★XERIC
Topography
Percussionist Jon Mueller continues his amazing run of releases (he appears on eight Table Of The Elements titles in the first half of 2008!) with Topography, a collaboration with Zürich-based sound and visual artist Jason Kahn. As a drummer, Mueller propels Collections of Colonies of Bees and the occasional guitar army of Rhys Chatham; he also finds time to collaborate with artists ranging from Wilco's Glenn Kotche to Swans' Jarboe. Kahn draws on electronic and acoustic sound sources to create …
mmmr
As members of Sonic Youth, Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo continue to pump the most radical tenets of American experimentalism into the heart of rock music; in recent years they have also extended their reputations as world- class improvisErs. French phenom Jean-Marc Montera records for the legendary FMP label, and has collaborated with an amazing host of free-music luminaries, including Evan Parker, Paul Lovens and Han Bennink. However it is the keening blues wail of Loren Mazzacane Connors tha…
We Are All Hopeful Farmers, We Are All Scared Rabbits
Badgerlore is the great tribal council of the so-called 'freak folk' movement. The supergroup features Rob Fisk (Deerhoof, 7-Year Rabbit Cycle) and Ben Chasny (Six Organs of Admittance, Comets On Fire), with Tom Carter (Charalambides), Pete Swanson (Yellow Swans), Glen Donaldson (Blithe Sons, Jewelled Antler) and Liz Harris (Grouper). Together they proceed with masterful nuance and inexorable tension; We Are All Hopeful Farmers, We Are All Scared Rabbits is the sound of effigy mounds slowly rous…
Music for the Bluegrass States
Native Kentuckian R. Keenan Lawler speaks a private, fundamental language via his trademark metal-bodied resonator guitar. With an intensely focused technique, he sets bluegrass and blues-inflected tonalities against dense masses of harmonic overtones and sustained textures. It is a mesmerizing sound, one that conjures the effect of various global trance-musics and has beguiled a series of collaborators including Pelt, Matmos, Charalambides and My Morning Jacket. Inhabiting the mysterious string…