Lupine's Lament Liner Notes #3
New: CAPSULE, Rozi Plain, Grouper | Old: Colin Blunstone, Twinkie Clark | Bonus: The Lost Year
Here’s the playlist on Spotify. Some bonus cuts that aren’t streaming appear below.
NEW:
CAPSULE - “Hikari no Disco”
From: Hikari no Disco
Following a few years away from the studio, CAPSULE roared back to life with “Hikari no Disco (ひかりのディスコ),” the duo’s first new music since 2015’s Wave Runner. Not that CAPSULE has ever been that concerned about releasing music on a set schedule. “CAPSULE is something I started when I was in school,” Yasutaka Nakata, CAPSULE’s producer, said to Arama! Japan. “I get to make it when I want and it is the sound that I want it to be.”
Indeed, Nakata and singer Toshiko Koshijima have always marched to their own beat. While CAPSULE shares surface similarities with Nakata’s two other high-profile production gigs, Perfume and Kyary Pamyu Pamyu, it’s undeniably unconcerned with capturing the sound of the moment or even what some longtime fans want.
And yet, perhaps because CAPSULE kicked off a run of remixes/remasters from its earlier era, “Hikari no Disco (ひかりのディスコ)” is almost like a unification effort to bring together the old with the new, specifically L.D.K. Lounge Designers Killer’s classic dance inclinations with Wave Runner’s mammoth EDM anthems. Best of both worlds?
CAPSULE formed in 1997 after Nakata and Koshijima met at a music festival. The two musicians from Kanazawa cut High Collar Girl in 2001, an album of sophisticated pop. They then staked out a sound that has been described as “neo-Shibuya-kei,” referring to the effervescent style most famously (at least in the West) plied by Flipper’s Guitar and Pizzicato Five. By 2005’s L.D.K., CAPSULE’s sixth album, the duo moved to a more electro dance sound and, as Nakata’s production got increasingly edgier and more futuristic, eventually settled into a unique variant of hyperactive house.
My favorite of the late-period albums is Stereo Worxxx, CAPSULE’s 2012’s peak as a party starter. I lived a lot of life with that record, jamming it every Friday while taking the train home from work, its restlessness matching a busy city refusing to go to sleep. Keep in mind, I’m forever in its nostalgic thrall, but, nine years and change later, few things still sound like it: the fullness of the production, extremely jumpable jumpdafuckup nu beats, and nonstop forward momentum. “Never Let Me Go” into “In The Rain” into “Dee J.” I mean, come on.
While “Hikari no Disco (ひかりのディスコ)” doesn’t have the same boundless energy, it demonstrates that CAPSULE can be equally effective by foregrounding earwormy melodies. With its spritely rhythms and sparkling synths, not to mention pushing Koshijima’s vocals back to the front of the mix, it reminds me of 2006’s Fruits Clipper without sounding like an intentional throwback. It’s music to strut to that sounds like a summer morning some 100 years into the future. Same as it ever was and yet, no, not at all.
Rozi Plain - “Silent Fan”
From: Silent Fan
Rozi Plain’s 2019 full-length What a Boost was my most-listened-to album that year. It’s crazy to remember being so stressed out in a year that wasn’t lousy with COVID, but damn, were the nerves ever frazzled during that 365-day hellish march into the void. So, trapped in total tumult, What a Boost was a boon, living up to its title. Plain knows what’s up. “I think it’s noticing the things that bring about change you didn’t think was the ‘thing,’” Plain said to Brightonsfinest Radio regarding the title. “Something gives a little shove, and it makes things change. It could be a shove for good, or bad. I feel like you do a lot of looking back, looking forward, looking at your life, and looking out of the window.”
While I’m sure it wasn’t a comparison that Plain was courting, What a Boost often sounded like bossa nova but British to me, marrying a stripped-down version of jazz to a swinging, bouncy beat that drove tracks that weren’t that far away from stuff in the Pentangle tradition. Folky, but not. Meditative, yet vibrant. I distinctly remember the PR copy saying it was “wide awake in dreaming,” and it was precisely that, right down to its closer, a killer cover of Sun Ra’s “When There Is No Sun.”
“Silent Fan,” which kind of dropped out of nowhere some months back, could’ve been from those sessions. A steady, pittering beat constructs the frame for Plain to bolt on a bunch of textures. But the song never seems overly stuffed with sounds. It’s active, but not busy. The back half includes a saxophone solo that flutters in and out of a warping effect, eventually sounding like a strobing synth. That’s the duality that Plain does best, something brain-pulpingly heady and relaxing, bonkers but never rising above a whisper.
Igor Yakovenko - “g12vtu5j”
From: The Music Machine
Alright. I’m going to repost the Bandcamp notes in their entirety because…well…here we go:
“The Music Machine” is a kind of gear for generating music codes and ciphers, which in fact turns out to be quite sentimental and empathic. Various devices and mechanisms are becoming more and more human while people, on the other hand, are moving away from each other. The name belongs to Victor Alimpiev, with whom we had an interesting interview back in 2017. The music for this album was written back in 2017-2018 and was originally composed for a voice and piano duet as a cycle of 14 vocalises. Later I rearranged this material for the ensemble, which included Kristina Kovaleva, Alisa Ten, Ivan Akatov, Azat Gaifullin, Artem Baskakov and Alexander Zinger. We sound on the album with them.
“Gear for generating music codes and ciphers”? Like…the Lament Configuration…but for piano trios? ...what?
Anyway, Igor Yakovenko is on piano and leads this septet. I guess I shouldn’t be that surprised by the backstory since this is on Fancy Music, which isn’t a stranger to arty artists with atypical ideas. The Moscow-located label came to my attention in 2019 thanks to Dmitri Kourliandski’s Octavia. Trepanation, an opera “based on the opening phrases of the revolutionary song «Varshavyanka» but [stretches] them out in time almost 100 times.” So, yeah, a Paulstretched opera. Wild. However, besides the concept, The Music Machine doesn’t sound that wild, with “g12vtu5j” hitting the spot as a modern jazz track that reminds me a bit of Esbjörn Svensson Trio. But…again, I don’t know! Was this generated by a music machine? What did Yakovenko unleash? The AI apocalypse? Is this the last thing we’ll hear before Cenobites riding smart fridges sweep us off the Earth? Pretty pleasant way to go.
Natalie Slade - “Cloud Cover”
From: Control
And the award for the first song stuck in my head in 2022 goes to…. Natalie Slade’s voice is really something, soulful and bursting with so much body and life. It’s like that first cup of coffee on a Saturday morning. “Cloud Cover” kicks off Control, the Australian’s 2020 LP debut that she recorded with Hiatus Kaiyote’s Simon Mavin.
“I’m so incredibly grateful that I got to make this record with Simon Mavin,” Slade told The Hype Magazine. “He’s a Grammy-nominated musician and someone that I admire so much. I was lucky that he was in a phase of wanting to experiment more with production and this is the first record that he’s produced… I think he nailed it! We never intended to make an album. I think we just got along so well that we kept going”
Similar to how Mavin’s other gig aims for the middle of a Venn diagram of complementary styles, Control fuses neo-soul, broken beat, and the kind of modern jazz making its way out of London into a cohesive whole. It reminds me of, ehhh, the Cardiff jazz band Slowly Rolling Camera writing for Omar or something. Just...you know...if Bugz in the Attic infested the mix. This multi-style hybrid comes through the best on the last few moments of “Cloud Cover,” when the burbling bass is matched by syncopated vocal hits. Its rhythms on rhythms on rhythms, like looking at the interior of an old watch made by a Swiss master.
Malady - “Dyadi”
From: Ainavihantaa
I think it’s too easy to categorize Malady as a throwback psych-y progger. Sure, the Finnish quintet has a vibe that’s like if Camel or a slightly less playful Caravan were filtered through Wigwam. That said, similar to the contemplative turn that neo-proggers Anekdoten took this century, Malady forgoes the excess that has marked prog as prog in the public imagination for decades, the kitchen-sink bombast and aural clutter. If the mainstream conception of prog is a wild forest, Malady is a well-maintained orchard. There’s so much space between the instruments. It’s almost comparatively minimalist, really.
The other thing is that Malady’s previous album, the gloriously chill Toinen toista, is so warm. It’s as cozy as a prog/psych record can be, like sitting in front of a fire during a winter night. It’s the kind of record you put on when you want to sink into a chair with an adult libation that stokes the coals of your soul. Malady could’ve easily rung the bell for round two. Instead, album number three, Ainavihantaa, “All the Time” per Google Translate, is something else.
Ainavihantaa exits the cabin and takes a walk through some wide-open autumnal spaces. Even with Ainavihantaa being busier than its predecessor, complete with some heavier King Crimson riffs and sax noodling, I’m still struck by how intimate it is, like the band is right there in the room with me. That’s nowhere clearer than on “Dyadi,” especially during the track’s back half when it takes my hand to go exploring. It feels like it’s just me and the jam and there’s no one else around for miles.
Cherubs - “Sooey Pig (Sad)”
From: SLO BLO 4 FRNZ & SXY
The not-sad version of “Sooey Pig” appears on the Austin, Texas, noise rock band’s previous album, 2019’s excellent Immaculada High. It was one of the catchier tracks on a catchy album of gnarled, twisted, and extremely loud noise rock plus power-pop. Its downer cousin is stripped of the distortion, leaving Kevin Whitley to cry and croon over an acoustic guitar. It rules. Yes, it demonstrates how good the bones are of any Cherubs song. To sound good loud, they have to sound good quiet, too. But, really, I think that’s thinking about it too hard in a music writer kind of way. It’s just a great song. Real gutsy stuff, like something you’d hear quietly coming out of a holler. The Bandcamp version includes a skrewed version as a bonus. It’s something, slowed to a hazy, purple nightmare.
Bitchin Bajas - “Outer Spaceways Incorporated”
From: Switched on Ra
This dumb column — a thing that nobody wants and takes too long to make — has been in the pipeline for so long that “Outer Spaceways Incorporated” was the only stream available when I originally put this playlist together. The whole dang album came out in...late October. Always super timely over here. ANYWAY.
You can almost figure out what Bitchin Bajas’s new album is from the context clues: a nod to Wendy Carlos’s Switched on Bach, but with cosmic jazz genius and afrofuturist Sun Ra subbed in for the German master fuguist. And yet, like all Bitchin Bajas works, this is deeper and way more immersive than I could ever expect.
So, how’d this come to be? Bitchin Bajas has done Ra before, taking “Angels and Demons At Play” for a spin on Bajas Fresh. Cooper Crain, one third of the all-star Bitchin Bajas trio that also includes Dan Quinlivan and Rob Frye, said this to Brown Noise Unit shortly after that album’s 2017 release:
I was working with the Arkestra for a series of shows here about three years ago. They did a version of that song and it almost put me in tears. I was in the sound booth, and I was so happy, but it was so emotional. And then I got super into that song. One day before we went out on tour, I just started playing the bassline on the organ, and Rob—he comes from a jazz background—knew what I was playing, and just joined in. And man, it was fun! It became a piece on tour for years, and we decided to try to record a version. I wanted it to be our own version, because even they play so many variations, and it has never been the original they recorded. They go far out—it’s a long piece, live. It’s still in their set today, I just saw them last month. I’ve been a huge Ra fan and Arkestra fan for years, and we just loved how that track worked into our sound. So, we tried to make it on an album. We tried a couple of versions, and felt like it wasn’t going to work out. Then Dan came up with a synth hand-drum sound, and I ran it through all this ’verb, so it sounded really wet, this weird drum. And after that, it was like, okay, this is ours, now.
Switched on Ra takes that approach for an entire album. It’s undeniably compositions that Ra cooked up, but it’s also very Bitchin Bajas, especially the group’s earlier incarnation as archaic-synth pokers and meditative gurus of the bleeps and bloops. In that way, fans of either Bitchin Bajas or Sun Ra will get a kick out of this stuff, especially as a standard like “Space is the Place” is transformed into something that sounds like Mother Mallard's Portable Masterpiece Company.
Cailín - “Phantom Love Affair”
From: Phantom Love Affair
Cailín absolutely crushed at AVA Festival, delivering an all-vinyl set that found the perfect balance between brainy and brawny techno bangers. Thought it was worth checking to see if the Irish DJ had any singles. Yep! Here’s the title track for a four-song platter. First, the sproing-y synth and the rolling bass get under your skin. Then, right when you mind-meld with those elements, “Phantom Love Affair” drops a hard beat, the synth-y scrapes get itchier, and the mechanical whirrs get louder. Super neat.
Grouper - “Unclean Mind”
From: Shade
Something about Grouper’s newest album, Shade, feels so…real. It’s like sketches that you shouldn’t be hearing, the song equivalent of what Kafka wanted to be tossed into a fire. There are times I almost feel embarrassed listening to it, like paging through someone else’s diary and suddenly wondering what the hell I’m doing. It’s too real, too close to the stuff we try to hide from the world. Of course, that’s what makes Shade great.
Anyway, yeah, sketches. To an extent, I gather that’s what Shade is. Niclas Gillich, in a review for Inverted Audio, theorizes these are selections from Liz Harris’s vast repository, writing, “…she has about two hundred unrecorded or unreleased songs in her repertoire, the album and its fragmentary nature come across as an attempt to take inventory: What is there, what should be held onto and what could be let go of?” Chris Richards’ review in the Washington Post also plays with that idea, specifically that the tracks invite a sort of 4’33” interaction with their surroundings in a way that mirrors the hazy and ephemeral properties of memory.
That both of these writers have keyed in on that probably isn’t an accident. Still, something about Shade feels so...now to me. Like, it’s less about reckoning with the past and more about trying to hold on to the present. Understandably, really thinking about the multiple threads of time — that Shade is comprised of recordings from a span stretching 15 years and I’m listening to them now — starts to get into headfuck territory. For instance, I’ve been playing “Unclean Mind” a lot on long walks, just trying to live in its moment by letting it leak into my present. That’s...weird! It’s a strange temporal oddity to grapple with! And what makes it even more disarming is how wonderfully simple and straightforward the song is, the kind of melody that you think always should’ve existed. It’s like a seed that would’ve become a Slowdive song. But that’s the thing! Because Liz Harris pressed record, it always exists now.
OLD:
Colin Blunstone - “Say You Don’t Mind”
From: One Year
Shade made me think of this one. Recorded after the breakup of the Zombies, and only after “Time of the Season” had an unlikely chart run and lured Colin Blunstone out of early retirement, One Year is something like a year-in-the-life, cataloging Blunstone’s highs and lows between 1970-1971. The playing is impeccable and ultra engaging, because of course it is, as former Zombies Rod Argent and some of Argent’s Argent mates lend a hand. (To lock in the reunion, other-Zombie Christ White produces.) The album ends with the absolutely gorgeous “Say You Don’t Mind,” a cover of Denny Laine’s 1967 single. Where Laine’s original is bustling, stacking the sonic details like a Hollies song or Laine’s previous Moody Blues day job, Blunstone replaces the rock instrumentation with a string quartet. The end result is like a transmission straight from the almighty, a modern hymnal stripped down to its essence, with Blunstone’s incomparable voice rising and falling like a fifth string instrument. One of my favorite songs.
Elbernita “Twinkie” Clark - “Power”
From: Ye Shall Receive Power
Elbernita “Twinkie” Clark is a musical genius. There’s no other way to write it. Ye Shall Receive Power, Clark’s second solo LP released in 1981, proves it. It’s funky, it’s soulful, and it contains some seriously progressive moments. The marching “Awake O Zion,” with its stunning verses, has been a favorite of mine ever since I heard it on David Hill’s Overdose Of The Holy Ghost (The Sound Of Gospel Through The Disco And Boogie Eras). And there’s just so much happening in those six minutes, wheels within wheels within wheels. It’s, like, Rotary Connection’s “I Am the Blackgold of the Sun” meets Johnny Hammond’s “Los Conquistadores Chocolatés,” peerless prog soul with a sprinkle of psychedelic stardust. But, yeah, if you’re on this side of the secular music divide, you might not have heard it. And, if that’s the case, I’m going to guess you most definitely haven’t heard “Power.” Let’s fix that.
Some quick background: Elbernita “Twinkie” Clark is the daughter of famed gospel artist Dr. Mattie Moss Clark. The younger Clark’s claim to fame is as part of the Clark Sisters who pioneered “The Clark Sound.” From what I understand as an outsider, that approach to gospel is foundational, laying the groundwork for a lot of contemporary gospel that followed. (You can hear what it evolved into on something like the Louie Vega “dance ritual mix” of 3 Winans Brothers’ “Dance,” which, yep, features the Clark Sisters. Love that song.) The Clark Sisters have had a few brushes with the mainstream, notably crossing over with the euphoric “You Brought the Sunshine (Into My Life),” which peaked at #16 on the US R&B charts. It’s a classic. I’m going to embed this live version from Saturday Nite Sing because it really sells it well. That’s Clark behind the keys. I love when she turns the audience into a three-part choir.
Ye Shall Receive Power, though, feels like something else. While I haven’t heard the entirety of Clark’s body of work, this album suggests to me that Clark, a clever writer and crack improviser, really went for it with Power’s compositions, adding in a ton of complex wrinkles. When those parts hit, it’s some real standing-in-awe-at-the-power-of-God stuff. But, perhaps that backfired from a popularity perspective. Per Wikipedia, it’s the only one of her solo studio LPs that didn’t chart. (It has since languished in some sort of weird maybe-OOP grey zone, like a lot of the Sound of Gospel catalog.) On the other hand, I guess that just means it’s ripe for rediscovery.
I would absolutely love if someone with actual musical knowledge broke down “Power” since it’s such a trip. Alas, I’m an idiot. But lemme see what I can do. Opening with a plaintive, stuttering melody, Clark’s voice cuts through like a glorious horn. The track then goes straight into hard funk mode, leading into a bridge that dials up the tension. Just when you think it’s going to head back into a verse or explode into a chorus, check out what it does at 1:36. What? WHAT? Just listen to that. That’s why I listen to music. You never hear that section again, either. Even when “Power” runs through its main sections again, Clark resists the temptation to reuse that trick, dropping back into a neck-snapping jam session instead. That jam lands so hard because of everything that came before. Blows me away every time. Just total musical genius stuff.
BONUS:
Passage - “Have You Heard the Word”
From: Passage
I can’t imagine there’s going to be another time when I write about gospel, so I wanted to sneak this one in here, too. Passage was the project of Louis “Thunder-Thumbs” Johnson, bassist for the Brothers Johnson and session player on some of Michael Jackson’s funkiest material. Passage released one album, this self-titled LP, in 1981. And, it’s like, yo, what was happening in gospel in 1981? “Have You Heard the Word,” with its awesome string arrangements and bass-poppin’ solo, is also pretty progressive! It goes way harder than it needs to for a gospel-cum-boogie track, tossing in a ton of incredibly clever earworms into its disco/smooth R&B. I’m going to throw some shade on CCM because I’m a snarky non-believer, but imagine if CCM even tried like 5 percent this hard. “Have You Heard the Word” is like something that Bunny Brunel would’ve cut. Heck, it’s like a lost Off the Wall b-side. Valerie Johnson, Louis’s wife, sings, Richard Heath plays percussion. Hooks for days.
The Lost Year - “Black Thumb”
From: Black Thumb
I don’t know when (if?) I’m going to write one of these again, so let’s cover this now. I love this, from the name on down. The Lost Year is a brand new trio from Chicago that lands somewhere between ‘90s indie rock, particularly of the slow/sadcore persuasion, and super spare ‘90s emo. I immediately think of stuff like Idaho when I hear a band in this zone because I am a shameless mark for Idaho. Anyway, the Lost Year is not quite that, closer to something that you would’ve picked off my beloved Epitonic back in day in between, like, Jejune and Brass Knuckles for Tough Guys downloads. Like the best stuff in this zone, the song achieves real downer depth once you pay attention to the lyrics. “hopes and dreams/ still these fears grow/ yeah these fears grow/ like weeds.” Well, damn.
Xylitol - “Crazy Frog”
From: I’m Pretty Sure I Would Know If Reality Were Fundamentally Different Than I Perceived It To Be
Speaking of lyrics:
TWISTED TIGHT YOU’RE SUCKING SLURPING THIRSTY TO UNCLOG
BLOW A FUSE GOT NUTTY WOBBLE DOWN INTO ME BOG
WHY BE STARCHY LINEN
APPLY THE CRAZY FROG
LIQUIFY A PRISON
RIDE THE CRAZY FROG
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