I Start Counting "Re-Fused (Mute Records)"
I Start Counting are David Baker and Simon Leonard. The duo formed in 1982 and signed to Mute in 1984. Their first singles, ‘Letters to a Friend’ and ‘Still Smiling’, were both produced by Daniel Miller and preceded two album releases, My Translucent Hands (1986) and Fused (1989). By the beginning of the 90s, Baker and Leonard had become Fortran 5, releasing three albums for the label, before reincarnating in 1996 as Komputer, the name they continue to record under.
These cassette releases collate a selection of demos of songs from 1985 and 1986 respectively, some of the songs have never been heard before, others went on to be recorded and released.
Thalia Zedek Band "Perfect Vision (Thrill Jockey)"
From Thrill Jockey:
Perfect Vision follows Thalia Zedek Band’s 2018 album Fighting Season, created in the midst of growing tensions across the U.S. On Fighting Season Zedek sought resistance, where on Perfect Vision Zedek searches for clarity during a time of exponential isolation and doubt. On “Binoculars,” she explores the difficulty of staying afloat, while overwhelmed by uncertainty of conflict and fear. Zedek’s simple and repetitive guitar line marches forward while longtime collaborator David Michael Curry’s viola swirls intensely around her. The pounding “Queasy” thunders and thrashes in the face of ignorance and intolerance while “Overblown” examines the strain of communicating across cavernous schisms. Every challenge and sadness Zedek forces us to see is met in equal measure by her defiant guitar and dissenting voice, a torch illuminating a path for the listener to navigate through the darkness.
Bruno Bavota "For Apartments: Songs & Loops (Temporary Residence Ltd.)"
From Temporary Residence:
In the early months of 2020, when the COVID-19 outbreak ravaged his home country of Italy, prolific composer Bruno Bavota did what we all would eventually do: isolated and waited. What followed was a year of fear, anxiety, and dread. Eventually, fear gave way to fatigue, and the anxiety metamorphosized into nervous energy. The compulsion to create became more powerful than the compression and weight. And so were born Apartment Songs and Apartment Loops. Representing two separate but intersecting paths of Bavota’s creative journey, Apartment Songs is a suite of sparse solo acoustic piano works, while Apartment Loops are expansive explorations for synthesizers and outboard effects processors. Though in theory the two sets should sound disconnected and unrelated – given their disparate creative approaches and instrumentation – it’s Bavota’s uncanny sense of melody and space that easily unites them as two halves of a singular vision.
