Author Archives: Joseph Neff

On September 30, Manifesto Records will reissue Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables, the debut album from iconic Bay Area punk outfit Dead Kennedys on vinyl and CD in a freshly remixed version courtesy of Grammy-winning producer Chris Lord-Alge. Setting aside the question of whether the record actually needed a remix (it didn’t), nothing abhorrent transpires as these 14 tracks (there are no extras) blaze forth; those who love and own the original mix should test drive before buying, but for those looking to get acquainted with this band through their first and best LP, this edition will serve that purpose just fine.

It’s no secret that Dead Kennedys’ vocalist Jello Biafra and his bandmates, guitarist East Bay Ray, bassist Klaus Fluoride, and drummer D.H. Peligro, have been at odds, and for a couple decades now, all due to the most banal of reasons. That is, money. Of course, I don’t have a dog in that fight, though this doesn’t mean I haven’t formulated opinions on the subject. It’s just that my viewpoint on this particular falling out isn’t pertinent to the matter at hand, which is, you know, the music.

So, when I say that this 2022 Mix of Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables exists for the most banal of reasons—that is, money, it’s not a dig at the band, but simply an observation, as money is the reason for the vast majority of remixed and remastered records (and quite a few straight reissues). And in turn, I can’t help but feel somewhat blasé about the existence of this new mix.

But on the other hand, Fresh Fruit isn’t just the best Dead Kennedys album, it’s my personal favorite. And yet, I hadn’t listened to it in a few years, so that I had to pull my vinyl copy off the shelf for a couple reacquainting spins prior to checking the new mix. The bottom line is that the input of Lord-Alge (a professed fan of the DKs) is far from egregious. He’s essentially just beefed up and subtly streamlined the record for the Epitaph Records generation.

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Following a self-titled debut in 2020, Sakurajima is the new full-length from Under the Reefs Orchestra, the Brussels-based power trio consisting of guitarist and main songwriter Clément Nourry, saxophonist Marti Melia, and drummer Jakob Warmenbol. While they emerged onto the scene with an approach that was decidedly post-rock, their latest radiates a raw toughness, deepened in no small part by Melia’s bass saxophone, that reinforces comparisons to Morphine, though the non-vocal nature of these ten tracks lends distinctiveness. The album’s out September 23 on vinyl, compact disc, and digital through Capitane Records.

Sakurajima’s opener “Heliodrome” effectively sets the scene, the group bursting forth with a sinewy groove, Warmenbol lithe but large on the cans power trio-style, Nourry exuding a hint of spacy surf in his slide work, and Melia’s tone so low and serrated that it more than slightly resembles an amplified cello or bass fiddle (his solo in the track is a highlight)

The sharp execution carries over into “Ants,” though the cut’s strong point isn’t really the playing (either singly or collectively) but the writing, which structurally harkens back to the era of classic instrumentals (without going overboard about it) and provides a good home for Nourry’s touches of twang. The title track follows, beginning with a little snaky spy-flick saxophone as a prelude to a particularly wicked psychedelic guitar outburst, with the sax and drums locking down a pattern and then riding it with gusto underneath.

“Galapagos” is comparatively laid back as it unwinds, but still grooving, as the cut strengthens those Morphine vibes a bit. But don’t misapprehend that the music has descended into mellowness, as there’s always a modicum of intensity in Under the Reef Orchestra’s attack, and subtly ratcheted up in the back end of “Galapagos” to appealing effect.

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Yara Asmar is a multi-instrumentalist, video artist, and puppeteer who currently lives in Beirut with her house cat Mushroom. Just 25 years old, her debut release offers an uncommonly rich blend of experimentation, field recordings, and ambient sensibilities across seven tracks. Recorded in her place of residence via mobile phone and cassette, the aptly titled Home Recordings 2018–2021 is also appropriately issued on tape, with chosen format nicely echoing the method of conception, and it’s available in an edition of 200, so don’t dawdle in procuring a copy. It’s released through Hive Mind Records, one of the most reliably interesting labels on the contemporary scene.

Yara Asmar provides a concise bit of biography and then lets the music do the talking, which is much appreciated. But neither is she calculatedly mysterious; in the rundown of the instruments played on Home Recordings 2018–2021, it’s mentioned that the accordion used on the set belonged to her grandmother, and that it was found in the attic of her grandparents’ home in Lebanon (and so, a pertinent tidbit of further background).

Asmar also plays piano (both standard and toy models), metallophone, glockenspiel, synthesizer, toys, and music boxes, and in the tape’s fascinating second track, “Sleeping in Church – Tape 1 – On a Warm Day I Turned to Tell You Something but There Was Nothing There,” she interweaves field recordings of hymns sung in Lebanon churches into the scheme, at one point manipulating them to surreal and ominous effect.

The cassette’s opener “It’s Always October on Sunday” is loose and at times sparse as it makes its introductions, but it’s never random, beginning with a combo of bold chimelike tones (the toy piano, the metallophone, those music boxes), elements further mingled with bits of percussive rattle (later, more directly rhythmic interjections), and sustained, resonating tones. The piece and others on the tape do suggest sound collage at times, a similarity aided by the use of field recordings, natch, but distinguished by the fact that Asmar plays everything else.

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Celebrating Colin Newman, born on this day in 1954. —Ed.

Most bands are fortunate to get in the ballpark of a single masterpiece during their existence, but from ’77-’79, and right out of the gate with their debut, Wire produced three in a row. In the process, they delivered a blueprint for minimalist art-punk (from which many have swiped but never bettered) while becoming one of the defining acts in the emerging genre of post-punk. 

As the final studio album before Wire’s first hiatus, 154 inevitably registers as a culmination. However, if the byproduct of chances taken, repetition disdained, and unsurprisingly, friction between band members, the album’s experimentation with and extension of rock and pop form ultimately transcends the tag of post-punk, with its contents remarkably cohesive and betraying no signs of strain from creative differences.

For an outfit who stated they’d quit because of a dearth of new ideas, 154 is loaded with them. If it’s a taste of the band at the end of their tether that you desire, then the live recording Document and Eyewitness, revised and expanded in 2014, is the release to check out; fascinatingly flawed but in this writer’s view somewhat underrated, it stands as the true end of Wire’s first period.

But don’t let’s lose track of the subject at hand. 154 easily extends the brilliance established on Wire’s prior releases by unveiling another major spurt in development, though the sheer intensity of invention did them few favors. The reality of all this rapid-fire progress? Wire was simply moving too fast to cultivate their listenership, and by extension, disappointment from their label EMI was certain. Furthermore, as their sound was at odds with the general trend toward post-punk refinement (e.g. New Romanticism), the response from critics could often be indifferent, perplexed, or even hostile.

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Prior to his death in 1988, the noted Native American guitarist Jesse Ed Davis played on records by numerous big names, including Bob Dylan, Leon Russell, Taj Mahal, John Lennon, Ringo Starr, and Harry Nilsson. If you’ve heard the guitar solo in Jackson Browne’s “Doctor, My Eyes,” well, that’s him. But not so well known are Davis’ own records, which is weird, as his 1971 debut for Atco, ¡Jesse Davis!, features guests Russell, Gram Parsons, and Eric Clapton, amongst others. It’s a solid affair that’ll be a welcome addition to any shelf of sharp and rootsy early ’70s sounds, as it’s just been given its first time vinyl reissue in the USA, on forest green wax, by the Real Gone organization.

Listening with fresh ears in 2022, ¡Jesse Davis! fits into the early 1970s Atco Records scheme pretty damn snuggly, a tight fit that derives in large part from the judiciously applied guests; in addition to those named above, Davis’ debut pulled in contributions from singer Merry Clayton (The Rolling Stones’ “Gimme Shelter,” Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama”), bassist Billy Rich (Paul Butterfield, Taj Mahal), drummer Alan White (Plastic Ono Band, Yes), and keyboardists Ben Sidran (Steve Miller Band, dozens of sessions, his own stuff), and John Simon (The Band, Big Brother & The Holding Company).

Rather than merely attempting to increase sales by flaunting the names Clapton and Russell, Atco’s intent seemed to be aligned with making the best record possible (along with some clear mutual backscratching). Other examples from the label include a handful from Delaney & Bonnie (albums that offer some insane credits lists) and Dr. John’s The Sun, Moon & Herbs, which is notable, as a couple moments on ¡Jesse Davis! are reminiscent of the Night Tripper, the set’s opener “Reno Street Incident” in particular.

The song’s a bit like Dr. John fronting The Band in a Meters frame of mind, and “Tulsa County” (an oft-covered song by Pamela Polland) retains a bit of that aura, while upping the rock and reducing the funk. Speaking of rocking, “Washita Love Child” is where Clapton and the backing singers come in, and setting aside my antipathy for ol’ Slow Hand today, his solo here is a burner even as it stands on the precipice of showboating.

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Reggae vet Horace Andy is having one hell of a year, as Midnight Rockers, his rather spiff set recorded in collaboration with Adrian Sherwood, was released earlier in 2022. Now, with little delay, On-U Sound delivers Midnight Scorchers, a beautifully bent sound system expansion of the earlier album, and it’s a rhythm-infused echo-drenched doozy of a LP, featuring some brand spankin’ new tracks, guest toasters, and the expected deep dub instrumental versions. It’s out September 16 on vinyl (black or transparent orange), six-panel digipak CD, and digital.

Midnight Rockers is as effective a comeback album as I’ve heard in a while, though it’s not like Horace Andy had been fouling up his discography with a stream of crummy releases. His continued work with Massive Attack had made it clear that he was still a skilled singer; it’s more that he just hadn’t put together an album that felt truly vital for a good while.

Andy’s 2004 collaboration with Mad Professor, From the Roots, was a pretty solid affair, and the same can be said for his 2007 team up with Sly & Robbie, Livin’ It Up. Again, nothing I heard that was released between Livin’ It Up and Midnight Rockers stank up the joint exactly, but neither did any of it prompt repeated listens.

Midnight Rockers establishes a fresh dip into the collaborative well, documenting Andy’s first studio encounter with UK producer Adrian Sherwood, with the results far exceeding expectations, in part because Andy is in such fine, inspired voice. Midnight Rockers is indisputably Andy’s album, but contrasting, Midnight Scorchers puts Sherwood squarely in the driver’s seat, although Andy’s presence is still very much felt.

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No musician better fits the descriptor “beyond category” than Herman Poole Blount, aka the late, great Sun Ra. Indeed, those simply assessing him as one stone mug in free jazz’s Mt. Rushmore have clearly not listened to much of the man’s stuff. The Futuristic Sounds of Sun Ra, originally released in 1962 on the Savoy label, is recognizably a jazz record, but it’s only tangentially freeform. And yet, it’s consistently exploratory as it blends edgy, advanced post-bop with aspects familiar to the Exotica genre. On September 16, Craft Recordings does the world a considerable solid, giving the record a fresh reissue on 180 gram vinyl, CD and digital.

Upon release, The Futuristic Sounds of Sun Ra, the pianist-composer-bandleader’s fourth LP and first to be cut outside of Chicago, didn’t exactly make a big splash, even with the ostensible muscle of a long-extant record label behind it; the prior two Sun Ra albums, 1959’s Jazz in Silhouette and ’57’s Super-Sonic Jazz, were self-released micro-editions on Sun Ra’s now legendary imprint El Saturn, and his debut, also from ’57, Jazz by Sun Ra (aka Sun Song, the title Delmark gave it for reissue) was put out by Transition, the label of Tom Wilson, who happens to be the producer of The Futuristic Sounds of Sun Ra.

If it can be properly said that Sun Ra ever made a big splash on the scene, it was probably through the two The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra volumes ESP-Disk issued in ’65, mainly because they aligned the artist and Arkestra with a “bohemian” audience in the years between Beat’s winddown and the Hippie explosion. But still; nearly five years elapsed before Sun Ra made the cover of Rolling Stone, so it’s probably more accurate to say the man and his band just indefatigably plugged away incrementally, until they were eventually firmly ensconced into the landscape of 20th century subterranean artmaking.

Folks who come to The Futuristic Sounds of Sun Ra having only heard a few of the Arkestra’s wilder dives into abstraction can be struck by the general lack of mayhem (“The Beginning” is this album’s main exception), and by extension, drawn conclusions often define the music here as embryonic. I disagree with these assessments while acknowledging that the set’s 11 “miniatures” (to borrow a description of the tunes from liner essayist Ben Young) present a distinct and much more accessible approach than what’s on later records like the two Solar Myth Approach volumes and Concert for the Comet Kohoutek.

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Saxophonist Patrick Shiroishi, bassist Luke Stewart, trumpeter Chris Williams, guitarist Jessica Ackerley, and drummer Jason Nazary comprise the avant-jazz/ improv/ experimental ensemble SSWAN, with their debut Invisibility is an Unnatural Disaster available now on black vinyl (first pressing of 400 copies), digipak CD (first pressing of 500 copies), and digital through 577 Records. Fiery and abstract in its explorations, the album’s three pieces are also cohesive in their interplay. SSWAN can kick up an impressive racket, but there are also passages of considerable beauty. Freedom rarely sounds better than this.

To hopefully communicate the brilliance of SSWAN, three of the five participants landed on my list of 2021’s best new releases found on this very website. That’s Jessica Ackerley with Friendship: Lucid Shared Dreams and Time Travel, her striking duo record with multi-horn man Daniel Carter, Patrick Shiroishi with his massive solo effort Hidemi, and Luke Stewart as part of Open the Gates by Irreversible Entanglements.

The CD Numbers Maker by Desertion Trio, an outfit that includes Jason Nazary, was a candidate for inclusion on said best list as well, and San Soleil, a cassette by the duo of Chris Williams and Shiroishi, would’ve been a serious contender had I actually heard it last year instead of only recently in preparation for this review. San Soleil is loaded with closely recorded splatter skronk and hovering extended tones made even more varied by the use of multiple horns. The set also served as my introduction to Williams and worked as a proper prologue to the three pieces that comprise Invisibility.

For it is easy to speculate that the familiarity of SSWAN’s participants adds to the record’s power. In addition to Sans Soleil, Shiroishi is heard on the lathe cut LP Live by the Chris Williams Quintet, which was mixed by Nazary. Shiroishi and Ackerley also have Extremities, a cassette of often wonderful sonic mayhem and brutality from 2020 that notably documents the first-time meeting of the pair, and another tape, Across Water, that was issued just a couple months ago.

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Remembering Sonny Rollins, born on this day in 1930. —Ed.

Sonny Rollins’ name met the marquee of The Village Vanguard in the fall of 1957, and by November 3rd the saxophonist had honed his group to basic rudiments and figured out exactly what he wanted to do. With drummers Elvin Jones and Pete La Roca and bassists Wilbur Ware and Donald Bailey, he delivered one of jazz’s core documents, the undyingly superlative A Night at the Village Vanguard.

According to Leonard Feather’s liner notes for the original 6-track LP documentation of Sonny Rollins’ ’57 Vanguard stand, the saxophonist first hit the stage for a week with a quintet including trumpet and piano. Not happy with the results, he ditched the other horn and grabbed a new rhythm section for week two. Dissatisfied with the quartet lineup as well, Rollins then decided upon a sax-bass-drums trio. And that’s what we hear on the still startling A Night at the Village Vanguard. If Rollins’ rapid-fire retooling seems odd for a concert engagement, understand that he was basically using the bandstand as a live laboratory, experimenting loosely and approachably for proprietor Max Gordon’s hip urban clientele.

Though the Vanguard opened its doors in 1935, based on Feather’s notes, through the ‘40s and well into the next decade most live jazz had moved uptown, and Gordon’s club had then only recently underwent a substantial return to its now legendary intersection of serious jazz and bohemia. In attempting to steer his joint back in the direction of the cutting edge, Gordon casually inviting Rollins to spontaneously create in his spot was an extremely bright maneuver.

For at this point in his career Sonny Rollins was at an early peak. Frankly, the previous sentence is understating the case almost criminally; from ’56-’58 he cut 17 LPs as a leader, and by my count (and I’m far from alone in this arithmetic) at least ten of those recordings are classics. The performances corralled on A Night at the Village Vanguard arrived in the midst of all that activity, and the vinyl configuration’s slim but thoughtful annotation of the significant invention presented by these group’s (there are two, each with individual characteristics) remains an absolute masterpiece.

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Led by Hammond organ wizard Adam Scone, Scone Cash Players offer a blend of soulful grooves and sophistication on their newest platter, Brooklyn to Brooklin, with the record’s title drawing a connection between the borough in NYC and the neighborhood in São Paulo, Brazil. That should be a tip off to the nature of the record’s sounds, and yet there’s plenty of impressive range on display, along with sharp playing and, in a sweet twist, choir singing. The album is out on vinyl and digital September 9 through Daptone Records.

Falling securely onto the soulful-groove side of the organ-led ensemble spectrum, and with a tendency toward finesse, Scone Cash Players establish a tight fit with the Daptone ethos, as organist Adam Scone, noted member of The Sugarman 3, an outfit that could really bring the heat and grease, has played no small role as instrumentalist in the label’s output

Brooklyn to Brooklin is Scone Cash Players fourth full-length, following As the Screw Turns (2019), Blast Furnace! (’18), and The Mind Blower (’08), as a half dozen singles have been released, all of them two-siders on wax. For their latest, they tap into a steady current of good-vibes with relish. And while the Brazilian connection is heard loud and clear at numerous times, opener “Cold 40s” has an elevated swagger in the horn section that beings Philadelphia in the 1970s to mind, and with a smidge of grandness that suggests Isaac Hayes in his solo prime.

With a title like “Cold 40s,” one might suppose Brooklyn to Brooklin is comprised of total burners. And while “In Our Hands” does kick off ample sparks, the set is far more varied than that. Hell, “In Our Hands” displays a considerable diversity, e.g. its choral chant of the title and the horn section playing obvious charts rather than just vamping.

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Air Waves is the musical handle of singer-songwriter and guitarist Nicole Schneit, with The Dance their latest effort and first for Fire Records after a pair for Western Vinyl and prior output stretching back to the mid-’00s. Experienced Schneit is, and it shows in their songs, which are catchy and smart and very much of the moment in the best way possible. They also welcome a handful of guests, including Cass Mccombs, Frankie Cosmos, and Lispector, contributions that strengthen the contents rather than just calling attention to themselves. The record is out on vinyl, compact disc, and digital September 9.

The Dance offers a few immediate grabbers, some growers, and with the unperturbed mid-tempo pop-rock glide of “The Roof,” a welcoming doorway in, as Schneit’s singing deepens the atmosphere, their delivery laid back but far from listless. With the arrival of backing vocal harmonies in the song’s back end, alongside a super slow fade out, the tune gathers an unexpected power, contemporarily lush but with a classic pop sensibility lingering underneath.

The title track is in no hurry either, blending guitars with sheen that’s decidedly synth-pop-esque, but without being overbearing about it. There are backing vocals here, too, but they inject a subtle (and brief) neo-’50s touch. On the previous Air Waves album Warrior, released back in 2018, I was reminded a bit of Aimee Mann in her ‘Til Tuesday beginnings, and this (admittedly mild) similarity persists here.

That’s just fine. So is “Star Earring,” which ups the pace a little bit while retaining a synth-poppy execution, an aura that just might trigger a quick smile from Stephin Merritt, but with the guitar still in the equation. This blend of Schneit’s strings, minimal programmed rhythms, and additional infusions of tech, frequently hinting at new wave (as said, ‘Til Tuesday), but without getting retro about it, works well for Air Waves, particularly in “Alien.”

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Living in Whitetop in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, Martha Spencer is a singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, dancer, and with Wonderland, a deft collaborator. Combining traditional songs and her own compositions with no fluctuations in quality, those 16 selections are stylistically wide-ranging and yet focused, powerful yet inviting, and with the playing and singing sharp throughout. Additionally, there’s a consistent ease in execution that never gets too laid back, or too smooth, or too florid. Issued on double vinyl and compact disc, it’s a fine sophomore effort, out September 2 through Martha Spencer Music.

Martha Spencer opens Wonderland with an abundance of verve, singing in the title track like a honky-tonk gal that got hooked into cutting singles for Decca in the early ’60s, but without a trace of the middle-of-the-road-isms that big time labels saddled upon country singers back in the day; instead of syrup, there’s the spoons of Abby Roach, Joel Selvin’s robust fiddle, just a hint of Eddy-esque twang at the start, and a “boop-a-doop-a-doop” from Spencer that establishes the sense of fun in her approach.

But with Spencer’s crisp banjo plucking and warm harmonies, “Rags to Riches” quickly highlights the artist’s serious side, though don’t misapprehend that she’s dour. It’s a seriousness directly related to a background in traditional Appalachian music, as Spencer is part of the family-based Whitetop Mountain Band, amongst other outfits and projects.

That trad foundation is reflected in the sturdy string bass and chiming mandolin in “Bank of New River,” and in the guest vocals of Luke Bell in that track and Alice Gerrard in the following cut, the up-tempo “Come Home Virginia Rose.” Interestingly, every tack on the record thus far is a Spencer original, with her first foray into cover interpretation not a piece from the public domain (those will arrive on Wonderland soon enough) but Lee Hazlewood’s “Summer Wine,” with the rough depth of Kyle Dean Smith’s resonating cords so much like Hazlewood that it’s uncanny.

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David Blue had an eventful if largely under the radar career as a singer-songwriter and actor; most people likely know him, or better said, know of his achievements, through the composition “Outlaw Man,” which was recorded by the Eagles. Starting in 1966, he cut a string of albums, and for a while, each one was more interesting than its predecessor, a climb in quality that apexed with Stories, his 1971 set for Asylum Records, an LP as worthwhile as its sales were poor. On September 2, the Eremite label detours from their avant-jazz norm with a well-deserved reissue on 120 gram vinyl in a retro flipback jacket and with an insert featuring Leonard Cohen’s 1982 eulogy for the man.

Born Stuart David Cohen in 1941, David Blue died of a heart attack in 1982 while jogging in Central Park. Although never himself a star, he ran in the circles of musical celebrity, befriending Joni Mitchell and Bob Dylan, with the latter association especially notable, as Blue’s self-titled 1966 debut for Elektra is very much a knock-off of Dylan’s budding folk-rock mode.

Far from a vapid hanger-on, later in his career Blue joined the Rolling Thunder Revue, with his participation landing him in Dylan’s sprawling and legendarily hard-to-see cinematic epic Renaldo and Clara, which briefly hit (a few) theaters in 1978 and hasn’t seen a legit release since. Blue’s appearance in Renaldo and Clara was essentially a documentary riff, but he was an actual actor in both Wim Wenders’ ’77 neo-noir The American Friend, and Neil Young’s harder to classify Human Highway, which was released in ’82, shortly after Blue’s death.

Returning to the discography, David Blue is a Dylan knock-off, but highly accomplished one, with a couple of gems in the category of imitative Bob-ishness (“So Easy She Goes By” and “I’d Like to Know”), but his 1968 follow-up These 23 Days in September was a more impressive affair in how it reinforced his acumen as songwriter and broadened the landscape of similarities, with a few moments reminiscent of Leonard Cohen (amid a lingering likeness to Dylan). His third LP and second of two for Reprise, Me, released in 1970 under the name S. David Cohen, branched out into country-folk territory.

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Remembering Alice Coltrane in advance of tomorrow’s birthdate.
—Ed.

The resurgence of interest and the increase in esteem for the work of Alice Coltrane is an unambiguously sweet thing, but it’s also not an especially new development, as her reputation’s been on the steady upswing for quite a while now. However, the first-time vinyl reissue of the pianist-organist-harpist-arranger’s 1972 LP Lord of Lords is a recent turn of events, and it sounds better than ever. Featuring bassist Charlie Haden, drummer Ben Riley, and a 25-piece orchestra, the record is the third in a trilogy that established Coltrane as a spiritually questing and musically trailblazing American original. 

For decades, the seven albums in a roughly five-year stretch that Alice Coltrane made for the Impulse label were essentially rated (by those with a favorable disposition to her work, anyway) as the crowning achievement of her recording career. Opinions unsurprisingly differed over which of her releases was the strongest, but it was almost certain the array of choices would derive from 1968-1972.

That is, until last year, with the arrival of World Spiritual Classics Volume I: The Ecstatic Music of Alice Coltrane Turiyasangitananda, a collection of recordings she made in the ’80s after leaving the commercial biz and establishing the Sai Anantam Ashram. Initially distributed in small cassette runs to the members of her spiritual community, Luaka Bop’s collection is a revelatory hour of material that while not usurping the primacy of her Impulse period in my personal esteem, does stand head and shoulders with it in terms of quality and sui generis verve.

Such was the fervent response to World Spiritual Classics I that no doubt many disagree and consider it to be Coltrane’s finest work. And who knows, maybe in a year or five I’ll be swayed into concurring with that line of thought. I say this not as a platitude but as a preface to relating how my esteem for Lord of Lords has grown since I evaluated it as worthwhile and occasionally superb but, in the end, a little lesser than 1971’s Universal Consciousness.

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With his new self-titled record, Chicagoan Eli Winter has shepherded into existence a beautiful and powerful collection of instrumentals, as the immensely talented guitarist and composer effectively cedes the spotlight to a prodigiously skilled ensemble that includes Cameron Knowler, Ryley Walker, Jordan Reyes, David Grubbs, and jaimie branch (RIP). An LP of broad, captivating intensity, it is Winter’s first for Three Lobed Recordings, out now on 140 gram vinyl and digital.

Eli Winter covers a lot of territory without ever losing focus. It’s cohesive, connecting as a legit album statement instead of a bunch of random pieces assembled in a manner to approximate the same. By the end it really felt like I’d been taken somewhere, and for a set of instrumentals, that’s particularly impressive.

Winter’s debut The Time to Come, released in 2019 on cassette by Blue Hole Recordings and on vinyl the following year by the label Worried Songs, was a solo recording, as was the nearly 23-minute “Either I Would Become Ash” and closing track “Dark Light” from his second album, 2020’s Unbecoming. However, Winter’s discography is also loaded with collaborations, as “Maroon” from Unbecoming featured him leading a band for the first time.

Subsequently, he’s heard on duo sets with pedal steel guitarist Sam Wagster (Live at the Hideout September 24th, 2019, 2020, Dear Life Records), guitarist Cameron Knowler (VXVW, 2021 and Anticipation, 2021, both American Dreams Records) and multi-instrumentalist Jordan Reyes (Controlled Burning, 2022, Husky Pants Records).

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