Savak "Flavors of Paradise"
Flavors Of Paradise. Freaky Orange Parka. Fun-loving Octogenarian Pickleballers. The 6th album by Brooklyn’s post-punk stalwarts SAVAK, Flavors Of Paradise, was recorded in Chicago at Steve Albini’s Electrical Audio studio without Steve Albini. For a band that has toured Europe five times and never set foot in California, recording 12 songs in 3 days was a breeze across the Danube. The band hunkered down, jammed out ideas in 2 marathon sessions, played a couple of shows to test drive the new material and then got to work with Matthew Barnhart (Superchunk, Bob Mould). No guests, no edits, no country and definitely no funk—the record is lean, spacious and lively.
Noisey/VICE wrote that SAVAK makes “a potent and pointed agitpop racket which manages to balance the dark and moody with the catchy as fuck.” UK’s Louder noted the group’s “endlessly astute observations on the modern world.” And Mojo magazine highlighted their “superior twin-guitar slash action.” So what does that get you? Well, there are recognizable touchstones across electric guitar-based music from the 60s to today. The jagged stabs of The Fall are tempered by harmonies you might hear in a Flamin’ Groovies tune. A nod to The 13th Floor Elevators is purposefully undercut with a riff that’d make Wilko Johnson proud. You can pull out details that wouldn’t be out of place in songs by Royal Headache, Stereolab, NoMeansNo, Feelies, Stooges, Kinks, Mission of Burma, etc. If the guitar can do it, SAVAK is willing to find a way to use it.
After 5 LPs, an EP, a handful of 7”s, and a couple of split releases, SAVAK still has plenty to say. They comfortably take on marriage, espionage, self-reflection, credit (or lack of), sympathy, absurdity, vulnerability, polarization, dogs . . . dogs? Yes. Sure, it’s probably a metaphor, but—woof woof SAVAK is equally comfortable at the dog park as they are browsing the local used bookstore.
What’s your flavor? Press play and find out.
SAVAK was formed in 2015 by Sohrab Habibion (Obits, Edsel) and Michael Jaworski (The Cops, Virgin Islands), who play guitars and trade off singing songs, along with drummer Matt Schulz (Holy Fuck, Enon). The live band features Jeff Gensterblum (Small Brown Bike, Her Heads On Fire) on drums and bassist Matt Hunter (New Radiant Storm King, Silver Jews).
Ben Frost "Scope Neglect"
Ben Frost presents his first studio album in six years, Scope Neglect, via Mute. Available January 11th on limited edition white vinyl, followed by black vinyl, CD, and digital formats on March 1st.
In the sonic crucible of Ben Frost’s Scope Neglect, music undergoes a metamorphic alchemy. From the album’s opening seconds, the familiar aural chemistry of metal is immediately untethered, isolated in the vacuum, stripped of its cultural trappings and heavy armory, and loaded into a particle accelerator.
Where Scope Neglect leans sonically into metal – fuelled by progressive metal outfit Car Bomb’s guitarist Greg Kubacki and bassist Liam Andrews of fellow Australians My Disco – its true form seems to draw more upon the transcendental reveries of the West Coast minimalists. What at first appears confrontational, and ephemeral, is meditatively and methodically unfolded through time, revealing crystalline vulnerabilities.
Frost’s titles weave narratives of cycling, perpetual attempts at ignition, math, and mythology; ‘Tritium Bath’, ‘Lamb Shift’, ‘Chimera’… The slow burn of ‘Unreal in the Eyes of the Dead’ channels the disorienting writings of author W.G Sebald, whose own work often gives the impression of being only the faint, flickering shadow of its actual referent.
Similarly, this genre-defying music seems to feed on an unseen dark matter. Detached from their native surroundings, guitar shapes roar through negative spaces whose dimension is only revealed through the shadows cast upon them. What remains is the outer scaffolding of structures long since dismantled, and which we can no longer see. What Frost wants us to hear, in other words, is frequently not what he wants us to feel.
Scope Neglect is a deliberate opposition in terms; a dualistic game of obfuscation and obliteration, mechanics reconfigured and reengineered, old energies diverted and redirected, scope expanded, contracted and dissolved.
Mary Timony "Untame the Tiger"
Singer-songwriter and guitar hero Mary Timony new album, Untame the Tiger, marks her fifth solo album, her first in 15 years (and first for Merge). It’s a startling document of an artist fully coming into her own power during the fourth decade of her career, the product of lessons learned during life-altering struggle.
Lead single “Dominoes” is a cynical and funny description of a relationship not working out, and a reminder of the healing power of music. “This song was almost not on the record,” says Timony. “We needed one last song, and I found a demo of it I had forgotten about at the last minute.” Mixed by Dave Fridmann (MGMT, The Flaming Lips, Mercury Rev), “Dominoes” features album contributors David Christian (Karen O, Hospitality) on drums and album co-producer Dennis Kane on bass.
Persher "Sleep Well"
Persher, the duo of Arthur Cayzer (Pariah) and Jamie Roberts (Blawan), take the same subversive, boundaryless approach to extreme music that underpins their electronic explorations. The pair together run the influential Voam label, whose releases are as forwardthinking as they are eclectic. Their output as producers is always highly anticipated in the dance world, in part because of their affinity for expression beyond a trend – an independent streak that shares much in common with the philosophical ethos of punk, hardcore and extreme metal. Cayzer and Roberts started Persher as an opportunity to explore their shared love and extensive knowledge of heavy music. The duo’s debut release, the limited- edition Man With The Magic Soap CD thundered out of the gates as an astounding statement of intent – sidestepping underground orthodoxy with gleeful buzz-saw riffs and baleful howls enveloped in coruscating noise and texture, sounding like a bad trip at a basement show. Persher’s debut album Sleep Well manages to be even more ferocious and innovative, as direct and incisive as it is ingenious.
On Sleep Well, Cayzer and Roberts take a decidedly unconventional approach to writing, using the full potential of the studio in their exploration of extreme music. What sounds like a live band performance is more often than not an amalgam of many different sessions, the duo applying techniques from electronic music to heavier sonics. Recording in Roberts’ studio at Funkhaus, the home of the former East German state-owned radio station, Cayzer would improvise long takes on guitar and bass, contorted and mutated by Robert’s using his extensive modular setup to add weight and texture. This primordial ooze of raw sonics was then chopped up and reassembled into bristling hooks and corrosive atmospheres. The duo’s playful, exuberant approach to making music is palpable throughout Sleep Well – evident as much in the album’s absurdist themes and lyrics as its exhilarating sonics. “Medieval Soup From The Milkbar” references a particularly bad mid-studio session meal of gray, gruel-like soup, which seeps into the track’s noxious slurry and stomach churning riffs, while “Portable Aquarium” references a cup of herbal tea overflowing with foliage. The duo’s wry and often self-deprecating sense of humor allows them to find inspiration even in the most seemingly mundane of life’s events.
Persher’s Sleep Well provides a daring, revelatory expansion on heavy music’s myriad mutations. The duo use their production skills and wry humor to embrace the powerful release they find in extremes. Persher’s debut album exudes the sheer joy of making music unconstrained by genre-boundaries, as gleefully weird as it is visceral and primal.