Why I Bought It #3
Björk, Makaya McCraven, Rome Streetz, and more
Why I Bought It is a series where I, a heavy metal idiot and occasional music writer, try to explain my Friday music purchases to the host at a restaurant while I wait for my party to arrive.
Hi. Table for four, please. Yep, I don't mind waiting. Oh, the other three? They'll be here soon.
Wow, haha, playing another Mel Tormé song, huh? Mel Tormé? Velvet Fog? No? Not familiar. OK. To be fair, I've never heard this one before. It's like...vaporwave. Chopped and screwed Tormé? Bizarre. Parallel universe evil Tormé. Is this your playlist? Right, the restaurant's satellite station. Kind of figured.
Yeah, haha, music is my small talk. It's all I got. Anyway, what do you listen to? Anything. OK. That's cool. Perhaps...I have some recommendations for you. Why did you wince?Bali Gamelan Sound - Batu Bule Selonding (Bali Gamelan Sound)
Agustín Oscar Rissotti's Bali Gamelan Sound first clicked record in 2020. The MO: capture Balinese music wherever the Argentinian student could, "[joining] as many rehearsals, ensembles and religious ceremonies as possible with small microphones and recording equipment, to document the authentique 'Bali Gamelan Sound'."
Batu Bule Selonding does precisely that, catching the Gamelan Selonding group of the album's title playing in Pura Samuan Tiga, "an ancient temple located in Bedulu Village." You can hear the sounds of the village in the background: crowd chatter, hustle and bustle. Like any good field recording, it transports you to a time and place.
Rissotti's detailed notes are extremely helpful explaining that time and place. Gamelan Selonding is sacred music, an older form dating back to the 900s. Batu Bule Selonding is notable for featuring foreign players: academics who set out to learn and play some of East Bali's oldest songs. "'Batubulan' (Lunar Stone) is the name of the village where Sanggar Tawaketa is located," the liner notes state, "the center of their Gamelan Slonding studies. The name of this record is a wink between the name of the village and the word 'Bule,' which is commonly used by locals referring to foreigners."
For those keeping score of the winks, that's two different layers of foreigners appreciating this music. As a listener, I'm the third.1 Now, I'm not going to break the music down for obvious reasons.2 But here's my note regarding the recording: neat, as real as it gets. Granted, this isn't an audiophile recording. That would be ridiculous. Rissotti is prioritizing portability. But there's something about hearing Batu Bule Selonding in its element that gives it extra resonance. Yes, there's that impossible-to-replicate-in-a-studio reverb, but there's a connection here that wouldn't be present if it was captured in a different setting. This ancient music continues to endure because it's woven into the fabric of everyday life.
Björk - Fossora (One Little Independent Records)
The press cycle for Björk's newest album, Fossora, has lifted an immense weight from shoulders and absolved me from trying to explain it. It rules. I love not having to do my job. Jazz Monroe's Pitchfork profile and Spencer Kornhaber's track-by-track explainer for The Atlantic do that job better than I ever will. Because, like, I still don't even know what to say about Fossora. I never do with Björk. I've listened to this album a ton and my thoughts are still elemental and primitive. I have no insight beyond a lot of irrational "ooo"s and ":("s. Ask me to explain it and I'd sound startled, like a caveman nudged awake from a deep sleep by a hungry pterodactyl. "Wolf, what do you think about 'Sorrowful Soil?'" Ugn, what...AH. AH. MY SPLEEN. So, like every Björk album that has come before it, Fossora is less entertainment in the "10/10, music so good" sense and...more like what life sounds like. And isn't life just a series of "ooo"s and ":("s, really?
But, ugh, let me try to check the music writer box real quick. The simplest way I can put it is that Fossora sounds like a full 24 hours in the life of a mourner. You wake up, go to a funeral, and then head to Björk's place for the wake. You listen to gabber while a clarinet-heavy ensemble practices an intricate chamber piece. You engage in long, discursive conversations about fungus, Carl Jung, and the hidden matriarchal connection that may save culture. Appropriately, Fossora's feelings are all over the place. Same goes for the song structures. "I started this album very conceptual, like: This is the clarinet album!" Björk said to Monroe. "Then halfway through, I was like, Fuck that." Yeah, there's a lot of fuck-that energy on Fossora as it zooms through ideas faster than an 11th-hour pitch meeting at an espresso factory. But it's also...oddly tranquil, a steady presence. It feels like the big rock on the beach that doesn't move even though it has been pounded by waves for generations. It's the patient, empathetic person at a funeral. Their gravity stops your world from spinning.
That's been Björk for me. It's incredible that she's been doing this for longer than I've been alive. Every new album still feels fresh, a year or five ahead of schedule. Smart, artful, beautiful. But the contradiction is that the albums also feel so gutsy and entwined in the moment they're released. To put it another way, they become one with a listener's experiences. I remember listening to 1995's "Possibly Maybe" on a Sony Discman, fully enraptured, ensconced in the back of my parent's car. I remember listening to 2015's "Black Lake" in the dark on my smartphone, mulling over mortality, still not really believing that I was now alone. These memories are as strong as the songs. That an artist can bridge the ups and downs of a lifetime is...again, it's incredible! Like, it makes sense to have this relationship with a singular album. But a continually relevant artist? I don't really know what else to say other than that speaks to Björk's incredible empathy.
If I may take on a Björk talking point, her discography is like the underground mycorrhizal network, how it connects a life, and how each album is a mushroom, the fruit of that network. I don't want to twist things: these albums are about stuff. They have their own points of view and clear cut themes. Fossora is no different. Read Monroe. Read Kornhaber. But these fruits are also just...life, markers of time's passage. What you endure is also what the album endures. And it soaks all of that up.
Curren$y & The Alchemist - Continuance (Jet Life, ALC, Empire)
New Orleans rapper Curren$y's two previous collaborations with the producer Alchemist, 2011's outstanding Covert Coup and 2018's even better Fetti with Freddie Gibbs, are an ideal MC/beats pairing. Curren$y's flow is like sinking into a velvet couch. Likewise, Alchemist's smoother beats are sunkissed songs that are like taking a yacht through the sparkling seas surrounding the Greek Islands. But, underneath the lushness, both approaches are saturated with a darkness you can't escape. Where there's sun, there are shadows.
Curren$y and Alchemist push each other to their best on Continuance, especially on a track like "Obsession." Alchemist's production is soft prog library music gorgeousness. Curren$y sits back in the pocket, playing off the rubbery bassline. Is there Balearic rap? Can this be it?
Still, my favorite Curren$y mode is when urgency creeps into his flow. He's one of the few MCs who can maintain an unflappability while injecting pre-heist nervousness into a track. That's what I get from "Corvette Rally Stripes," featuring Havoc and a reunion with How Fly/2009 partner Wiz Khalifa. Alchemist's beat, while airy and jazzy, is also crepuscular and back-lit with a crime flick bleakness. Curren$y narrates with characteristic impressionistic storytelling, sketching the frame and allowing unspoken menace to fill in the rest.
Armor-piercing
No defense against
Who his henchmen is
What they pension is
Conquer by division them
Have his homeboy hit him
So close, he couldn't believe it
Happened so fast, it was like slow motion when all the witnesses seen it
Curren$y delivers that last couplet with a sober truthfulness that cuts through the THC haze. It's like all of the crime stuff has actual consequences, that, despite these dreamy productions, the vacuum of the real world can suck those buffers away at any moment. That line reverberates throughout the rest of the song. Even when life is beautiful, death looms.
Oh yeah, I'm still waiting on my friends to get here. Thanks for checking on me. Well, yeah, they decided to come here because I had a weird close call on the road while dri-hey, what was that flash of light I saw a few minutes ago?
Sorry, what's that? No, they haven't texted me. It's cool. They run late. I always bring the laptop with me for a reason. I've got a lot to write, haha. The review queue is LONG. This year in music, am I right? So many good al-oh, you're closing in an hour? Yikes. How long have I been here? Two hours. Wow. Wow, wow, wow. If, uh, you're not busy, do you want to edit some copy for me?Elijah McLaughlin Ensemble - Elijah McLaughlin Ensemble II (Tompkins Square)
Elijah McLaughlin Ensemble is rooted in American primitivism but spreads into other genres. That said, I don't think a style dissection is germane because, as these songs were constructed via improvisation, each musician in this Chicago trio has a strong individualism magnified by their respective instruments. The genres, then, are Elijah McLaughlin on six- and twelve-string guitar, Jason Toth on upright bass, and Joel Styzens on hammered dulcimer. That gives each song three distinct points of interest.
The magic is that these distinct points of interest cohere into an intricate whole. This isn't really an epiphany. It's improvisation 101. But Elijah McLaughlin Ensemble executes this stuff at such a high level, constructing hook-filled expeditions that unfurl dramatically with a rootsy elegance. Recorded over four sessions, everything has been edited down to lean songs that move with unencumbered pacing. I'm sure this process involved some intense darlings slaughter, but Elijah McLaughlin Ensemble II is the better for it. Each of the nine songs sounds like a traditional that has been sanded down by time and thousands of players. Or, you know, a pandemic.
"If there was a silver lining to the cloud of uncertainty that was life during the early days of the pandemic," McLaughlin wrote in the liner notes, "it was that all of the isolation provided a clear break from the entrenched routines of day to day life. This respite allowed me to see in sharp contrast all of the things that were important in my life, and all of the things that were trivial, and thus expendable."
What's left is just the important stuff, an album where no second feels wasted. The three-minute "Wheel" is a revelation, immediately hitting its emotional mark with Styzens and McLaughlin's fizzy arpeggios and Toth's bowed legato bass lines. It builds beautifully, like walking through a forest lit by shafts of sunlight beaming through the canopy. And then you move a tree limb and step into the coda that's darker, moodier, and more dangerous, giving the preceding sections greater stakes and depth. Again, masterful songwriting, but the fact that it's so economical really sells its strengths. How no one has tapped Elijah McLaughlin Ensemble for video game soundtrack work is beyond me.
Makaya McCraven - In These Times (International Anthem)
I don't know if it's worth pulling back the curtain on Chicago drummer and bandleader Makaya McCraven's newest album, In These Times. Oh, I'm going to do it. How could I not? There's some fascinating stuff happening under the hood that's worth engaging with from a "is this guy a musical genius" perspective. But, at its heart, In These Times is just a beautiful, soulful, jazzy record that can stand alongside masterworks like Idris Muhammad's Power of Soul. It's a good hang. In the short time since its release, it has become a Sunday morning staple. You don't need to understand the mechanics of the magic to be ensorcelled by it.
McCraven has plotted an intriguing musical path, making good on his website's headline of "beat scientist, drummer and producer." Before In These Times, my favorite project of his was We're New Again: A Reimagining by Makaya McCraven, a "reimagining" of, but really a companion to, Gil Scott-Heron's final album, I'm New Here. McCraven turns the devastatingly spare folk of "I'm New Here" into a lush soul jazz track, like something that could've been recorded during Dorothy Ashby's Afro-Harping sessions.
In These Times retains that same mood but delves deeper into McCraven's idiosyncrasies, particularly his rhythmic sense. Warning: I am now moving the curtain. "A lot of this stuff was kind of based in certain rhythmic concepts," McCraven said to OkayPlayer's Zo. "Everything except for 'This Place That Place' is in some sort of odd meter, poly rhythm or poly meter. That one is in 4/4, but it's all about the displaced rhythms throughout the whole piece. Hence, In These Times." As has been observed, these odd meters give the album a Dilla-esque feel, not because it sounds like J Dilla, but because both musicians make off-kilter rhythms sound simple by surrounding them with natural, emotionally resonant samples and layers.
And that's the other thing: In These Times was built from a number of studio and live recordings with McCraven's ensemble. "They don't call it studio magic for nothing," McCraven said. "That's one of the things I'm interested in, too. What ways can we manipulate mix audio, how to use different tools and tricks? With this project it's no different, gathering a bunch of different takes and different recordings that were recorded in different ways, and then bringing them together and making a piece out of it."
Even though tracks like "High Fives" have a Steve Reich quality of offset layers that create a strobing effect, the beat scientist stuff doesn't overpower these tracks' souls. The layering is impeccable, never feeling robotic or like the intentionally alien approach of Zappa's xenochrony. All of it fits together snugly. But, really, it all comes down to the performance, these musicians putting their hearts into what they're playing. That's what comes through. Sure, we know how a heart beats, but that doesn't explain the connection I feel when I hear someone else's.
ORM - Intet • Altet (Indisciplinarian)
I wrote a fittingly long blurb about the Danish black metal band ORM for the column. If you want the lowdown on some of the whos, whats, and whys, that's your write-up.
That said, the informal experiment I've been running these days is finding out what happens when I follow those blurbs up. Does anything change? Do albums get better? Worse? When I document albums for the first time, I try hard to provide a 360-degree view and an approximation of my feelings that will hopefully have a long shelf life. But music isn't inert. It grows and evolves with you. And now that I'm writing about these albums two, and sometimes three, times, I get to track that evolution.
A month or so on from my initial exposure to ORM's Intet • Altet, I can tell you that the experience has gotten richer. It's like reading a novel for the second time and noticing all of the clever stuff that supported the plot, the tinier gears that move the bigger gears. To that end, subsequent listens have taught me to focus less on the ripping black metal, those blasts with the gale-force tempo of mountaintop Cascadian winds. Instead, my attention is now drawn to the meditative material in between, particularly "Trance / Floden, som kan lede," which I think is my favorite track on the album. It has that betwixt-chugs death/doom elegance, just if those death/doom quiet passages were handled by a band featuring Cult of Luna and Textures members. It's not only an excellent chill-out respite but a great song itself. I've been reaching for it while I work. As the leaves turn and the air grows colder, I recommend it.
Anyway, I'll probably write more about ORM in a Booster. Not sure YLFL subs are here for metal.3 But, hey, it has been fun tracking my progress. I shouldn't need an excuse to dive back into this monster of an album again, but I'm not complaining.
Rome Streetz - Kiss the Ring (Griselda Records)
Rome Streetz has been around. Queens, Brooklyn, London. That's part of the name: fated to roam the streets. Prison stints delayed his career, although, as soon as you hear Kiss the Ring, it's incredible that anything was able to delay Rome Streetz. But that's the other part of the name. Rome Streetz's gritty, '90s NYC sound took time to catch on, for the circle to rotate back around. Now connected with the label Griselda and the rap genius/mastermind Westside Gunn, Rome Streetz has a home where his classic sound can prosper in the present even if some big city types still fail to recognize the revolution.
"So you got all these tastemakers from New York City that's talking about, 'Nobody raps like New York City,' making all these dumbass tweets," Rome Streetz said to Complex. "But then a person from Buffalo has to show y'all, a person from New York City, someone who y'all should have been knew. I don't even care about shit like that. It doesn't bother me, because life happens like that, and everybody is busy. You may not see everything, but once you do find out, you're going to be like, 'Damn, I missed out.' But that shit don't bother me."
At least I'm not missing out on Rome Streetz now. Kiss the Ring is rife with tracks that hit my personal hip-hop butterzone of Mobb Deep and Big L. And this isn't just a feeling being mined nostalgically. These songs go hard in 2022. Truly though, Rome Streetz's quality control would play in any era. In fact, that you can get a back-to-back of "Long Story Short," literally a noir-ish story track deftly told in two minutes, and "Serving," featuring fellow all-star Boldy James, in the final third of this album is one hell of a flex. That stuff would kick off most records. But Rome Streetz is so locked in that those songs can sit comfortably underneath a ton of similarly strong songs.
But I'm burying the lede. There's something here for you even if Griselda isn't your thing because Rome Streetz's rhymes are delightful. Check out this absurd run in "Fashion Rebel:"
I been wreckin' shit, even the deaf tryna hear my sounds
Flood the town, pitchin' like Gerrit Cole on the mound
I'm out for paper that won't fold and gold that weigh pounds
Been through hell, locked in a cell, jake doing shakedowns
Now I rip stages, see how quickly life change 'round?
The Black backstreet scholar with the soul of James Brown
It's hip-hop for people who love hip-hop. You know where to find it.
Yep, haha! Friends still aren't here! Haha! I know you're closing! HAHA!
Wait, you have a phone call for me? Really? I mean, I guess I'll take it?
Hello? Who is this? No, I'm fine. I don't think I pose a risk to myself. Why do you ask? Hold on.
I'm sorry, did you call a crisis line for me? What the heck. I'm fine. Really. I have friends. They're real, I promise.
What do you mean I've always been the caretaker? This is a Denny's, right? Wait, why do you have the Lament Configuration behind the counter? Ohhhhhhhhhh, goddamn it. How long have I been here? Three centuries? Sounds about right. Everything is starting to connect. Welp. Before you strip my skin off, do you wanna hear about Deepchord? Why did you wince?
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I don't think I'm wise or worldly enough to unpack any possible ethical implications, although I'll note that the Bandcamp page states that all "contributions made to this project will be spent in developing the Balinese Culture and Artists."
I've listened to gamelan for a long time, but I have yet to study it. And, I don't know, even tracking its influence on Western genres seems crass, decentering Javanese, Sudanese, and Balinese people from their music.
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