"ALIEN HUNTERS DETECT MYSTERIOUS RADIO SIGNAL FROM NEARBY STAR"

No, this isn’t the headline from a recent Weekly World News cover story but instead a legit National Geographic headline posted online two days ago. The mysterious radio signal in question was detected by an organization called Breakthrough Listen, a project with $100 million in funding that’s taken on the task of monitoring over a million stars for radio or laser transmissions. The signal appears to originate from Proxima Centauri which is the star nearest to our very own sun and that happens to have two planets in its own orbit, one of which, known as Planet B, resembles Earth with its rocky surfaces, temperate environment, and extensive network of Wawa franchises (ok, I made that last part up). This transmission has been labelled BLC-1.

The band: Acetone 4. The band’s music: A bit mysterious, more than a bit mesmeric. The band’s identity: Even more mysterious. The music of Acetone 4 sounds like it’s been beamed to this planet from across the universe, and it’s my working hypothesis that this is in fact precisely the case. In other words, BLC-1 equals Acetone 4. A transmission from the satellite heart. A sad, sexy satellite heart. Acetone 4 have released two songs thus far alongside a couple photos posted on Instagram and Bandcamp: one ghostly, blown-out Polaroid of the band in humanoid form (see above) and one other spectral image. And that’s it. Otherwise there’s no names attached and no other information or explanation of any kind provided. So yes, this is obviously the work of extraterrestrials attempting to utilize our primitive social media to reach out to the cosmos. 

The first song to be shot out into the ether by Acetone 4 is called “Linden Hill.” This is a name of the neighborhood in Queens where the Proxima Centaurians clearly plan to set up their first base of operation. The track opens with the sound of an interstellar beacon sending out a scratchy, repeated distress signal. A few seconds later they wisely add a guitar melody to help keep the humans’ attention and next there’s some droney, pulsating synth and a thumping beat accompanied by a female voice simulator unit that appears to be singing in English, but the words are mostly indecipherable. All the while you can hear the Proxima Centaurians in the background working on emergency spacecraft repairs with little bleeps and bloops echoing into the vastness of space. This transmission was received on 17 August of this year and its proceeds benefit the Sex Workers Outreach Program of Brooklyn in solidarity with misunderstood and demonized "Others" across all dimensions.

The second and most recent transmission was received on 5 September 2020. The Proxima Centaurians are clearly beginning to get a better grasp of our modes of communication and psychological points of entry. The track "PSR" (mysterious acronyms!) kicks in straight away with a slinky beat that’s likely to prick up the ears of most homo sapiens and to lead many of them to look up some Internet porn. Then there’s some garbled alien communication not unlike the sounds of truckers on their CB radios to our human ears. Enter the female voice simulator unit again saying something along the lines of “Trying to pull together / reflect in a dream” followed by “call / response / no answer” which aptly summarizes our collective failure to establish contact. From here the voice unit repeats a sort of stressed-out mantra declaring “insomnia / no dreams” and it’s obvious the Proxima Centaurians are getting to better understand this planet and our current precarious situation. Whether this will all result in them wanting to help us out, or to get the hell out of Dodge, remains to be seen.

Here’s hoping that Acetone 4 reestablishes contact in 2021. It may be our only hope. (Jason Lee)

On this, the last day of Hanukkah aka Zose Hanukkah, consider this provocative hypothesis: Hip Hop and Hanukkah are brothers from another mother. For one thing, both are tied to numerology. Hanukkah lasts eight days and nights–the number eight being a “number of completion” that symbolizes the “metaphysical world” in Judaism. Cut that number in half and you’ve got the fabled “four elements” of Hip Hop: DJing, MCing, B-Boying, and Graffiti Art. Plus both Hip Hop and Hanukkah incorporate an extra number “to grow on.” During Hanukkah there’s the ninth candle in the middle of the menorah–called the shamash–used to light the other candles as the holiday progresses. And in Hip Hop there’s the well-known trope of the “fifth element” variously said to be knowledge, beatboxing, basketball, fashion, or some other something. 

Also, both celebrate the warrior spirit. The Jewish holiday honors the Maccabees, the rebel warriors who took control of Judea, while Hip Hop celebrates verbal warriors who brandish liquid swords in street cyphers or Verzuz battles, and DJs who battle each other in parks, playgrounds, and turntablist competitions. Zooming out another level, hip hop celebrates the warriors who battle socio-economic oppression and white supremacy. 

Finally, Hip Hop is sometimes described as the art of making “something from nothing," and likewise, Hanukkah celebrates the miracle of a paltry supply of lamp oil somehow lasting eight days inside the newly retaken Temple of Jerusalem. So you see, practically the same thing! Let’s go ahead and declare “Hip Hanukkah” the portmanteau of the day and get Lin-Manuel Miranda to write the musical.

Which brings us to the real subject of this piece and the inspiration for the chin-stroking thesis above: the Brooklynite rapper of Jewish-Ukrainian ancestry known as Your Old Droog, who yesterday released the Hanukkah-dedicated single seen at the top of this piece. For five years-plus YOD has been making waves in the hip hop underground, a favorite of heads who recognize his formidable skills and appreciate his verbal acrobatics, encyclopedic references (forget about consulting Genius since YOD had all his lyrics removed from the site), clever punchlines, and grimy ‘90s-style beats. Collaborations with the likes of Danny Brown and Heems have only cemented YOD’s reputation. 

Often compared to such upper echelon verbalists as Nas and MF Doom, YOD achieved early notoriety when he first started posting tracks on SoundCloud minus any additional social media presence or photos or personal info of any kind. This quickly led to rumors that YOD was actually Nas recording under a pseudonym. After positively IDing himself in a 2014 New Yorker profile and subsequently selling out a show at Webster Hall, it was revealed that he was actually a heretofore unknown white dude from Coney Island. Your Old Droog had seemingly come out of nowhere and created “something out of nothing” right out of the box.

But in reality more than just “some white dude” as his last two records have made clear–concept albums focused, respectively, on his Jewish heritage and Eastern European ethnic ancestry. On the first day of Hanukkah, late in 2019, YOD dropped Jewelry. The third full-length released in an insanely prolific year, the album opens with a track called “Shamash” (the ninth menorah candle referenced above!) that opens with the sound of a matchbook being struck which transitions into a hazy, dubby beat with incantations over the top that all sounds either highly spiritual or like someone coming down from a latke binging session. 

[[Editor’s note: A Jewish colleague informs us that this track "samples someone reciting the blessings that we say each night as we light the Chanukah candles." We advise caution to Deli readers looking to this publication for advice or instruction on religious practices of any kind. And now back to our regularly scheduled programming…]]

But soon you’re snapped back to lucidity with the track “Jew Tang” (Ain’t Nuthin’ to F*** With!) that with its buzzing, lumbering beat feels like nearly getting run over by a Mitzvah tank barreling down Eastern Parkway with (one time?) Hasidic reggae icon Matisyahu in the passenger seat. Here and elsewhere on the album YOD spits bars that slant-rhyme “Cash Rules…” with “Kashrut” (Jewish dietary standards!) and chrome mags with Cro-Mags (NYC hardcore legends!) and lots of other mind-expanding lyrical mashups besides. If there’s a better portrait of punk rockers and hip hoppers and multi-hued Brooklynites of all types existing together in all of NYC’s true grit and glory I’d like to hear it.

if there one thing you can surely say about Your Old Droog is that you’ll never find him “writing the same thing over and over / like Bart Simpson in detention"–a charge he levels against wack rappers in “The Greatest To Ever Do It”–since on every project he takes on a new direction. And the recently-released Dump YOD: Krutoy Edition is no exception as YOD code-switches between English and Russian (his first language) on tracks named after locales such as Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan. It’s a bold assertion coming from someone who’s been frequently misperceived in the past: “if you were my complexion and poor / they just thought you were Spanish.”

A sonic travelogue, Dump YOD is a trip in the truest sense with train whistles and barrel organs and mournful horns and hammered dulcimers and that’s all on the first couple of tracks. These sounds help to sketch the plight of a “legal alien” as described near the end of “Ukraine,” which opens with YOD thinking back on being “outsiders since day one / been there since way young / used to squirm in the seat / when teachers called out my name, son.” In an age of widespread Nativist zeal it’s a potent message for immigrants and children of immigrants–who are well aware that “the hardest thing to be is yourself.” (Jason Lee)

2020 has been a very bad year for a lot of things but not so for underground hip hop. Dig around in the digital mire for a while and you’ll probably come up with something pleasing. Case in point: last Friday night on Billy Jam’s “Put The Needle On The Record” radio show there was a track featured by the Buffalo-based duo of Cee Gee (he’s the DJ) and Genecist (he’s the rapper) that caught this blogger’s ear.

The track is called “I Got You” and it starts with a simple keyboard figure that’s soon backed up by a tight MPC-style beat but get this during the whole intro you also hear Miss Piggy, or a convincing facsimile, dropping ad libs over the beat. Enter Genecist with a laid-back strutting flow that locks in with the loping rhythmic underpinning–you can hear the groove in the lyrical refrain alone: “told ‘em yeah I got chu”–and meanwhile Miss Piggy is still doing her thing but then before too long Genecist does an about face and starts spitting rapid fire triplets while praising his fans and the scene and his own skills (duh) and God Up Above before easing back into the opening groove. Rinse and repeat.

Compelling enough stuff to check out both artists. Turns out that Cee Gee, aka Cee Gee Incorporated, stays true to the latter moniker by releasing a steady stream of beat tapes, solo work and collaborations. This is backed up by his most recent Facebook post at the time of writing (yes I’m a social media stalker what of it?) that boasts “14 Beats In 4 Hours!!!” so here is a man with a serious work ethic who also knows how to create some undeniably ‘90s-style beats alongside the overall stark, slightly off-kilter feel that if you’re into a certain Mr. Jay Dee you may be into this too. A few years back Cee Gee left computer-based beatmaking behind and acquired an Akai MPC so no wonder at the ‘90s vibe. For more of his flavor you can look up his collab with another Buffalonian, graphic artist and comic book creator Kevin Delgado aka Frigid Giant, together known as Green Giant.

Genecist likewise appears to be a busy guy lately. Known locally on the scene as a singer-rapper in 4 B-LO, a group specializing in sexytime R&B music, his solo work culminated in 2017’s <Genecist Project> collecting his output up to that point. After nearly retiring from the music-making game Genecist has come back strong with three new EP’s released this year and a fourth in the works (four EPs in one years sounds awfully familiar). The most recent two EPs, both released in October, are tag-team DJ & Producer collaborations: 20:20 with Roobxcube and Proverbz and Video Gamez with Cee Gee.

Before closing I’ve gotta mention at least one more track on the latter EP, the one directly before “I Got You” that’s called “Sega Genecist.” No doubt you get the pun but the duo take it next level, building the track over the chirpy game-intro music to the old school arcade classic Galaga. One could easily see this sample fitting perfectly into a chiptune song, but here Cee Gee and Genecist take the goofy-sounding tune (for which I have a great affection to be fair) and alchemize it with a heavy beat and with fleet rapping and even some nice vocal harmonies, all the while weaving in references to Tekken, Street Fighter, and Dragon Ball in the lyrics, and damn if it doesn’t make you wanna grab your joystick. It’s pretty mind-expanding stuff and I can’t help but notice that the two tracks discussed here and the one before it (“Follow the Leader” though not an Eric B. and Rakim cover) all clock in at precisely 4:20 in duration. Coincidence? You be the judge. (Jason Lee)

Octonomy is a Brooklyn-based sound artist whose work ranges from ambient-floating-in-the-clouds reveries (4•3•3•6) to glitchy-grimy-down-in-the-dirt noise sculptures (0) to vocal-based work combining ambient/noise elements with what I’m calling “interdimensional electropop” (Warhorse). It’s a heady mix that’ll get under your skin so head on over to the Elsewhere rooftop tonight via Twitch (note: the physical space is closed to the public for the winter) and get your mind and body right through the strange magic of electronically-generated sound waves and real-time virtual broadcasting. 

For a sneak preview you can check out the Octonomy live set below filmed in the halcyon days of the Summer of Covid. This performance was part of DJ Vox Sinistra’s weekly Strict Tempo series–likewise streaming on Twitch and still going strong–a showcase that originated at Seattle’s Mercury@Machinewerks late last year but which now features a cavalcade of DJs and live acts transmitting from locales across the globe every Thursday night starting at 7PST/10EST. Since the plague hit it’s been this writer’s weekly goto fix for electro-punk, coldwave/darkwave/minimal wave, cybergoth, acid and industrial, dark techno, synth pop and synthwave, EBM, and "all things cold, dark and wave-y" with due attention given to cool visuals and S&M-derived fashions.

In the meantime look out for new music coming soon from Octonomy on Faktor Records. And also on the Elsewhere bill you’ll get some bonus Khadija with proceeds going to the important work of the National Bail Out collective–a “Black-led and Black-centered collective” working to “end systems of pretrial detention and ultimately mass incarceration.”
(Jason Lee) (photo credit: Chthonic Streams)

Duo acts carry a certain mystique to this day. At all times just a single city bus mishap away from solodom, they’re like the two-piece-chicken meal deals of rock ‘n’ roll (sure it’s a meal but it’s sure to be on the value menu). Rock ‘n’ roll duo acts tend to adhere to a certain minimalist aesthetic by design but often follow a brutalist aesthetic as well by showcasing BIG drums and BIG guitars–the “value” part of the meal–or even BIG keyboards like in Quasi or Matt & Kim to take two very different examples. And also if you’re brave enough to play in such a stripped down format you’d better have some BIG hooks and BIG stompin’ and rockin’ rhythms to keep your listeners engaged–we’re talking about the special herbs and spices here.

The group that’s most often credited with pioneering the two-piece "rock ‘n’ roll value meal" format–by the way there’s a guy whose name rhymes with “Frack Site” who cites them as a major influence–is a little group called the Flat Duo Jets. On the band’s 1985 demo cassette (In Stereo) and 1990 self-titled debut album, Dexter Romweber (guitar/vox) and Chris “Crow” Smith (drums) kick up a cloud of Southern-fried psychobilly psychosis that’s hard to resist or serve with a cease and desist.

And now to the subject at hand, Shadow Monster is a two-piece rock combo from Bushwick, Brooklyn that’s taken up this baton of late and they wield it admirably. Unlike a number of high profile acts in Musical Duos-ville who spice up their sound with programmed drums and sequenced keyboard parts (we love ya Ravonettes, Kills, et al.) Shadow Monster do without these musical equivalents of coleslaw and curly fries. No side dishes, here’s your chicken and biscuit thank you and come again!

With a sound that recalls classic mid-90’s shiz–not the Jonah Hill flick tho’ that was cool, I’m talking stuff like Juliana Hatfield’s Only Everything or Sebadoh’s Bakesale–Shadow Monster relies less on overwhelming force and more on well-constructed tunes and songwriting. For instance their 2019 album Punching Bag opens with a hook-laden eponymous song that’s a swaying mid-tempo jammer about “rolling with the punches” and the masochism implied by the phrase that builds to a climax with Gillian Visco’s vox and guitar spinning into the ether with the support of John Swanson’s gallivanting drum fills.

Next comes a more upbeat number called “Temporary Love” that starts with some quick-strummed acoustic guitar but which turns out to be one of those it-sounds-happy-but-it’s-about-darkness-and-doubt-and-romantic-dysfunction songs which is always a good combo. Over the full course of the seven songs on the rekkid you continue to get a decent range of moods and styles but with some consistent lyrical themes such as (according to their official bio) “themes of loss, depression, and isolation.” Hey, I feel seen! No surprise then that track six titled “Lovegun” isn’t a Kiss cover. But it should be obvious anyway–for one thing the title’s written as one word and also it’s not about Paul Stanley’s c*ck. But instead it’s more of a wistful lighter-waving song which it’s always good to have one of those and so it’s more like their "Beth" except the drummer doesn’t sing this one.

Shadow Monster perform live tonight at beloved BK hot spot Our Wicked Lady meaning they have portable heaters on their rooftop bar. If you’re in the vicinity you may want to consider making a reservation to watch the band from the club’s aforementioned heated rooftop where you can order drinks while the band rocks away downstairs and watch it on video feed. Masks and social distancing required you know the drill. Or alternately, and more easily, you can catch them livestreaming on the club’s Youtube, Facebook and Instagram channels or give Friendster a try cuz you never know. (Jason Lee)

It’s not easy to make a synthesizer or a sampler weep, or to make programmed/processed drums shudder in fright, but Son Lux has mastered these tricks alongside others–able to make their machines and their instruments breath and gasp and pant and sob. To be sure they also coax ecstasy, calm, and even hope (see "Prophesy" below) out of their gear, both electronic and organic, and from Ryan Lott’s choked-with-emotion voice. Son Lux may tend towards the melancholic but just as often these and other emotional colors are blended together to create new unnamed hues.

Maybe here it would help to consider the etymology of the word “emotion” (just nod along!) which is a combination of the Latin for “to move” and the Latin for “out.” Put these syllables together and it refers to “moving outside” or “going beyond” one’s normal boundaries, that is, transcendence. In the musical realm what better way to transcend this plane of existence and to "move beyond" than by entering a synthesized reality–a world we can more readily control (in theory, anyhow) and shape to mirror our own interior landscapes. One must wonder then where the popular notion comes from that regards electronic music as being automatically robotic, anti-human, and anti-emotional? Maybe Ted Nugent?

All the ways that Son Lux finds to weave together electronic and organic sounds–bringing distinctly human rhythms to the former, while frequently making the latter sound foreign in the true sense of the word–harkens back to what was arguably a golden age for these kinds of organic/synthetic synthesis as developed in the late 20th/early 21st century by artists like Bjork, Massive Attack and Radiohead.

Around a decade ago Son Lux took up this torch, or one of the torches at least, and hasn’t dropped it since. Currently they’re in the midst of releasing their most ambitious work to date: a trilogy of works starting with Tomorrows I put out earlier this year; continuing with Tomorrows II released a few days ago; and continuing soon with Tomorrows III. Or at least I assume that’ll be the title unless there’s a serious misdirection at work here. Below you can check out a couple of more tracks from Tomorrows II, just try not to get too emotional. (Jason Lee)

photo credit: Lisa Wassmann

Pom Pom Squad’s cover of Wham’s “Last Christmas” is the best version of the Eighties seasonal perennial at least since the one Crazy Frog did (Ariana Grande pffft) but did Crazy Frog add a dramatic soliloquy to the George Michael composition or curse out the song’s errant lover-to-never-be at its conclusion? I think not. The CGI amphibian went top-ten in both Sweden and Belgium with the song in 2006 which makes me think PPS should be a lock for a top-five chart placing at minimum.

Band frontperson & Orlando-to-Brooklyn refugee Mia Berrin (pictured) heightens both the wistful melancholia and the implied tension of the original version and plus the Pom Pom’s update advocates staying at home for the holidays so win-win. And while you’re at home you can pop in the new “Simply Having A Wonderful Compilation” compilation (released last friday) into your virtual CD changer alongside Tiny Tim’s Christmas Album and that Hanukkah record from last year with Haim and Flaming Lips and Jack Black and Yo La Tengo and have yourself a grand ol’ time.

“Wonderful Compilation” featues Pom Pom Squad alongside a full slate of indie small-stars all wishing you a dream-poppy, grungy holiday (sample title: “Santa Is A Neocon”) but with the occassional foray into 16th-century caroling which all makes sense since it’s a co-production of indie mainstay Father/Daughter Records alongside Wax Nine, the latter of which being both a sister label to D.C.’s Carpark Records and a friggin poetry journal which is the brainchild of Sadie Depuis of Speedy Ortiz and Sad13, the latter of which having been discussed in the post right before this one so you see how everything in the universe is connected.

But before closing just two last words about Pom Pom Squad. And those two words are "Heavy Heavy" for they are both of those things.

Listening to Sad13’s second full-length album called Haunted Painting takes me back to my six-or-seven-year-old self and a trip to visit my aunt and juvenile delinquent high school cousin in the Spray Tan State and in particular our trip to the Disneyworld Industrial Complex widely known as the home of animatronic dead presidents and Johnny Depp singing “Yo Ho” to all the ladies. 

Of course it’s also home to the Haunted Mansion and all those paintings in the entrance hallway where when you look at them at first it’s like some baroness or something stretched out on her fainting couch but then before your very eyes she transforms into a spooky apparition like Medusa with snakes sprouting out her head or who knows what but some or other creepy character for sure and then you blink and it’s back to the baroness. Then before you know it you’re riding along in your bumper car and you look up into the mirror on the opposing wall and there’s a goddamn hitch-hiking ghost sitting on your head. That sh*t blew my six-or-seven-year-old mind.

Haunting Painting reminds me of all this. Band frontlady Sadie Dupuis–good name for a baroness, she also belongs to a band called Speedy Ortiz–pulls out all the stops and the starts on this album. What I mean by that is that many of the songs start off as one thing and then go around a corner and suddenly transform into another sonic apparition entirely. Like the single “Ghost (Of A Good Time)” that starts as a synth-based new-wavey “slappin’ bop” (sorry for the technical terminology there) but then a couple minutes later the groove suddenly drops away and a brief berserker guitar part swells up and ushers us into what sounds like a waltz for a haunted ballroom and soon there’s some beautiful harmonies and counter-melodies building layer upon layer before if finally goes back to the first section like nothing ever happened. You see what I mean about the portraits.

 Pull-quote: Sad13’s Haunted Painting is a pandemic Pet Sounds for shut-ins. The future’s looking febrile, indeed!

All in all even with all the charming pop elements this is a real headtrip album–headphones strongly recommended–there’s so many little ornate curly-cue details on the record that it rewards repeat listens. Ms. Dupuis & Co. reportedly recorded this album across roughly a half-a-dozen-or-so studios and they picked up whatever odd junk store odds ‘n’ ends they could wherever they went and that’s why you hear things like glockenspiels and pennywhistles (disclaimer: you may hear neither of these) which together with all the asymmetric twisty melodies and time-signature changes creates a cool funhouse mirror vibe. Relevant note: Sadie made it a point to work exclusively with female sound engineers on all the tracks which is a role that’s still a male-dominated enclave of the recording industry today so yea!

Be forewarned going in that, much like your average nominal “fun” house, there’s some scary stuff lurking in the dark even if all the shiny surfaces and candy-coated textures may distract you from the stuff. Except for when the dark stuff occasionally bubbles up to the surface like near the end of “Ruby Wand” which is mostly a straight-up Baroque electropop number until towards when it goes all haywire for a minute. Oh, and don’t listen to or read the lyrics if you don’t like the dark stuff. 

It’s all somehow insular and mind-expanding all at once. The whole aesthetic applies equally to the videos released alongside the album which are equal parts silly and creepy and strange and ornate. To give a couple examples on “Ghost” Sadie Dupuis goes all Cindy Sherman with the multiple personas who look right into your soul both seductively and ominously, and the video for “Hysterical” that riffs on the whole entire-movie-taking-place-on-a-computer-screen premise of 2014 social media horror flick “Unfriended” but updated here for the Zoom age. Also, Sadie essentially admits over the course of the video that she’s been stalking Wallace Shawn for ages so we’ve got some incriminating evidence for when Wallace goes missing.

Finally, I should mention that our fearless bandleader is based in Philadelphia and not New York City. But that’s ok I’m just going to go ahead and claim her as ours because Sadie’s life-altering turning point was self-reportedly when she transferred colleges from M.I.T. to Barnard, and changed her major from mathematics to poetry in the process, which led directly to her songwriting career. Yea Barnard University!

And finally finally the other reason to write about Sad13 at this very moment is that they’ll be appearing tonight as part of the No Bummer All Summer “Virtual” Beach Party with Sadie doing a “beach read” of her poetry–Could that be a Zoom background or the real thing? You be the judge!–as part of the evening’s lineup of performances, activities, and specials organized by Montreal shoegazers No Joy which all starts at 8PM EST. Check out details and get your tickets here. (Jason Lee)

If Freidrich Nietzsche were somehow alive today he would conceivably be the biggest metalhead in your local university’s philosophy department for there is no other musical genre in existence that so clearly and ably illustrates his theory of the Apollonian and the Dionysian. When it comes to the latter, heavy metal has long been notorious for its Dionysian side due to popular associations with primordial urges, raw power, and a fixation on subjects like madness and sex and unbound chaos. But equally true, if less acknowledged, is that metalheads are often unabashedly nerdy–enter the Apollonian side of the equation–and just as fixated on control and mastery and order as on sheer anarchic energy with said control expressed through disciplined instrumental and vocal mastery, elaborate lyrical conceits and album concepts, and a tendency to adhere to established conventions whether in death/doom/black/thrash/glam/power/prog metal at least until the next musical leap forward.

Speaking of philosophical concepts and musical leaps forward is perhaps as good way as any to introduce Liturgy’s latest release, a literal “rock opera” titled Origin of the Alimonies. Led by Hunter Hunt-Hendrix, Liturgy established themselves out of the gate with their 2008 debut LP Renihilation (the title a neologism for the countervailing and balancing force to “annihilation”). By the time their widely lauded but also widely debated follow-up Aesthethica was released in 2011, Hunt-Hendrix had composed an elaborate manifesto on "Transcendental Black Metal" written for an academic symposium, granted one held in a nightclub and bar. This intellectualized approach to metal ruffled more than a few feathers, while the band itself stood accused of being “Brooklyn hipsters" by many in the ruffled-feathers contingent. So yeah there were some big words and big ideas in effect, and a sculpted beard or two in evidence, but does it really stop the rock? The music they put out and live footage from the time strongly indicates otherwise.

Fast forward nearly ten years and Liturgy has doubled down, maybe more like quintupled down, on their ambitious approach by releasing an album that comes accompanied with multiple YouTube lectures covering an assortment of musical, philosophical, and cosmogonical concepts relating to their new music with the promise of an accompanying full-on opera soon to follow. Building on their surprise 2019 release H.A.Q.Q., Origin of the Alimonies features a chamber ensemble playing strings and woodwinds, church organ and harp, that’s just as heavily featured as the musicians in Liturgy. 

The notion of a religiously-themed opera couched in Lacanian psychoanalysis and Deleuzian philosophical concepts being released by a band that’s in any way associated with black metal will come as a surprise to your average man on the street (gender choice deliberate) who likely associates the genre with church burnings and the physical desecration of deceased bandmates. The book Lords of Chaos has a lot to do with the familiarity of these images, based on some undeniably sensational real-life events, which have since sedimented into stereotype. But for a smaller group of initiates the music of Liturgy is in keeping with a New Wave of Experimental Heavy Metal (a clever play on NWOBHM) and the queering of metal and its boundaries advocated by Hunt-Hendrix and some others. 

Whatever one’s perspective it’s hard to deny that the music of Origin of the Alimonies effectively balances out its Apollonian conceptual grounding with some seriously Dionysian furor–as much in the quiet bits as in the guttural howling and seismic burst-beats which are Liturgy’s version of blast beats. In its overture section Origin starts off not unlike that other staged musical work that got a riot going on with its depiction of "primitive" human origins, namely Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. Both these works open with a vulnerable sounding solo woodwind (flute for Origin, bassoon for Rite) that’s soothing for about a second but quickly becomes uneasy with its sense of lonely, aimless wondering. And then more unnerving still as more instruments enter the picture adding layers of tension-generating dissonance and you can just tell something "wicked" this way comes. 

And indeed it does when Liturgy enters the fray and by the beginning of the third track “Lonely OIOION” (you’ll have to watch those YouTube videos if you want to understand the titles, or just wait for the debut of the opera itself) we’re off to the races. Again this feels like a parallel to The Rite and the "Augurs of Spring" section in particular where likewise a few minutes into the ballet the whole thing gets blown wide open, and it does actually sound like an early 20th-century orchestral equivalent to blast beats. This is where the Parisians started really losing their shit supposedly and it didn’t help that the dancers were stomping around like rabid orgy goers forming an ballerino/ballerina mosh pit on stage.

By the time the dust settles on Origin of the Alimonies you’ll have heard everything from violins played with screwdrivers to a very angry demon baby playing a piano (admittedly I’m taking some stabs in the dark here) to a trap music beat to a free-jazzy-ish interlude to a glitching CD player (neat trick since there’s no CD player in sight) to a fourteen-minute piano-and-metal-band adaptation of a work written for cathedral organ by French composer Olivier Messiaen in 1932 (talk about literal heavy metal heh-heh-heh, sorry). In other words this opera is a great deal of fun despite the seriousness. And I figure God up in Heaven is grateful He’s finally got something new and kick-ass to listen to meaning that He can finally get rid of that Stryper cassette that’s been stuck in His Walkman for the past several decades. 

One final note regarding the quite striking cover image to Origin of the Alimonies (strategically cropped in the YouTube video above) which is in keeping with the theme of binaries and their subversion in heavy metal and in life in general. This is best expressed in the words of Hunter Hunt-Hendrix herself as taken from a recent Instagram post alongside the uncensored album image in which she addresses the process of actualizing and ultimately presenting as transgender: “I came to terms with my gender over the past five years in part through the somewhat torturous development of this piece, and I was only able to turn it into an album and put vocals on it upon deciding I could play the role of the female protagonist. That’s the importance of having exposed breasts on the cover.” 

When one considers that the music of Alimonies is only one element of the overall Gesamtkunstwerk still to be unveiled, you had better prepare to have your mind blown all over again… (Jason Lee)

Daria – Could they make the holidays any more vulgar?
Jane – I hope so.
Daria – What?
Jane – The more debased they become, the less reason to celebrate them, and the less reason for my family to get together, until presto! I’m finally alone on Thanksgiving with a TV dinner

******

“Depth Takes A Holiday” (Daria S03/E03, aired 1999) opens with the exchange quoted above between our anti-social hero Daria Morgendorffer and her partner-in-sarcasm Jane Lane as they watch a TV ad for show-within-a-show “Sick Sad World” featuring a pitchman hyping a story about a massive Nativity scene constructed at the mall in the month of August. The half hour that follows is a surreal parody of the “very special holiday episode” (VSHE) that’s a fixture of TV-Landia around this time of year. 

The typical VSHE features a cast of characters—usually a biological family or a ragtag surrogate family—who together overcome a series of serio-comic misadventures on their way to a happy, heartwarming holiday celebration; or more typically for the 21st century, on their way to a disastrous, uproarious failure to meet the heightened expectations of the holiday season. Either way, what’s rarely questioned in these episodes is the sacrosanct nature of the holidays themselves, and their vision of an ideal world often based more in fantasy than anything resembling reality.

Daria, of course, breaks with VSHE conventions and parodies the heck out of them instead. A groundbreaking animated series that turned the Bechdel test on its head and set a new standard for realistic hot takes on high school (not to mention its fantastic soundtrack that’ll never make it onto a DVD or Blu-Ray release) “Depth Takes A Holiday” departs even from the show’s own conventions with its wholesale flight into fantasy. Centered on an array of holidays in human form—Halloween is a goth rock chick, Guy Fawkes Day is a Sid Vicious lookalike, etc.—the plot revolves around several of them escaping “Holiday Island” through a wormhole behind a Chinese restaurant in search of fame as a hip-hop-punk-electronica band in the suburban purgatory of Lawndale. It’s up to Daria and Jane, with the help of an overgrown Cupid and a cranky Brit-baiting Saint Patrick’s Day, to restore the (very relatively speaking) natural order of things by ushering the errant holidays back to their island. Like I said, pretty surreal stuff.

True to form the episode’s Holiday Island turns out to be its own sick, sad world with its own sick, sad Lawndale-like high school chock full of weirdos and petty rivalries between the holidays. A bizarre, tossed-off seasonal affective disorder fable, “Depth Takes A Holiday” is also the perfect teachable moment for late 2020. The lesson being not to believe the holiday hype and that you’re usually better off just staying the f*ck home. Besides to do otherwise is to risk the ire of a girl in a pleated skirt, combat boots and Edna Mode specs who’s expert at tossing off withering disses delivered in monotone. (A question for another day: did Daria invent SoundCloud rap?)

Speaking of Daria in the present day, the Daria-loving four-piece who go by the name Climates recently put out a cover of the show’s iconic opening theme song “You’re Standing on My Neck.” It’s perfectly suited to the Brooklynites’ self-designated “glitter grunge” sound, “Seether”-style harmonies (sounds like the Breeders) and feminist politics. Their cover version can be heard on SoundCloud and on Spotify or purchased wherever records and tapes are sold (yeah better stick to streaming for now). It’s lucky for all involved that Splendora bequeathed to the world those five “nyah-nyah, nyah-nyah-nyah” notes that ring out Close Encounters-style at the start, and bridge and the ending of “Standing On My Neck”–a clarion call to tribes of disaffected kids, and to girls and young women in particular who appreciate the “strongly layered female characters” on the show.

Once you’ve had time to fully take in the Climates version of the theme song and it’s source material you may want to check out this article on Splendora. Another Brooklyn-spawned-all-female band, led by two sisters who today work in Manhattan’s high powered publishing industry, they never quite received their due and disbanded soon after Daria hit the airwaves and cable boxes of America, languishing in no small part due to limited resources dedicated to the promotion of female bands at the time. It’s a shame as their one and only full album release from 1995 is a solid piece of work. One can only hope that better is in store for Climates–despite some minor obstacles like a pandemic that makes it impossible to practice or a band member relocating to Seattle–because even with just a handful of songs on record so far they’ve already proven some serious songwriting chops and an ability to command a stage. This interview with Climates from Chez Nous highlights some of the challenges still faced by female-identified bands but they appear prepared to power through. 

And finally, after ingesting every recorded version of “You’re Standing On My Neck” and watching the five-season run of Daria in full, you would be well advised to check out the Climates’ single below released earlier this year. “Super 8” is a song that has some interesting things to communicate about the nature of fantasy and reality and the porous line between the two–the throughline to my ramblings here if you’re being generous–with lyrics revolving around the idea that our lives are at their most "real" when our lives feel most like we’re living in a movie. Super 8 film is a consumer-oriented motion picture format that spawned the home movie explosion of the ‘60s and ‘70s–you can hear the sound of an old-style film projector in the intro of the song–technology that led directly to the videotape boom of the ‘80s and ultimately to our current show-me-your-phone-video-or-it-didn’t-happen social media era.

Maybe it’s overreaching but I’m putting it out there that this song speaks to a transformation in our collective consciousness that’s still taking place today where we continually narrative our very own “very special episodes” 24/7 to an adoring audience, or an ignoring audience, but who can really tell the difference half the time. Either way the song is a moodily seductive banger that’ll mash up your mind with its killer earworm chorus: “big things get in the way / we’re filming away." 

Although admittedly I sometimes hear that first line as “fake things get in the way" and don’t know which is correct but maybe this sense of ambiguity and uncertainty is the realest thing of all. (Jason Lee)

“Picture this in glitter and smoke
hold the camera steady
Candy-flossed clouds, who’s the boss now
sugar on the lenses and the roses in the ground”

The band Bambara is something like a good marriage. A decade in and their music keeps getting better and better, while still remaining reliably Bambara-ish, fully basking in its tent-revival-post-punk glory. On their most recent LP Stray these Georgia transplants (ok so the Bambara boys moved here nearly a decade ago, but still let’s all give a big big-up to that most swingin’-est of swing states) locked themselves in a windowless Brooklyn basement (pre-pandemic mind you) and worked out a new batch of death-rattle songs that’ll make you wanna go out and grab life by its naughty bits so be sure to listen in its entirety if you wanna get that uncanny life-and-death-drive-all-at-once feeling.

Here’s the real reason for this writeup: Bambara is known to absolutely tear it up live and in March they taped a live set just under the lockdown wire which was posted online a couple months ago and which this writer just happened to come across recently. So we need to know, do you miss live music? I mean, do you really miss it? Do you really really miss it and really really need it? Well do you? Yeah? How bad? Ahhhhh ok, I see! Well allow the DELI to be your plug then because this scorching four-song set with interview intermission, taped by the good people at Seattle’s KEXP over on the other coast, captures Bambara’s raw intensity in all its intense rawness. And they seem like really nice guys, awww.

That said lead extemporizer Reid Bateh performs throughout with a street-preacher-foaming-at-the-mouth-level intensity to the point where by the end of this brisk 22 minutes there’s a good chance you’ll be converted. Plus his energy level is matched by the band’s playing and we promise you that barely two minutes into the first song when touring guitarist Sammy Zalta goes all Travis Bickle on his guitar you will damn well wanna go out and massacre a den of pimps yourself. Stay cruel for me, baby, indeed. (Jason Lee)

photo credit: Daggers For Eyes

The Deli isn’t sure how many résumés include qualifications like “adolescent jazz prodigy who shreds on double bass and who holds a degree from the Manhattan School of Music”, “live gig played with Jeff Goldblum", “appearance on a U. of Miami musicology panel alongside Ben Folds”, “taking a left turn into indie rockdom with a widely-praised debut LP in the format”, and finally, “co-writing a hit song with Ms. Sharon Van Etten”. Based on these credentials, if you’re ever competing with Kate Davis for a job whatever it may be, we’ll just go ahead and wish you better luck next time. 

In case you’ve not seen nor heard the music video for the Von Etten/Kate Davis collab the song is a lovely aching ode to adolescence (Rachel Trachtenburg plays Sharon’s younger doppelganger in the video) and on the visual side it’s a lovely aching ode to NYC independent music venues–past and present, living and deceased–with full knowledge that the city plows on as always steamrolling its past and building who knows what in its place.

Back to Kate Davis. Her latest release dropped yesterday–a sneak preview single from her upcoming full-album tribute to Daniel Johnston (1961-2019) who was an OG of what some people call “outsider music." Johnston launched his music career by handing out cassettes of his homemade music at the McDonald’s where he worked in Austin, Texas ("would you like some fries with your free copy of Songs of Pain?") and then crashing the stage when MTV was in the city filming a special on "The New Sincerity" which hardly anyone remembers anymore. Now that’s DIY. Also those photos you’ve seen of Kurt Cobain wearing a t-shirt that says “Hi, How Are You” that’s Daniel Johnston. 

Back to Kate Davis, really this time. Kate says "when I first heard Daniel Johnston I was struck by the directness and clarity in his writing. I wanted to gain perspective into that directness." See below for her stirring rendition of “Oh No” and see below that for Ms. Davis discussing the bond she feels with Daniel Johnston–his unique gift for songwriting and his lifelong struggle with mental health issues.

Strange Boy: Daniel Johnston ‘Retired Boxer’ Cover Album is being released in conjunction with the Hi, How Are You Project, an NPO formed by Daniel Johnston’s family to raise awareness around and remove stigma from mental illness. You can pre-order it on blue vinyl whoooooa like how much more blue, none more blue! But before the album drops in early 2021 you’d be advised to check out her already-existing one called Trophy. Kate’s music casts an intimate glow but it can be muscular too case in point being the title track. This song has what we in the industry refer to as an arc. At first it sounds like it just needs a hug but by the middle it’s trying to seduce you and then by the end it’s ready to throttle you but consensually no doubt. (Jason Lee)

photo up top by Erica Synder