It’s not common knowledge that Steve Gunn and drummer John Truscinski form a duo that records timeless music forged on the instincts of American rock instrumentalism. The Gunn-Truscinski duo’s new album Bay Head is out now on Three Lobed Recordings and you can stream the whole trip below.
Back in August, Kim Gordon wrote a terrific prologue to the record in which she paints a wonderful picture of what you’re getting into, and what you will be quite happy to stay in:
It’s an anomaly to make a record created out of the pleasure and desire of simply making music together. A record with no commercial aspirational location. The new duo record from John Truscinski (drums, synths) and Steve Gunn (guitars), Bay Head, makes it look easy, carving out a space where none existed before with assurance, resonating beautifully along the way.
If I were forced to put what John and Steve play into a genre I would simply call it “music.” There’s a quality of timelessness to it without being nostalgic that is impossible to manufacture. It comes from their years of playing together based on a formula of chemistry. Bands are fragile ecosystems. The best ones have a melding that results in a musicality that otherwise can’t be found in a melody or lyric, or an effect pedal. While Bay Head is the third record the duo has recorded together, John has played drums and helped shape the songs and the sound on all Steve’s more song-configured albums. Their bond is tight, unique, and effective.
As an instrumental record Bay Head has no literal voice. It doesn’t need it, as the constant flow between the drums and guitar describe fully and without a narrator. Steve’s guitar leads you along a contemplative path that describes an inner monologue that is more expressive than if there were words. Some of the guitar parts are worked out and then set free, improvised in the playing. But it’s hard to tell. It all sounds deliberate. Bay Head is the accumulation of the duo’s years of playing music together where each can guess where the other is going to go next. The cover collage by their longtime friend Bill Nace reflects what is both abstract and figurative about this unique musical collaboration.
As I drink my morning coffee, I use the Gunn-Truscinski Duo’s records as a way to make my way into the day. As I am writing, answering email and the like, I find that the spirit of their music matches the gentle light and morning coolness that breeds inspiring thoughts before the LA sun blasts it all away and the day’s minutiae take over. Basically, Bay Head is great music to procrastinate to! -Kim Gordon, Los Angeles, August 2017
Pro Teens
Listen: Pro Teens “Tulsa”
Oct 30, 2017
On Phoenix, AZ’s Pro Teens’ new song “Tulsa” there is a general feeling of letting the tension out of your shoulders and exhaling. Their new EP Philistines out Nov. 3rd on Broken Circles and the downbeat gem drifts along under the sort of Morrissey vocal tone of Andy Phipps. “Tulsa” is a pleasant invitation to listen further. Let it linger below.
The band’s label page gives a sense of what they’re about: “If one were to drop Pro Teens’s latest onto a turntable without commentary or context, it would be tough to pinpoint the album’s age. It’s not just the production style, which lands somewhere between Phil Spector’s bleary wall of sound and dream pop’s slow bleeding synths. It’s also the musicianship—the side-stepping bass line and bluesy janks of guitar, the trashy tambourine and distant clacking claves, and the rubber bounce of singer and guitarist Andy Phipps’s voice—that mimics some ‘60s and ‘70s aesthetic.”
Stranger Things Season 2 is here! The Netflix series that took over last year is back just in time for Halloween and synth composers Kyle Dixon and Michael Stein from the Austin, TX group S U R V I V E have once again crafted a score that combines all the wonder, horror, supernaturality, and nostalgia consistent to the show’s 1984 setting and tone. The full score was released last week and today Legacy Recordings released 30 Track Compilation that Includes all of the classic 1980s hits From Season 1 and 2 of the Award-Winning Series. Listen to some of it all below and get ready to binge by the light of your jack-o-lantern!
Jeff Rona
Listen: “Inara” From Composer Jeff Rona’s Forthcoming Solo Album
Oct 26, 2017
Composer Jeff Rona has used the sensibilities shaped from his multitude of film and television scoring projects to create a solo album of cloudy and beautiful ambiance. Rona has worn many studio hats in a distinguished career as a studio musician, arranger, sound designer, synthesist, and programmer and hasworked with the likes of Brian Eno, Philip Glass, Cliff Martinez, and Hans Zimmer, with whom he had a long-time partnership.
Rona’s solo album, PROJECTOR is a consuming work and closing track “Inara” demonstrates his caliber of craft. Listen to it below.
“Like most of my music,” explains Rona, “the tracks in PROJECTOR began as experiments. I’d done some musical sketches for an experimental Brazilian film, but I set them aside as they didn’t really fit. Yet there was a kernel of something really interesting within them.”
PROJECTOR came together from a far-flung set of audio sources - from field recordings in the most remote part of the upper Amazon, to any number of found objects, to unidentified radio transmissions. These were turned into ambient sounds, harmonies and modern rhythms. The rest comes from Rona and his fellow musicians, including British cellist and recording artist Peter Gregson, British film composer David Julyan (Memento, Insomnia, The Prestige), LA-based cellist Emily Rice, Japanese singer (and archery expert) Yoko Honda and others. The result is a world in which ambient ideas are grounded by drums, piano, strings, guitars, and voices. A new process created a new sound.
This Will Destroy You
Listen: “Kitchen” From This Will Destroy You Restaurant Score
Oct 13, 2017
Anybody who takes dining out seriously will know that the music is the oft undervalued facet of the experience. Los Angeles Band This Will Destroy You recognizes this and has been commissioned by Chef Jordan Kahn’s new Culver City restaurant Vespertine to curate a score for its spaces. “Kitchen” is the first piece to be released and it’s beautiful. Listen below.
Here’s what it’s all about:
“Kitchen” is the first aural glimpse into the Vespertine project, a collaborative concept wherein the entirety of Chef Jordan Kahn’s new Culver City restaurant has been custom-scored by Los Angeles’ own THIS WILL DESTROY YOU.
One of seven pieces written for the building itself (and even the space around it), “Kitchen” is the music that diners first hear as they are greeted by Chef Kahn before dinner service begins for the evening. In composing the music for this interaction, THIS WILL DESTROY YOU’s Chris King and Jeremy Galindo sought to convey a warm, hospitable – if not reassuring – tone for listeners that may (or may not) be present elsewhere as they discover and explore the spaces in and around Vespertine’s looming architectural monolith for the remainder of their stay.
“One track will play as you enter on the ground floor, where you will find a 26-foot-long hanging art piece ominously named ‘The Table’ across from the entrance to an elevator that has only one button to push. Another track will play on the second floor, where Kahn will be the first person you see after you emerge, and you will have a conversation with him and his team of cooks about what’s to come. Another track will play on the roof, where you will sit for your introductory snacks and look out over Culver City and the mountains to the east, so long as it’s not raining, in which case don’t worry, they have something else planned. And the last track will play in the 22-seat dining room where you will ultimately eat your spaceship food while sitting on a surprisingly comfortable steel-and-wool banquette, attended by servers dressed in custom, androgynous uniforms that are very Rick Owens–does–Lord of the Rings cosplay.”
In related news, THIS WILL DESTROY YOU will join fellow post-rockers Sannhet soon for a short run of live dates next month including a BrooklynVegan-presented show on November 14th at Knitting Factory, as part of the historic New York City venue’s 30th anniversary celebration. See all confirmed dates below.
THIS WILL DESTROY YOU w/ Sannhet:
11/12/2017 Harrisburg Midtown Arts Center – Harrisburg, PA 11/13/2017 BSP Kingston – Kingston, NY 11/14/2017 Knitting Factory – Brooklyn, NY 11/15/2017 35 Artspace – Portsmouth, NH 11/16/2017 The Met – Pawtucket, RI 11/17/2017 The Outer Space/The Ballroom – Hamden, CT 11/18/2017 Debonair Music Hall – Teaneck, NJ
Sufjan Stevens
Listen: “Wallowa Lake Monster” From The Greatest Gift Mixtape
Oct 11, 2017
Sufjan Stevens is back at it. The Greatest Gift is a collection of outtakes, remixes and demos from Stevens’ lauded 2015 album Carrie & Lowell and is set for release on November 24th. A portion of the proceeds from the release will benefit the Cancer Support Community. Check out the delicate “Wallowa Lake Monster” below. According to the press release, here is what The Greatest Gift has in store:
The Greatest Gift unveils new remixes by several longstanding collaborators: Roberto C. Lange (a.k.a. Helado Negro) remixes both “Death With Dignity” and “All Of Me Wants All Of You;” Thomas Bartlett (a.k.a. Doveman) remixes “Exploding Whale,” a song previously only available as a 7-inch single; and James McAlister (a.k.a. 900X) remixes “Fourth of July.” The album also features Stevens’ own remix of “Drawn to the Blood.”
The mixtape also includes alternate and/or demo versions of songs from the original album,including a fingerpicking version of “Drawn to the Blood,” and iPhone-recorded demo versions of “John My Beloved” and “Carrie & Lowell.”
Finally, the mixtape features four previously unreleased new songs, “official” outtakes from Carrie & Lowell recorded at the same time as the album. These include “Wallowa Lake Monster” as well as “The Hidden River of My Life,” “City of Roses” and “The Greatest Gift.”
Hanz Zimmer & Benjamin Wallfisch
Listen: “Tears in the Rain” From Blade Runner 2049 Score
Oct 09, 2017
Blade Runner 2049 opened on Friday and you just knew that the soundtrack was going to go massive based on the Vangelis masterpiece for the 1982 original. Hanz Zimmer collaborated with score composer Benjamin Wallfisch, continuing their work from the music for the Christopher Nolan film Dunkirk. The score is epic and is composed with a respectful appreciation to the Vangelis original, one of the most powerful scores ever made. Listen to the beautiful “Tears in the Rain”, which is essentially a reimagination of Vangelis’s “Tears In Rain”, and hear for yourself.
Listen: ‘Ladies From Houston” From Forthcoming A. Savage Album
Oct 09, 2017
A. Savage from Parquet Courts is releasing his solo album Thawing Dawn this friday on Dull Tools and has shared the clear Leonard Cohen homage “Ladies From Houston” from his superb debut. The song showcases Savage’s storytelling talents and the song’s warmly deliberate pace will have you following his imaginative stroll. The new song was premiered during an interview Matt Wilkinson gave for Beats 1.
Savage had this to say about the song: “I wrote Ladies From Houston after going to a small gathering of friends. We were at the house of our friend’s father, who had just died, and he had just finished selling off most of his dad’s possessions so he could sell the house. Some stuff we broke. But a collection of erotica and photographs remained, and we all began sorting through it. This investigation set off a string of stories that went on late into the night. We all learned something about everyone else. The words are based on the stories told that night.”
Check it out here. You can also listen along with the lyrics provided and check out A. Savage plus Parquet Courts tour dates below.
LYRICS FOR “LADIES FROM HOUSTON”
When the night sun stops trying, if it dims without fighting and a chorus of midnight dogs flowers from the shadows like the ladies from Houston who walk into my house drink coffee and talk softly, drink wine and speak loud back at me
I’ve got a full ring of keys again
30 years paid in mistakes as the rent to the room that my soul vacates
Yeah she raised me like I was her own flesh and blood and she came when I cried and I wasn’t embarrassed. Well I knew enough Spanish to interpret a shoe as an armed confrontation when its quickly removed and lifted
I’ve got a full ring of keys again
Time is a feral cats prowl blind and lost to the chase without fear or doubt
Said he’s stepped into quicksand and its not like you think said he’s waited with commitment but he didn’t start sinking I said I’d fallen in line, and a few times in love and I’ve raised my voice at folks I thought I was above, like a fool
I’ve got a full ring of keys again
Scratching glyphs into the glass of the men’s room mirror to reflect my wrath
Uncle Marty was trouble, at least that’s what I heard, Now he’s dead or in prison or just gone but not missing But I remember the burn mark, and the Speedy tattoo and the words that he chose and the way his lips moved to make them
I’ve got a full ring of keys again
Nothing lies further from truth than the words from the one who says solid sooth
What’s the purpose if there is one, for this televised demon for the sadness I feel when he polutes screen For the beer in the fridge which has halfway been tasted That I put to my lips so that it doesn’t get wasted or drank
A. SAVAGE TOUR DATES (new dates in bold) Wed. Nov. 1 - Pittsburgh, PA @ The Funhouse at Mr. Smalls w/ Jack Cooper Thu. Nov. 2 - Chicago, IL @ The Empty Bottle w/ Jack Cooper Fri. Nov. 3 - Detroit, MI @ Jumbo’s w/ Jack Cooper Sat. Nov. 4 - Columbus,OH @ Double Happiness w/ Jack Cooper Sun. Nov. 5 - Louisville, KY @ Kaiju w/ Jack Cooper Mon. Nov. 6 - Nashville, TN @ The End w/ Jack Cooper Wed. Nov. 8 - Atlanta, GA @ Drunken Unicorn w/ Jack Cooper Thu. Nov. 9 - Durham,NC @ The Pinhook w/ Jack Cooper Fri. Nov. 10 - Washington, DC @ DC9 w/ Jack Cooper Sat. Nov. 11- Brooklyn, NY @ Murmrr Ballroom w/ Jack Cooper Thu. Nov. 30 - Philadelphia, PA @ PhilaMOCA Fri. Dec. 1 -Jersey City, NJ @ Monty Hall Sat. Dec. 2 - Portsmouth, NH @ 3S Artspace Sun. Dec. 3 - Allston, MA @ The Great Scott Mon. Dec. 4 - Montreal, QC @ l’Escogriffe Bar Spectacle Tue. Dec. 5 - Toronto, ON @ The Garrison Mon. Jan. 22 - Berlin, DE @ Monarch Tue. Jan. 23 - Cologne, DE @ King Georg Wed. Jan. 24 - Amsterdam, NL @ Paradiso Upstairs Thu. Jan. 25 - Gent, BE @ Nest Fri. Jan. 26 - Paris, FR @ Pop Up Du Label Sun. Jan. 28 - Brighton, UK @ The Hope Mon. Jan. 29 - Bristol, UK @ Louisiana Tue. Jan. 30 - Leeds, UK @ Oporto Wed. Jan. 31 - Glasgow, UK @ Broadcast Thu. Feb. 1 - Manchester, UK @ Soup Kitchen Fri. Feb. 2 - London, UK @ Garage PARQUET COURTS TOUR DATES Wed. Nov. 15 - Chicago, IL @ Empty Bottle (Red Bull 30 Days in Chicago) w/ Meat Wave Thu. Nov. 16 - Detroit, MI @ El Club w/ Bonny Doon Fri. Nov. 17 - Cleveland, OH @ Grog Shop w/ The Cowboy Sun. Nov. 19 - Brooklyn, NY @ Elsewhere w/ B Boys
Fri. Dec. 15 - Sat. Dec. 16- Buenos Aires, AR @ Festival BUE
