music. If that’s difficult to imagine, you’re on the right track.
Fusing psychedelic, ambient, drone, and folk and even Indian instrumentation, the group creates sonic soundscapes that wash over you and wrap around your soul. With hypnotic, trance-like vocals, you might think of something along the lines of Sky Cries Mary (anyone remember them?). But this is truly original and creative music. There’s a balance throughout the release that weaves in and out itself. The disparate elements create a tension that keeps you engaged while the swooning vocals and repeating loops provide counteract that tension with mesmerizing effect. This balance between tension and release/relaxation is a wonderful musical theme throughout. I can’t wait to hear more from Solilans.
Highly recommended.
Preview:
The fine and fabulous folks over at Foxy Digitalis premiered the video for “Old Schmeckled Hen” earlier this year. Check it:
Jeff Tweedy, Nels Cline and Glenn Kotche :: Solo Sets :: Experimental Sound Studio
The good fellows over at Wilco recently posted solo improvised sets by Jeff Tweedy, Nels Cline, and Glenn Kotche for Experimental Sound Studio on Twitch. You could go over and watch them there, but come on, you know you’d rather just hang out here and watch them all in one place.