Elena Setein "Moonlit Reveries"
Multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Elena Setién uses her sweeping vocal range and delicate arrangements to create a universe where dream worlds converge with reality. Her compositions, grounded by her remarkable voice and her guitar or piano, ripple with textures and thoughtful details. Setién’s masterfully allegorical songs are both emotionally immediate and provoking. A musician’s musician, Setién has drawn collaborators from far and wide, from her improvisational duo Little Red Suitcase to more recent collaborations with Steve Gunn, Mary Lattimore, and fellow Basque musicians Xabier Erkizia and Grande Days. For Moonlit Reveries, a hallucinatory promenade of mood and rhythm, Setién is joined by renowned drummer/percussionist Glenn Kotche of Wilco.
At the core of Moonlit Reveries is the inspiration that Setién and Kotche found in one another. The two met while Kotche was touring Spain with Wilco, Kotche having been a fan of Setién’s 2022 album Unfamiliar Minds. Immediately the two started discussing collaboration which Setién began by using a series of unique drum patterns from Kotche’s “A Beat A Week” series as the basis for tracks like “Surfacing” and “Asking”. Kotche then sent in fresh drum takes for select pieces that embellished the frameworks set by Setién. Though not every piece features his drumming, his presence on the album invigorated Setién’s desire to delve further into rhythm as an avenue of expression, incorporating more Latin-influenced rhythmic architecture to her music than there previously has been. Says Setién, “Funnily enough, I, being a Spanish artist, sought inspiration in the rhythms of a Chicago drummer to reach something with a Latin feel to it. A somehow surrealistic way to get there.” The songs of Moonlit Reveries also make use of more guitar than Setién previously had ever explored, which Setién traces back to Steve Gunn introducing her to the music of Bridget St. John. “What fascinated me right from the beginning, was the calmness in her voice and her low register. Her music inspired me to try to write songs with a guitar rather than a keyboard: there’s more space for the voice and the sound qualities of both voice and guitar kind of melt into each other.”
Moonlit Reveries is an embrace of wonder, an ode to the alluring beauty, and glow of dream states. For Setién, dreams are to be appreciated, “I remember my dreams very often and they are part of my everyday life, as much as other everyday things.” The compositions are speckled with ethereal embellishments, from ghostly harpsichords to cavernous echoes to reverberating kalimba. Like the frosts of winter melting away, the darker textures of her previous albums give way to flashes of brightness. The twinkle of “Coloured Lizards” lilts with its delicate breeziness. Title track “Moonlit Reveries” revels in a playful mystique, Setién’s words carried by the wind across the night’s sky. For the gentle “Hard Heart” and the waltzing “Strange,” Setién kept things relatively unembellished, valuing the potency of their simplicity. “Mothers” captures the hopeful embrace of parenthood, letting go, and the cycle of life; it was written in the wake of Low’s Mimi Parker’s premature death. A mother and artist herself, Setién was deeply saddened by the loss while drawing strength from what Parker accomplished in her short time.
The winner of several Basque music awards, Elena Setién’s beautiful voice, creative arrangements, and both improvisational and compositional experience make for sophisticated songs with singular textural approaches. Her otherworldly sounds are perfectly complemented by Kotche’s light and agile syncopations throughout. Shading her parables with impressionistic hues, Elena Setién’s Moonlit Reveries is a touching embrace of the mysterious, a sparkling revelry of light dancing across a horizon, lifting the darkness from above.
Torres "What an Enormous Room"
From Merge Records:
What an enormous room is TORRES’ sixth studio album (her third with Merge). It was recorded in September and October 2022 at Stadium Heights Sound in Durham, North Carolina. It was engineered by Ryan Pickett, produced by Mackenzie Scott and Sarah Jaffe, mixed by TJ Allen in Bristol, UK, and mastered by Heba Kadry in NYC. The album contains 10 songs. Mackenzie wrote all of them. Sarah played bass guitar, synths, drums, organ, and piano. Mackenzie sang vocals, played guitar, bass, synths, organ, piano, and programmed drums. Additional synth bass, tambourine, and shakers were played by TJ Allen.
Eye Flys "Eye Flys"
From Thrill Jockey Records:
Expanding on their bludgeoning debut Tub of Lard, Eye Flys is lean and aggressive, fast and unforgiving. “Trepanation Summer”’s ferocious riffs bore directly into the skull, mimicking the crude pressure release of the ancient surgical process of the same name, Smith crying to “release the pressure” from within a wall of feedback. “Sleep Forever” throws down a thrashing, infernal groove, demolishing all in its path as Smith’s craggy guitar figures rise like toxic smoke from the devastation. “Draining Pus” revels in septic sludge, while “Bananarchy Zoo” manages to strip things down to an even more lean and incisive realization of the trio’s punishing sonic palette, in an exploration of Smith’s love/hate relationship with his Florida roots.
A wall of rippling noise and distortion run as connecting threads through the album, the band’s acerbic humor and raw emotion capturing the perspective and the frustration of the hardworking everyman. The band grapples with the repercussions of coping strategies with healthy skepticism and an eye on the gallows. Eye Flys offers a reassuring reminder that you haven’t gone mad and you’re not alone – that weird ‘n’ heavy music is still here as a respite from the madness of modern living and an outlet for righteous rage.
Konkolo Orchestra "Future Pasts"
Konkolo Orchestra is a Zürich/Switzerland based project initiated by multi-instrumentalist, producer and composer Alexis Malefakis. With strong jazzy afrobeat and highlife references, Konkolo Orchestra pays homage to musical innovators such as Fela Anikulapo Kuti, Tony Oladipo Allen, Ebo Taylor and many more.
This first album continues the warm, vibrant, percussive motif of the hugely popular “Blue G.” single of 2022. For those who like their music to inspire journey and movement, this album is the equivalent of gatecrashing a wedding party where even granny can get her groove on.
Malefakis is hardly rewriting the afrobeat textbook here, but his production charms the listener with a confident mastery of the genre. His compositions have a distinct personality and a tight structure, and are peppered with a talented array of guest vocalists: Nongoma (South Africa), Sir Frank Karikari (Ghana) and Kitio Batola (Congo); alongside Eric Owusu (Ghana) on percussion. The uplifting lyrics and joyful melodies are held together by a powerhouse horn section bearing all the swinging hallmarks of a highlife fanfare.
Hard to define the standout tracks when the entire oeuvre gels together so well as a festive fusion. Deeply funky and syncopated, Malefakis has produced a motivational winter warmer for both feet and spirit.