Dazzling January

Conventional wisdom says that decent music is rarely, if ever, released in January. We already knew The Boss was going to disrupt that assumption by dedicating his Jan. 27 release, Working on a Dream, to the incoming Obama administration. But was all the Obama fuss responsible for the sudden flurry of astonishing music releases in a bleak and broke January? Or was it music producers trying to get anything in the stores while consumers still had a few pennies left? In any event, the following releases are worth your time and attention:

Bruce Springsteen - Working on a Dream
Antony and the Johnsons - The Crying Light (Kazuo Ohno pictured above)
Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavillion
Bon Iver - Blood Bank EP
Andrew Bird - Noble Beast/Useless Creatures
Matt and Kim - Grand
Robert Pollard - The Crawling Distance
A.C. Newman - Get Guilty
Franz Ferdinand - Tonight
Jackie-O Motherfucker - The Blood of Life
The Shadow Ring - Life Review, 1993-2003
Astral Social Club - Plug Music Ramoon
Six Organs of Admittance - RTZ

I'm certainly not complaining, though my wallet is. Could indicate a bumper year for creative music.

Sunburned Hand of the Man and Gang Gang Dance in Denver

No, not together, nothing in Colorado could be that rational. Sunburned Hand of the Man was scheduled to make their first Colorado appearance at Hi-Dive Nov. 7, and I absolutely had to put highest priority on that. This is the first effort at touring since band member Adam Nodelman died. My only regret in capturing a few short clips (drum destruction above, along with this, this, this, this, and this) is that the lovely and talented Sarah O'Shea, playing electronics on an ironing board, is barely visible. Learned after I had gotten the ticket that Gang Gang Dance was making a return appearance at Larimer Lounge the same night. When the Sunburned show ended at 12:30, I raced over to Larimer and caught the last 30 minutes of Liz and the drum gods, including the clip of "House Jam" below.

What suddenly struck me last night is how much women have taken a crucial role in the experimental noise scene of late. A year ago, Craig M. got me the 4-CD Women Take Back the Noise collection, and since then I've watched women form their own collectives, like Leslie Keffer and Valerie Martino in Nashville, while women have taken lead roles in previously all-male avant-garde collectives: Bridget Hayden in Vibracathedral Orchestra and Telescopes, Inca Ore/Eva Saelens in Jackie-O Motherfucker, Michio in No-Neck Blues Band, and Sarah O'Shea in Sunburned. Personally, it seems that women are more innovative and precise in using noise than all those dorky men. I'm just glad the Tom Greenwoods and Dave Nusses of the world are willing to step into the background a bit, as women take back the noise.

In Praise of Inca Ore

There's been some fascinating debates on various blogs and listservs since September on the legitimacy of "primitivism" in improv music, and on whether people who appreciate improv/noise are inherently in a higher state of evolution than those who insist on musical structure. OK, I admit it, I've been tossing some well-meaning grenades at those who just don't grasp free-form improv. But isn't it deserved? Don't you get a little tired of 4/4 time?

The most interesting debate of late has been between the print magazine Rock-A-Rolla, and the online music review journal Tiny Mix Tapes, which recently reviewed the album Birds in the Bushes by Inca Ore and the Lemon Bear Orchestra. The reviewer ragged on a Rock-a-Rolla writer for calling Inca's work "absolute nonsense," and suggested you had to be a more highly evolved creature to grok what she was doing. Maybe this is harshly judgmental, but the TMT reviewer is right: if you don't understand what Inca Ore, a/k/a Eva Saelens, is doing, maybe you're just too stupid.

Inca, a native of mid-Michigan, was with several Portland bands before gravitating toward the Bay Area improv and noise scene courtesy of Yellow Swans. Her early stuff on Jyrk used a chanting voice to yield a musical version of Finnegan's Wake, particularly on A Knit of My Own Fibers and the expanded vinyl Brute Nature vs. Wild Magic. The reviewer battle this summer was over the merits of a strange and widely distributed CD she produced on the 5 Rue Christine label with a guy from Oakland named Lemon Bear. In the midst of chanting, jangling, and frightening sounds, she's toured with Jackie-O Motherfucker to give Tom's band a little more soul. Just in time for Christmas, Inca and Lemon Bear have teamed up with the Eureka, Calif. improv geniuses, Starving Weirdos, for a special jam CD-R. She's also done a duo CD-R with Tom Carter from Charalambides, called Rainbow Trout. Inca/Eva does not make "absolute nonsense." You either realize her name will be recognized in several decades, a la Terry Riley, Diamanda Galas, John Cage, or else you're stooooopid.