newclassic monthly #4: october 2024 – what we’ve been listening to
Jeremy Rosenstock’s anti-crystalline (2024, Falt)
Jeremy Rosenstock’s anti-crystalline, released digitally and on tape via Falt, amplifies the ghostly static hidden within deceptively voiceless volcanic materials. The tape features a composition on each side: “anti-crystalline,” a three-movement percussion trio for snare drums and obsidian as the A-side, and “post-crystalline,” a patient and coarse electronic track as its B-side. In “anti-crystalline,” Rosenstock employs the snare drum for what it is: a resonator. Yet, this transparent approach begets a beautifully opaque result, clouding scraped obsidian in a gossamer mist reminiscent of electronic processing. These electro-acoustic phantoms float naturally into the record’s electronic B-side, a brain-massaging realization of where our imaginations had wandered during “anti-crystalline.” The silences throughout the A-side remind us to listen just a little bit closer to the ostensibly static materials around us. So hold up that rock a little closer to your ear; you might be surprised with what you can hear.
Jack Herscowitz
Cassia Streb and Tim Feeney – Betwixt (2024, Harmonic Ooze Records)
I’ve heard Tim and Cassia perform together a number of times in LA, scraping and bowing and stacking and activating small objects on a table. This record is a culmination/combination/realization of their continued work together over a year or so, and I’m excited to hear that my favorite material (throwing keys on the floor) made the cut. Very lowercase (RIP Steve Roden) but that doesn’t mean it’s quiet; once you’ve acclimated to a single scraping sound, a box of ball bearings rattling feels gigantic.
Richard An
Marnie Stern – This Is It & I Am It & You Are It & So Is That & He Is It & She Is It & It Is It & That Is That
Not exactly a new release, but someone recently recommended going through Zach Hill’s enormous discography and clicking a random thing to listen to, which is how I landed on this album. Since then (two days ago) I’ve worked through nearly her entire excellent discography but there’s nothing quite like how this album opens. Comparisons to Deerhoof and the ILYs are obvious but true; also Melt-Banana and Pom Poko.
Shreddy, mathy, guitary.
Richard An