RECENT LISTENING #43

Mazozma, Un, Multiverses/Multidimensional Cowboy, LaDonna Smith and Davey Williams, Tara Cunningham and Jack Cooper, Andrew W.K., Dennis Palmer, Clearinghouse

MAZOZMA Bathing in the Stone LP (SOPHOMORE LOUNGE) Hanging out on a Saturday morning listening to records, and this is actually a pretty apropos spin right after my one-thousandth listen to Blue, because you don’t have to be Joni-level touched-by-God to make a deeply meditative and eminently relistenable album of simple progressive spiritual/emotional two-guitars-and-voice folk songs like Mazozma has done with this brand new one. The way the two guitars (and sometimes bass) implacably lay these songs down has an undeniable centuries-old earth/stone/drone undercurrent, understandable with Mazozma having relocated to Great Britain now for a few years, an xperience emerging from the sound and into the lyrics: “visiting stones, site by site/making my way, led by the light/watching for young sprites/see how they all cry/this is exactly/why I choose to go on.” Go on visiting, go on watching, go on making music, and go on listening; I’ve been listening to Mazozma’s music for 20 years now, ever since they cut the 29-minute “Penetration Initials” back in 2005 (as Warmer Milks), and Bathing in the Stone actually feels like their truest follow-up to that cosmic epic, except now the one song is a little longer and split into seven.

UN Getting Mellow In Their New House (ALL NIGHT FLIGHT) C’mon everybody sing with me, “their new house/you should see their house/their new house/you should SEEEEEEE their new house-uh.” OK thanks, now for the record review: for all of us 1990s Siltbreeze heads out there, the idea of a new lost Un release is certainly an enticing one, but unfortunately I would call this reissue of a 1996 tour-only cassette of practice/jam recordings, despite the fun title, even less essential than the Trans-Missions 7-inch. The LP really is the one you need, and it’s the one that’s so hard to get, a record somehow still unreissued in this world of constant unnecessary reissues. That one label from Tanzania has been popping, maybe they could help out.

MULTIVERSES/MULTIDIMENSIONAL COWBOY Spring Morning at Pepe’s split/collabo digital album (TYMBAL TAPES) I lived in Lincoln, Nebraska for 13 wonderful years, 1988 to 2001, and that experience, coupled with a good amount of “play anywhere” style touring with bands, taught me good and well that no matter what version of podunk you happen to be located in, whether it’s Muncie, or Sioux Falls, or Visalia, or Fredericksburg, or Lincoln, there are definitely going to be things slightly hipper/cooler/more beautiful than you’d expect going on somewhere in town. You may not find them, but they’re happening. Nonetheless, back in my Lincoln days even my ever-discerning head would’ve been well-turned by long-form solo synthesizer (by Multidimensional Cowboy) and/or duo bass guitar and “tanpura/swarmandal played mohan veena style” (by Multiverses) being performed live outdoors on someone’s porch on a springtime Sunday afternoon. But, that’s exactly what happened in Lincoln on April 13, 2025, and I can just picture walking by it somewhere in my old hallowed Near South neighborhood haunts as I listen to these relaxed and dreamed-out recordings today on Bandcamp. This music did happen for an unfortunate reason, which was some of the homes next door to Tymbal Tapes HQ being damaged in a fire; the performances were part of a day-long block-party benefit for those affected, and any purchases/donations on Bandcamp for this release will go to that same relief fund.

MUCKRAKER #6 single-sided comp 7-inch (GIARDIA); TARA CUNNINGHAM & JACK COOPER Pond Life (MOSSY TAPES) Earlier this column I was talking about certain records being apropos when played after other certain records, and it also seems apropos to jump in (no pun intended) to Tara Cunningham & Jack Cooper’s Pond Life release (cassette + digital) right after my latest once-per-decade spin of the LaDonna Smith & Davey Williams duo track on the one-sided 33RPM 7-inch that came with Muckraker magazine issue #6 back in 1995, both being examples of brittle and spare improvised duo music played on stringed instruments. That said, the differences are significant; one was recorded in Birmingham, Alabama circa 1995, and the other approximately 30 years later in London, England. Also, Smith & Williams come from the no-harmony whoop/whack/hover/scratch end of free improv, where Cunningham & Cooper come from the yes-harmony chime/strum/arpeggiate/melodize end. Also, the former is violin/guitar and the latter is guitar/guitar, and ultimately, they’re different because they’re not the same. It may be my oldheadedness and status as a card-carrying member of the Incus Records Fiend Club™, but I do prefer the no-harmony whoop/whack/hover/scratch approach of Smith and Williams. The yes-harmony chime/strum/chord approach of Cunningham and Cooper is just a little too patient for me, a little too polite. I feel like I hear them waiting.

ANDREW W.K. Close Calls With Brick Walls 2LP (DOPE ENTERTAINMENT/ UNIVERSAL MUSIC/LOAD RECORDS) Still somewhat baffled by this extremely intentional ‘difficult and/or lost 3rd LP’ move from 2006, Andrew saving the songs that sound like I Get Wet and “Party Hard” for the 3rd and 4th slot, and starting with a Tom Smith-doing-Ferry/Hammill move on the intentionally laborious (and I think excellent) ballad “I Came For You” (Andrew is a more traditionally talented singer than Tom, and the song is more straightforward than To Live and Shave in L.A. material), and then another false start with a quasi-ambient 1-minute interlude called “Close Calls with Bal Harbour,” then finally what would be a more traditional opening salvo with “Not Goin’ To Bed” (basically an extremely intentional/maniacal parody of/victory lap for his first album) and “You Will Remember Tonight” (same deal but even more cloying, and the cheesiness is maybe just hinting at becoming genuine, especially as it extends into a long prog coda with crazy metalloid-Queen electric guitar overdub duels). The next song is also a rocker, but more of a minor-key nervous-rocker, with the bad-boy title “Pushing Drugs,” honestly a pretty cool glam-rock paranoia move, and the song after that “Hand on the Place” is an also pretty cool mid-tempo triumph-prog move. I’m not gonna narrate every track though. Just side one. Also definitely not going to mention the name “Steev Mike.”

DENNIS PALMER White Wuff CD (PUBLIC EYESORE) Winner of this issue’s ‘album that made me keep forgetting what album I was listening to’ award. By track three I had already paused and wondered at least four times, even after reminding myself at least once that I was indeed listening to White Wuff, the 2024 posthumous solo release by Dennis Palmer, who exceptional readers will immediately recognize as one of the Shaking Ray Levis of Chattanooga, Tennessee. Palmer passed away in 2013 at the young age of 55, but this is still a new album of new material he had been working on, and in many ways it’s another Shaking Ray Levis album, because the other Levi, Bob Stagner, produced the album, has an arrangement co-credit, and plays throughout. The Levis would often expand the core Palmer/Stagner duo, and that’s happening here too with the soaring wordless vocals of Jessica Lurie, the “whistles, banjo” of Frank Pahl, and “vocals, incantation” by the Colonel Bruce Hampton himself. There are abstract improvisational pieces that still do not sound like the Levis, and there are also relatively poppy/catchy ‘normal-sounding’ tracks (that are still very weird) like “Chongo,” with its insistent rhythmic base — maybe Palmer on synthesizer? — and sharp flowing saxophone melodies — overdubbed by Lurie more recently, after Palmer’s passing, in sessions produced by Stagner? That’s sort of what I’m inferring, but for all I know this could’ve all been recorded before 2013 with Palmer in the room. I’m not sure exactly how it went down, but the liner notes by longtime Levis friend and collaborator Andy Pierce do make this clear: “These are, after all, Dennis Palmer’s final recordings.” The album sits somewhere between improvised weirdness and intentional cinematic composition . . . and come to think of it, the Shaking Ray Levis were always in some similar in-between place.

CLEARINGHOUSE The Grateful Dead Sea Sessions CD (NOT ON LABEL) As long as I’m talking about the Shaking Ray Levis and Muckraker magazine, anyone remember Noggin, the long-running highly committed duo of Eric Ostrowski on guitar and Michael Griffen (RIP) on violin? They were like the Levis and/or the LaDonna Smith/Davey Williams of Seattle — see how it all ties together, especially if you were an avid Muckraker magazine reader circa 1995? Well this band Clearinghouse is not Noggin, but does have Ostrowski on guitar, and this CD was released in 2014. The album title is instantly appealing to me, because I love both the Grateful Dead and the Dead C, and have enjoyed making connections between them and their respective improvisational/experimental/DIY approaches (#deadcfreaksunite), but the music of Clearinghouse itself is quite off-putting, with four long tracks of extremely lo-fi noise jamming. There could be something very powerful about this band, because the rhythm section sounds legit, but the music is so free-form, one-note, and no-end-in-sight that it cannot redeem the poor recording quality and everything quickly washes out.