It’s been a little quiet here at Undrcurrents HQ as of late. It has been a busy few months on the personal front, so we’ve capitalized on the relative slowness of the summer release schedule to take a few weeks off from the blog game. As we gear up for the insanely stuffed release calendar in the months ahead, we’re back today with a few highlights from the past two months. We hope that you’re able to discover something new in these recommendations.
M. Geddes Gengras – Expressed, I Noticed Silence
M. Geddes Gengras’s adventurous solo practice that has yielded a vast discography over the past decade. His latest, Expressed, I Noticed Silence, is one of prettiest and most expansive things I’ve heard from him. The album’s six synthesizer compositions are each a world unto themselves, constructed around etherial melodies and pulsing textures with a cinematic post rock sweep. It’s music that can sit unobtrusively in the background or offer a rich deep listening experience; I’ve found myself engaging in both modes of listening as I returned to it again and again over the past few months, sometimes allowing the music to drift along in the background and at others fully submerging myself in Gendras’s world. It’s a deeply imagined set of music that continues to reveal new facets of itself with each spin.
Cheba Wahida – Jrouli
After a nearly two year gap in activity, Cairo based label Nashazphone dropped six (?!?) releases out of the blue last week. My favorite of the bunch was this set of modern Rai from Cheba Wahida. Hailing from the Oran region (incidentally the birthplace of the genre nearly one hundred years ago), Wahida’s take is decidedly modern, filled with electronic instrumentation and auto tuned vocals. Most importantly, these tracks are a blast; from the spiraling synths of opener “Jrouli Jrouli” to the intoxicating rhythms of “Omri Bi 3achki mebli”, it’s an album of front to back bangers.
Quinn – Quinn
Quinn rose to prominence in the early days of the pandemic for her take on the nebulous genre hyperpop. Rather than riding that wave as far as it would take her, with each new release she has ripped any preconceived notions about her music to shreds. Quinn, her second official album, occasionally touches on the hyperpop sound (“songs about imAGINARY PEOPLE”) but is more than anything a pop collage. Deranged spoken word monologues rub up against R&B grooves and avant-rap tirades, yet all these disparate sounds seem to make perfect sense together. It’s almost as if we’re getting a glimpse into how they’re packed into Quinn’s brain, blending together into something fascinating and unique. Quinn makes clear that the sky’s the limit for its namesake.
Hellrazor – Heaven’s Gate
Brooklyn via New Haven band Hellrazor wear their influences on their sleeve on their first album in six years, Heaven’s Gate. The group draws heavily from the heydey of 90s alternative rock, but appear equally indebted to mainstream successes like Nirvana, underground heroes like Dinosaur Jr and weirdo experimentalists like Butthole Surfers. Though these songs are filled with sticky melodies and grungy riffs, the band’s experimental instincts poke through: a bizzare vocal snippet here and there, the warped backing track of “Party Slasher”, the demented sound collage of closer “All The Candy In The World”. It’s the right mix of familiar and unexpected sounds to elevate it above mere pastiche into something all its own.
Kali Malone – Living Torch
Listen to a few minutes of Living Torch the latest album of magnificent drone from Kali Malone, and nothing seems to happen. Woodwinds and electronics hold long, sustained notes that circle around each other, seemingly locked into the same repeating patterns. Perhaps your mind will drift off a bit, but by the time you return, these sounds will have reconfigured themselves into something new. In this way Malone’s music seems to defy the basic principles of time, appearing static yet constantly, imperceptibly mutating itself. Perhaps the only time I’ve felt similarly enraptured by drone music is sitting in La Monte Young’s Dream House, drifting along to its vibrations. A marvel of an album.
Why Bonnie – 90 In November
Songwriter Blair Howerton moved from Austin to Brooklyn in mid 2019. Like the rest of us, her life was soon upended by the pandemic; she found herself stuck in a tiny New York apartment, yearning for the familiar sights and sounds of home. Many of the songs form her band Why Bonnie’s debut album, 90 In November, were written during this period. The album’s languid dream pop embodies lazy summer days, while Howerton’s lyrics mix the sights and sounds of her native Texas with flashbacks to her life there. The album makes one thing crystal clear: no matter where they’re currently living, Why Bonnie will always be a Texas band.