Saby Reyes-Kulkarni, Author at ALARM

Review: Hush Arbors / Arbouretum’s Aureola

Hush Arbors / Arbouretum: Aureola (Thrill Jockey, 4/24/12)

“New Scarab”

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Bands that traffic in psychedelic/stoner-rock orthodoxy often follow a dogmatism that rings shallow. In one fell swoop — three songs, to be precise — Baltimore quartet Arbouretum effectively lays waste to anyone who’s ever bowed at the altar of the fuzzed-out guitar to mask (or revel in) creative bankruptcy.

Review: Torche’s Harmonicraft

Torche: Harmonicraft (Volcom)

“Kicking”

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There’s no actual rule saying that heavy bands have to dilute their heaviness when they indulge in melody — or, for that matter, when they put cutesie My Little Pony-looking dinosaurs on their album covers. For whatever reason, the nerve to attempt either still is rare, as Miami four-piece Torche demonstrates with its third full-length, Harmonicraft.

Review: Battles’ Dross Glop

Battles: Dross Glop (Warp, 4/17/12)

“Rolls Bayce (Hudson Mohawke Remix)”

As a companion to last year’s Gloss Drop, the inversely titled Dross Glop consists entirely of Battles’ Gloss Drop music reworked by the likes of Hudson Mohawke, The Alchemist, Kode9, Shabazz Palaces, Gang Gang Dance, Gui Boratto, and more. Given the band’s unpredictable creative trajectory to this point, it’s no surprise that the distinctive electro-rock trio has released something to induce head-scratching among existing fans and electronica fans alike.

Primus: Back on the Bike, Going “Green”

[Chromatic, our 400-page exploration of musicians and color, is out now. Order here!]

Primus: Green Naugahyde (ATO / Prawn Song, 9/13/11)

Primus: “Tragedy’s a’Comin'”

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“It’s kind of like trying to describe a wine,” chuckles Primus bandleader/bassist Les Claypool. “Everybody has their different adjectives that they use.”

Responding to the suggestion that the oddball Bay Area trio’s new album, Green Naugahyde, was recorded and mixed with a more transparent “sound” than previous work, Claypool doesn’t necessarily agree or disagree. The album is the band’s first full-length in 12 years, and listeners, of course, are bound to draw their own conclusions.

“Whatever ‘transparent’ means to you,” he continues, “might be different than what it means to me. From a production standpoint, the approach to this thing was very similar to what we’ve always done, which is record ourselves at my house. Over the years, I’ve collected a bunch of old vintage gear — we recorded to tape through an old API console, so it’s a very clean, very crisp, very clear recording. And for the most part, we weren’t coloring things after the fact. It was going to tape as raw as we could possibly put it to tape. But there’s also a lot of contrast between the individual songs.”

Amon Tobin: An Electronic Pioneer’s “Field Work”

With his new album, DJ and electronic artist Amon Tobin has made the complete transition to using and manipulating sound sources that are styled after field recording. The material, often unrecognizable and shaped into rhythmic pulses, also comes with a new shape-shifting 3-D installation for his upcoming tour.

Record Review: Soundgarden’s Live on I-5

Soundgarden: Live on I-5 (Universal / A&M, 3/22/11)

In an interview conducted on A&M Records’ Hollywood lot around the release of Soundgarden‘s pivotal 1991 album, Badmotorfinger, bandleader Chris Cornell summed up the iconic Seattle quartet’s approach to working in the studio: “We’ve always been looking to capture what we sound like live on tape. I think that’s what most rock bands try for — and that’s probably most rock bands’ biggest problem when it comes to recording a record.”

It was a curious statement considering that, if anything, Soundgarden had the opposite problem. Known for its signature brand of heaving, de-tuned muscularity, Soundgarden also played a counterbalancing sense of agility to supreme advantage on record. In concert, however, the band routinely stumbled, more weighed down than liberated by its own bulk, to say nothing of the fact that Cornell had trouble matching the piercing wail of his studio vocals.

Fortunately, Soundgarden’s onstage flaws recede to the background on this newly assembled live album. Comprised of recordings from a string of West Coast dates in November and December of 1996, Live on I-5 reveals that Soundgarden, captured here just months before breaking up, was a surprisingly limber and inventive unit. Unbeknownst to the band members themselves — or to recording engineer Adam Kasper, who also manned the boards for Soundgarden’s final studio album, Down on the Upside — these performances would be Soundgarden’s last in the continental USA.

Dimmu Borgir: Symphonists in Satan’s Service

The tenth release from Norwegian black metallurgists Dimmu Borgir is an epic symphony, employing the Norwegian Radio Orchestra and the 40-piece Schola Cantorum Choir.

Ben Goldberg: A Clarinetist’s Journey into “Radical Jewish Culture”

Ben Goldberg‘s infatuation with the clarinet inspired him to combine traditional Jewish klezmer music with jazz to create a wild, modern sound — but his work with the adventurous Tin Hat chamber ensemble might be his most challenging yet.

Cory Allen: Playing with Perception and Dissolving Identity

It’s rare to think of tranquil music as “unlistenable,” but Austin, Texas ambient musician Cory Allen’s latest album, Hearing Is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Hears, arguably challenges the listener’s concentration because it is so easy to listen to.

The Bad Plus: Known for Transforming Others’ Work, Brawny Jazz Trio Turns Focus Inward

Stripped of the band’s most tried and true novelty, Never Stop reveals what The Bad Plus could have exploited all along — the intricate, idiosyncratic writing styles of all three band members.

Ben Perowsky’s Moodswing Orchestra: Cohesive Collisions of Rock and Jazz

Even after several decades of cross-pollination between the worlds of rock and jazz, it could be argued that a true (or at least natural-sounding) hybrid has yet to be invented. Ironically enough, one of the most well-blended combinations of the two genres has recently arrived in the form of drummer Ben Perowsky’s Moodswing Orchestra.

Autolux: Patience for a “Perfect” Sequel

Autolux guitarist Greg Edwards is well accustomed to the demands of recording your own music. In 1995, Edwards spent months recording what ended up being the band Failure‘s final album, Fantastic Planet — a sprawling alt-metal epic with a cinematic narrative.

Five years since the release of Future Perfect, Autolux’s full-length debut, the alt-rock trio only recently announced labels for its follow-up, titled Transit Transit (TBD Records in the US and ATP Recordings everywhere else). This time, though, Edwards says that he was a lot more comfortable waiting patiently.

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