January Music Roundup
Your monthly guide to what you should be listening to
First off, welcome to the inaugural installment of The Poleax Monthly Music Roundup. I’m Garrett, I live in Minneapolis, and I work at the Electric Fetus record store. I’m on indefinite leave for a History PhD program at U of M. Now I write about music. At this site, I’ll be doing, among other things, this monthly recap of notable new (and old) music each month.
Mount Eerie — ”Death Is Real”
Okay, so now that we know each other, I’ve decided to start with perhaps the saddest song I’ve ever heard. Phil Elverum is one of my favorite musicians. He records as Mount Eerie and The Microphones and his support for the artistic community in Anacortes, WA is highly admirable. I had the opportunity to attend two of the music festivals run by Phil and his wife, Geneviève, in Anacortes and they were extraordinary in their commitment to musical camaraderie and local community. Phil and Geneviève, the latter an author and a musician who’s recorded albums under Woelv and Ô PAON, were also two of the nicest, most down-to-earth people I’ve ever met. Geneviève passed away last year from pancreatic cancer, leaving behind a one-year-old daughter.
Mount Eerie’s upcoming album A Crow Looked At Me (out March 24) is Phil’s attempt to grapple with his wife’s death and it was recorded using Geneviève’s instruments in the room where she died. So far, “Death Is Real” is the only track available for preview on Bandcamp and it is absolutely devastating. The lyrics simultaneously demonstrate a self-awareness that death is “not worth singing about” or “making into art,” while also beautifully expressing the waves of despair following the loss of a loved one in a very real and relatable way.
Priests — Nothing Feels Natural
It is still very early, but I already have a contender for album of the year. DC-based Priests have previously released two 7”s and one EP and put on an amazing live show. While the words “punk” and “political” would be my primary tags for their previous work, their new record Nothing Feels Natural branches out both musically and lyrically. The sound is more post-punk this time around, with captivating drumbeats and bass lines that are still uniquely Priests. Saxophone, piano, and surf rock guitar lines are scattered throughout the album and lead singer Katie Alice Greer demonstrates a considerably wider vocal range. While the lyrics are definitely still political and maintain their satirical attack on consumer culture and American politics, they are less direct than what one might think of as “protest” music and successfully entangle the personal with the political. I could go on and on about the achievements of each track, but just check it out. If you’ve managed to navigate to this roundup, there is something for you to enjoy on this record. Also, the vinyl preorder came with a 35-page zine filled with interviews with the band conducted by Jenn Pelly, which is totally worth it if you can track it down.
Ty Segall — Ty Segall
The new, eponymous Ty Segall record is very good. I’ve said that about a lot of his records, which is impressive considering how many he releases. The quieter second half of this album has some of the best, most mature songs he’s written, but the lyrics don’t quite hold their weight. The metal-style, heavy riffs throughout the rest of the album get old pretty fast for me, but they do sound fantastic, perhaps due to Steve Albini’s guiding hand. So, in sum, very good and definitely worth your time. But I still prefer the stuff that really stands apart in Segall’s catalog, like last year’s Emotional Mugger.
Punk Releases
Sheer Mag is an exciting, Thin Lizzy-inspired punk band and they just released their three 7” EPs as a single, remastered LP. Check it out. Some other semi-recent punk releases, Minneapolis’s own Uranium Club’s new album, All of Them Naturals and the latest Soul Jazz Punk 45 compilation, Les Punks: The French Connection (The First Wave of French Punk 1977–80), are also still in heavy rotation.
Grouper-affiliated
There will never be a month that I’m not listening to some Grouper or Grouper-related project, but this month I’ve been spinning Grouper’s gorgeous new 7” and the 2011 Liz Harris-Ilyas Ahmed collaboration called Visitor. If you’re not familiar with Ilyas Ahmed, check out his great solo LP from 2015, titled I Am All Your Own, and his even better record last year under the Dreamboat moniker. I’ve also been obsessed with a Mississippi Records tape compilation curated by Liz Harris, called Spirit Haunted Water. It is a bunch of “pop downer noise” from New Zealand and every song is a gem that will send you down the rabbit hole of the Flying Nun and Xpressway labels.
Jazz and, in particular, Nina Simone
Ever since starting at Electric Fetus, I’ve been slowly building up my jazz collection on vinyl, but this month has been particularly fruitful. I secured copies of John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme, Miles Davis’s Filles de Kilimanjaro, and Ornette Coleman’s Ornette! and Science Fiction. (If you have the new streaming service FilmStruck, make sure to check out Shirley Clarke’s experimental documentary Ornette: Made in America).
I recently took a chance on a Nina Simone DVD that is part of the Jazz Icons series and was so blown away by both the performances and the liner notes that I bought the entirety of Volume Three. The Nina Simone performances turned out to be the best in the series, but I was also especially impressed with Yusef Lateef’s contributions to Cannonball Adderley’s set, Roland Kirk playing three horns simultaneously, and the piano work of Oscar Peterson and Bill Evans. Sonny Rollins and Lionel Hampton aren’t too shabby either. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the popular Netflix documentary, What Happened, Miss Simone?, which I also watched this month. It is certainly well done, and absolutely worth your time, but it was a fairly straightforward narrative and the footage was underwhelming in comparison to the extraordinarily powerful 1965 and 1968 performances captured on the Jazz Icons Series.
Miscellany
Some other items both old and new that are worth your time: ZuluZuluu, a new Mary Lattimore cassingle; Superior Viaduct’s second John Bender reissue; Electrelane’s The Power Out; Chavez’s new Cockfighters EP; Awa Poulo; and Lee Hazlewood’s Cowboy in Sweden and 13.
Garrett Karrberg is based in Minneapolis.
