Notes From The Record Room: Aerial M, Wand, The Armed, The Necks, Divide And Dissolve
To whom it may interest,
Tuesday, 9/24. 10:58 PM: Coming off of a sleepless weekend with friends in Atlantic City and a couple workdays full of distractions. It’s sometimes hard to sit still long enough to listen, think, and ruminate. We’re somehow almost finished with September. The air is cooling, leaves are beginning to wilt. I’m starting to get used to being comfortable in my house, the persistent, vibrating noise from the air conditioner no longer talking over the crickets outside or blanketing the environs so much that an uptick in volume is required every time I speak.
More music… Enjoy.
Aerial M
The Peel Sessions
Released: 8/30/24
Drag City
Link to the review at No Ripcord.
If you’re unaware, the psych-sensitive outfit Wand issued an excellent album titled Vertigo at the end of July. Before the shine on Vertigo has even begun to fade, two singles from two upcoming Wand releases have emerged: a new 12” EP titled “Help Desk / “Goldfish,” which includes three remixes of “Help Desk” by Beat Detectives, Dean Spunt (of No Age) and Dead Rider, and an album of demos and session runoff from the Ganglion Reef days titled In A Capsule Underground.
The video for the gentle and gorgeous track “Goldfish” is built from artwork by the late claymation genius Bruce Bickford, whose work I became aware of thanks to his inclusion in the Frank Zappa film, Baby Snakes. With a sun-drenched haze like morning air, “Goldfish” exhibits scrubbed dissonance and brass-generated harmony that adorn its blissed-out pace, beautifully composed and layered.
By contrast, “The Leap” from In A Capsule Underground—which has apparently been available online since 2017—has a warm and smiling bounce to it that borders on zany. At the bridge, there’s a tempo and melody shift that I recognized from another Wand track called “Melted Rope,” which is featured in 2015’s Golem.
This is not the first time that Wand have double-dosed its audience in a single year: the band’s aforementioned distortion-charged Golem (released by In The Red) and synth-riddled 1,000 Days hit shelves with only six months between them, an air of psychedelia informing two different modes of conveyance.
Both releases are scheduled to release on October 25th via Drag City.
Links:
Wand — Official / Bandcamp
Drag City — Official / Bandcamp
Links, knowledge, and sounds were handed over courtesy of Drag City and mutante, inc:
Picking up the pieces of the picked-up pieces, Wand ride on, baby. It’s only three months since they dropped the incredible mass of Vertigo upon the world… but WHAT? Here’s more! One: a new 12” EP plating the pre-release single “Help Desk” alongside “Goldfish”, a bonus dose of oceanic luminescence from Vertigo — plus three remixes from Beat Detectives, Dean Spunt and Dead Rider for good measure. Two: an LP release of the archival In a Capsule Underground, containing demos and unreleased songs from Wand’s salad days in the time of the immortal Ganglion Reef (now ten years wiser). Spin both October 25th… we’re a bit dizzy ourselves!
Today’s new single “Goldfish” arrives with an animated music video composed of recently-scanned artwork from the late Bruce Bickford, whose line and clay animations were the center of several Frank Zappa films. “Help Desk” and “Goldfish” are brethren of the eight epochal vibrations that make up Vertigo — boiled down from a tremendous volume of jams, then squeezed through the pin-prick called automatic writing. The remixes delve back into the material, integrating another set of concentric thought-spirals into the radiant action through the unique perspectives of Beat Detectives, Dead Rider and Dean Spunt. This EP’s like a handshake promise that’s fulfilled after the action has gone down — the thanks you get for staying open and hanging in there. The present you get for being present!
Then, In a Capsule Underground… here contains the earliest Wand recordings that we know of, preceding everything that’s come so far. It’s not simply a function of time and nostalgia at this late moment that they sound invariably like magical recordings by, and for, children, is it? The light, fizzy versions of these Ganglion Reef songs have distinctive gleaming magic energies all their own; “The Leap”, an unrealized demo from those days, re-routes a helium-cooled post punk/new wave arrangement into a break of psychedelia borne aloft on sheets of faded shoegaze. Quite the breathtaking thrill ride!
Wand have wandered purposefully onward, but the vibes left here for you to encounter all on your lonesome, are among THE MOST: Help Desk / Goldfishand In a Capsule Underground both exist eternally come October 25th. Wandtours the US this September, with a European tour commencing in October.
Sargent House is releasing The Armed’s Everlasting Gaze EP on October 18th.
Links:
The Armed — Official / Bandcamp
Sargent House — Official / Bandcamp
Links, knowledge, and sounds were handed over courtesy of Sargent House:
The Armed have announced their new EP, Everlasting Gaze—an extension of their critically acclaimed LP Perfect Saviors for October 18th. Limited edition vinyl and merch are pictured below, pre-order with the link above.
The EP features three new tracks (which were hidden in plain sight via a URL printed inside every Perfect Saviors jacket), alongside remixes of “Sport of Form,” with reimaginations from IDLES, Water From Your Eyes, and Model/Actriz.
The group will be hosting a listening party at Bandcamp at 4PM EST on Friday, October 11th.
RSVP link
Links:
The Necks — Official / Bandcamp
Northern Spy Records — Official / Bandcamp
Links, knowledge, and sounds were handed over courtesy of Clandestine Label Services:
Australian minimalist-jazz trio The Necks' new studio album, Bleed explores a sublime language of stillness. With a single, 42-minute composition, The Necks masterfully express the unspeakable beauty of decay and space in yet another totally distinct entry in a vast and stunning body of work.
Although no new album is expected until 2025, Takiaya Reed’s Divide And Dissolve issued a new single called “Monolithic.” Reliably haunting and strangely desolate, a sun-drenched cacophony of doom-laden guitar phrases interrupts a distant exchange of saxophone melodies, two voices taking turns until overwhelmed by the onslaught of cymbal weight and droning textures.
Links:
Divide And Dissolve — Official / Bandcamp / Instagram
Bella Union — Official / Bandcamp
Links, knowledge, and sounds were handed over courtesy of Rarely Unable:
Divide and Dissolve sign to Bella Union and share the brand new single Monolithic as their North American tour dates commence. A new album is expected in 2025.
“Monolithic is a prayer for systems of liberation, freedom, Indigenous sovereignty, and for a Black future. This song is hope for the seemingly impossible and for things that have never been seen or experienced in many lifetimes. Where no memories have been created.” - Takiaya Reed
Divide and Dissolve's music is an acknowledgement of the dispossession that occurs due to colonial violence, it honours ancestors, opposes white supremacy and calls for indigenous sovereignty.
Takiaya Reed’s dense sound is overwhelmingly heavy; a dissonant pounding of percussion, guitars, piano, synths and saxophone, interwoven with passages of orchestral beauty that give a feeling of respite.
Divide and Dissolve have released four full-length albums to date; Basic (2017, DERO), Abomination (2018, DERO), Gas Lit (2021, Invada) - which was hailed Mary Anne Hobbs’ Album of the Year, and was complimented by the Gas Lit remix EP, including reworkings by Moor Mother, Chelsea Wolfe and Bearcat. Most recently the band released Systemic (2023, Invada), and plan to follow up with their Bella Union debut in 2025.
Sincerely,
Letters From A Tapehead