Genius 14.5 - February Scrap Heap

The first scrap heap of 2025! This month felt really light to me, but going through the scrap heap I'm finding all sorts of winners. There are some real gems in here!

I listened to a bunch of new releases, but lately I have been wading through the music that I downloaded over the past 20 years and never actually listened to. Journey with me through the calm waters of the scrap heap:

• Jazz (60s to last week)
  • More structured, classic jazz
  • More of a free approach
• Singer/songwriters
  • Rock & Folk
  • Electro experimentalists
• Electronic music
• Worldwide sounds from Brazil to Togo to Palestine to Yemen
• Loud stuff
  • Noise Rock from friends and enemies
  • Metal music
  • Post-punk & shoegaze

But first..

YouTube Classic

Gotta hire these guys for your next wedding (11 years ago). I've been learning the bassist's moves for my new band.

Scrap Heap

Jazz (structured)

Ambrose Akinmusire - honey from a winter stone (Nonesuch, Jan ‘25)

It’s not exactly my cup of tea, but a pretty interesting crossroads between jazz, classical, hip hop, and ambient. Akinmusire’s influence from Julius Eastman is apparent, the compositions are free-flowing, featuring a jazz quartet and a string quartet with a rapper. Blissfully (IMO) the strings & jazz don’t overlap much and instead act as counterbalances to each other.

Lee Morgan - Search for the New Land (Blue Note, 1964)

You know, I’ve listened to The Sidewinder a million times, but never really ventured into Morgan’s other albums. What a band he’s got for this cut! Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, and Grant Green all bring so much swag to these tracks. The sprawling opener title track touches on gospel jazz, the rest is just straight bop. Nice nice nice.

Austin Peralta - Endless Planets (Brainfeeder, 2011)

I'd never given a listen to the first jazz album released on Flying Lotus' Brainfeeder label. Some really nice playing from Peralta's almost-big band – kind of a mix of impressionistic post-bop (mid/late Coltrane or Wayne Shorter come to mind) and some more post-modern stuff (there's an "electronicist" in the sextet). The compositions are pretty interesting, including a nice 11/8 bassline in "Algiers" that caught my ear. RIP Peralta who died at 22, shortly after releasing this album.

John Scofield - A Go Go (Verve, 1998)

My guitar teacher recommended John Scofield to me when I was like 16 and I never checked it out. It sounds like music that a guitar teacher would recommend to a 16 year old student (positive).

Jazz (more open structures)

Pharaoh Sanders - Karma (Impulse!, 1969)

Spiritual in the realest sense. Jangling percussion, flutes. Sanders’ saxophone playing is as alive as anything. His jubilant yodeling is crazy, almost overpowering.

Exoterm - Exits Into A Corridor (Hubro, 2019)

Cool weirdo jazz release featuring an equal-parts Scandinavian and American quartet. Guitar wizard Nels Cline’s hyper-effected tones mix perfectly with Kristoffer Berre Alberts’ skronky saxophone. Held together by an equally cross-Atlantic rhythm section, the whole thing “just works.”

Michael Formanek, Tim Berne, Craig Taborn, Gerald Cleaver - The Rub and Spare Change (ECM, 2010)

Ok look.. I love my new home in Baltimore. I've got a lovely community here & I live around the corner from the city's most vital experimental music venue. But I'm still allowed to really miss walking down to the Lowlands dive bar every other Thursday to see Tim Berne and whoever he called & then pass the hat around DIY show style. If you're a jazz guy, you know all these players – if you're not, then just know that these are some of the best in the NYC scene right now.

Rock & Folk Songwriters

Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy - The Purple Bird (No Quarter, Jan ‘25)

A little more countrified than his earlier death-folk work. Songs flit from personal to political and his lyrics touch on everything in between. Amazing that B'P'B is till cranking out pretty good tunes 20 years later.

Shannon Wright - Reservoir Of Love (Vicious Circle, Feb '25)

Pretty cool record from a solo performer (Wright plays every instrument on this record other than the drums and strings – she is also the recording engineer). It's giving Angel Olsen does Nick Cave retrospective (both Birthday Party AND Bad Seeds). Some perfect distorted guitar tones on this album. Equal parts meditation and malice.

Tune-Yards - w h o k i l l (4AD, 2011)

Honestly, I feel dumb for simply writing this band off in 2011 because I thought they were cringe. They ARE cringe. But I listened to this record while driving across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge and I was completely Consumed By Thoughts. What better endorsement is there for listening? Fluttery loops, skronky sounds, self-harmonies, and the occasional 2011-Brooklyn-Hipster-Yikes-Moment. It was a different time!

Electro Experimental Songwriters

Ela Minus - DIA (Domino, Jan ‘25)

A good combo of melodrama, pop, electronic, noise. Some really bright and balanced compositions, and Minus’ voice and vocal processing is full of expression.

N Nao - Nouveau Langage (Mothland, Jan '25)

Tiny samples pop and scratch thru the Quebecois singer's sci-fi love songs. An ASMR dream of a little pop album – one that I plan to revisit more this year, especially this winter.

Fever Ray - Plunge (Mute, 2017)

I've been thinking "This country makes it hard to fuck" basically non-stop. I already loved The Knife, but for whatever reason, I never really checked out Karin Dreijer's solo material. It's similar! Squelchy FM synths, processed vocals, graphic anthems about fingering & getting fingered.

Electronic/Abstract

KALI Trio - The Playful Abstract (Ronin Rhythm, Feb '25)

I need to give this one more listens, but this has all the makings of a Genius Dot Com hit – interesting approach to composition, fluttery synths, skittery grooves, degraded harmonies. Has a kind of Tortoise through a prism vibe. Anyways, check out the list of instruments used on this release: Piano, Prepared Piano, Contact Microphones, Organelle, Electronics, Guitar/Effects, Drums, Rototoms, Tuned Percussion, Contact Microphones, E-Kalimba & Sub E-Kalimba, Electronics. Yeah.

David Grubbs - Whistle From Above (Drag City, Feb ‘25)

Been loving basically all of the David Grubbs that I come across. Clean guitars, ambient synths, field recordings. Musical and sculptural stuff here from the veteran experimental musician.

Gacha Bakradze - Pancakes (Lapsus, 2023)

This is the type of genre agnostic electronic music that I am a total sucker for. At times it flirts with video game music territory, but there's good propulsion to the compositions, which helps it from feeling like it's just stuck on a loop. Love to hear some big bold bass tones, washy FM stabs, wacky arpeggiators. Meditative, but with movement – honestly great for working (or writing monthly music blogs).

Worldwide

NO SILENCE: A Benefit Compilation for Radio alHara (Small Scale, 2024)

The perfect mix of jazz, ambient, Arabic folk music, spoken word for Radio alHara. Supremely affecting – there's a lot here, consider listening & purchasing to benefit Palestinian radio.

Vaudou Game - Fintou (Hot Casa, Jan ‘25)

Hot and crisp afrobeat from the Togolese Peter Solo & his band. At times production is a little too bright for my tastes (i prefer most mixes to sound more “live” than this), but it’s a good classic sound otherwise. The collab track w Clara Serra Lopez is a highlight.

Milton Nascimento & Lo Borges - Clube de Esquina (1972)

This album has so much lore that I couldn’t possibly write about it. Absolutely worth tracking down on Spotify/etc and listening to while reading about. A wild ode to friendship, from 2 Brazilian masters of form & their orchestra made up of street performers who came to their beach house to track this album. Kaleidoscopic and psychedelic, puzzling and affirming. Gotta hope that Tropicalia revival is in the cards for 2025.

Qat, Coffee, & Qambus: Raw '45s from Yemen (Dust To Digital, 2012)

Come on, you know you want to check this shit out. Don't play. Clanging percussion, insane string rhythms, beautiful singing. This is that real shit.

Noise Rock

Karp - Self-Titled LP (K, 1997)

Sick riffs, giant bass tone, big drum fills, screamed and shouted vocals. I’d somehow never checked out this punk-flavored band from Big Business frontman Jared Warren, but it’s got the right amount of edge to offset the head-bobbing grooviness.

Spares - Spares (Better Days Will Haunt You, Feb '25)

My buddy Gabriel is the vocalist for this band! Their debut EP is nasty noisy post-hardcore with all of the fixins: chiming bendy guitars, snarling and shouting, feedback, an unnerving quiet song. If you're into 2010s "The Wave" stuff or wonder what DLJ would sound like today, this has got your number.

Gloop - Tension (self-released, 2024)

Local noise rock freekz in Baltimore with riffs & good songs. Of course I'm spinning it!

Metal

Portal - Ion (Profound Lore, 2018)

Chaotic and dark death metal from the Australian anonymous group. Really just absolutely nasty riffs.

Vacuous - In His Blood (Relapse, Feb ‘25)

Goes pretty hard! Nice vocal delivery & god bless a death metal band that writes 2min songs.

Gridlink - Orphan (Hydrahead, 2011)

NJ Grind legends, nice to revisit this one for the first time in a decade. Blistering and evil.

Helmet - Meantime (Interscope, 1992)

I can't believe this band was signed to a major label, but I guess they were on Interscope at the same time as Drive Like Jehu and shit, so maybe some A&R guy there knew what he was doing. Definitely meathead music, but I had fun listening to this all the same.

Punk & adjacent

La Culpa - Cuando Amanece (Humo Internacional, 2023)

Very cool post-punk quartet from Spain. Vocalist Cohete has a perfectly impassioned delivery. Great energy and perfect use of multiple guitar tracks.

Cloakroom - Last Leg of the Human Table (Closed Casket, Feb '25)

What a great sweet & sour shoegaze album. Chuggy guitars, bubblegum vocals, the odd experimental track. I’ll be giving this one another spin.

Dead Moon - Strange Pray Tell (Tombstone, 1992)

You know I had never checked out Dead Moon, even the whole 3 years I lived in Portland? Pretty interesting, just as lofi as I expected, but less dark than I thought it would be. Kinda sounds like some of those early 70s punk rock records before there was dogma on what "punk" meant.

My Bloody Valentine - Isn't Anything (Creation, 1988)

Actually a really interesting document. The sound of a band that's on the cusp of something great and either doesn't quite know what they've got, or there's a recording engineer working who doesn't know how to lean into their strengths.