Genre

Format

Date

Notice Recordings


The collaboration between these two North Carolina projects feels, upon listening, almost inevitable. Magic Tuber Stringband (Evan Morgan and Courtney Werner) is an instrumental duo often employing traditional Appalachian-style playing within contemporary drone and song-oriented contexts to create undulating, cathartic, organic compositions. Weirs (Justin Morris and Oliver Child-Lanning) is a bit more stylistically diverse, but very much rooted in the fascinating crossover of traditional and contemporary music which is recently abundant in the mid and south-Atlantic states.Recorded live with field recorders inside Virginia’s pitch-black Crozet Tunnel, the album presents four individuals experiencing the beautiful and intense sonics of both interior and exterior space, and their own forms of communication with one another. The singing in particular is powerful. Flat, strong broad voices without vibrato evoke a sense of the tragic or stern, notable in opener “Bright Morning Star” (originally a Masonic hymn which entered the American folk lexicon)—as if things might at any moment descend into dissonant sadness—but then become gentle and anodyne, trafficking not in freak-folk innocence but authentic connection to their sources. As potentially radical as the old music is, the solidly unhurried pacing of both the “song sections” and “drones” allows each word of each line, each vocal plait, each scrape of echoed object, to ring with surprise.The performances emphasize the distinctively rich reverb of the physical space, using the acoustics to re-situate the art in the heart of the land. Side B is an entrancing altered playback of the music from Side A, re-recorded under a dome behind a science museum in which the surrounding ambience layers seamlessly with the music: bird and insect sounds, shuffling movements, a child’s voice. Far from feeling performative or even conceptual, this feels earned and intimate, teaching the listener about the interplay between the music and the site of its creation. That the musicians semi-jokingly refer to this side as a “dub version” reflects the depth and breadth of their vision.

Weirs and Magic Tuber Stringband – The Crozet Tunnel

This meet-up between two thoughtful practitioners of minimal and process-oriented music succeeds not because it is resourceful but because its gestures are clearheaded. Disciplined and exploratory, it is like observing someone fixing a watch: methodical and calm, periodically getting up and selecting a tool, working for stretches of full concentration, and hearing the footsteps and rustle of clothing. The titles of the pieces – “Distinct” and “Concealed” – suggest tensions between public self-presentation and private self-knowledge, and yet these recordings were made live, with sounds of the room and the activity and movements of the players suggesting a theatricality that complicates both poles. “Distinct” plays like a long-delayed catch-up session between friends, seriousness arising periodically before resolving into active and glassy communication. If “Distinct” is a catch-up, “Concealed” plays as a tense second meeting: piano-led, with zipped spoken-word loops and long stretches of pause, eventually falling into a satisfying equilibrium. The barely controlled nature of no-input mixing confronts the more manageable elements of electronics and tape, with keyboards complicating the relationship. In thThis meet-up between two thoughtful practitioners of minimal and process-oriented music succeeds not because it is resourceful but because its gestures are clearheaded. Disciplined and exploratory, it is like observing someone fixing a watch: methodical and calm, periodically getting up and selecting a tool, working for stretches of full concentration, and hearing the footsteps and rustle of clothing. The titles of the pieces – “Distinct” and “Concealed” – suggest tensions between public self-presentation and private self-knowledge, and yet these recordings were made live, with sounds of the room and the activity and movements of the players suggesting a theatricality that complicates both poles. “Distinct” plays like a long-delayed catch-up session between friends, seriousness arising periodically before resolving into active and glassy communication. If “Distinct” is a catch-up, “Concealed” plays as a tense second meeting: piano-led, with zipped spoken-word loops and long stretches of pause, eventually falling into a satisfying equilibrium. The barely controlled nature of no-input mixing confronts the more manageable elements of electronics and tape, with keyboards complicating the relationship. In the hands of Baron and Martin, minimalism is a constant and active search.

Derek Baron & Luke Martin – Distinct and Concealed

The Pennsylvania improvising trio of Kevin Sims, James Searfoss, and Justin Dorsey continue to hone their fierce and potent relationship with texture, rhythm, and amorphous sound forms. This album is laced with musical paths travelled and skirted, conversant with drone, electroacoustics, and free jazz. “Glint” functions as a bit of an overture, and as “Once Threw” expands on the clatter and clamber, Dorsey’s bass becomes a focal point, taking a prominent position in the mix and making radically clear signal-point gestures that bring about significant changes, exploring new rooms and leading the way into them. The arresting “Chiffon Blues” opens with Sims’ psaltery, leading a mournful bluesy atmosphere into melodic sweetness, tumbling into undulating percussion held lovingly by a walking bassline and Searfoss’ honest and energetic saxophone playing. The assuredly paced “Until” orbits eccentrically between vertiginous sustained passages and swirling, fragmented chases of resonant metallic percussion and mysterious and distant textural tape loops. Tension is a central tenet of this trio, and here they keep things so taut that an engaging dynamic balance is maintained throughout. --- Kevin Sims - percussion, trombone, psaltery, fluteJames Searfoss - alto sax, tape loopsJustin Dorsey - upright bass --- Recorded July '23 in Aaronsburg PAMixed by Kevin SimsMastered by James SearfossArtwork by E. Lindorff-ElleryPrinted by Small Fires Press 

Moth Bucket – Vagary Suite

Resourcefulness is sometimes presented as a humble quality born of necessity. But it’s a foundational tenet of the exceptionally unconstrained members of improvising trio Tamarisk, consisting of Christina Carter, David Menestres, and Andrew Weathers. Their latest is a continuation of the interplay they’ve developed for a few years now on a handful of releases and while touring. Like the most bizarre sort of jazz combo, Tamarisk grazes the orbits of outré free improv, moody balladry, object play, staccato scraping, and the contemplation of vistas and landscapes. Vocals vacillate between polished and raw, reaching bravely toward the upper and outer ranges, long-intoned, with spoken word elements and dramatic pauses between broken phrases and wordless utterances, all awash in arrivals and departures. The recordings are anchored with a broad array of techniques that admirably deconstruct an understanding of pacing and conventional movement in music, instead favoring constantly fluctuating textures and timbral variety. Unhinged chords, dissonant counterpoints, sprinklings of prepared work, scraping, and bowing. This is a trio of sharp listeners who are unafraid of intimacy or dynamic extremes, and it enables a deep exploration into their own core. Tamarisk seems to ignore time altogether, dropping into a shared state of receptiveness that yields strange and compelling results throughout the album. --- Christina CarterDavid MenestresAndrew WeathersRecorded at Wind Tide, Littlefield TXMarch 29 - 31, 2022Mixed and Mastered by Andrew WeathersAlbum sequenced by E. Lindorff-ElleryArtwork by E. Lindorff-ElleryPrinted by Small Fires Press

Tamarisk – Comes From Far Away From Here

Erica Dawn Lyle has been described by Pitchfork as a “punk hero,” which, though true, feels like an insufficiently specific term to describe her multifaceted presence and work. Colonial Motels is in fact rawly personal, a ladder out of an abyss of mourning as well as a determination to persevere and connect. Playing less but achieving more, this album captures the engaging intensity and directness that defines Lyle’s art, performance, and activism. Part I builds on patient looping and guitar body play, then gradually disintegrates into a gale of analog and digital noise stabbed with howling guitar calls. A blaring coda strips the electric guitar down to the primes before an abrupt end. Part II starts intense and cathartic, and stays that way, a heavily textured sonic wall which slowly undulates like an animated topographical map simultaneously receding and growing. The pieces seem to encourage a listening level that could be described as provocative, and Lyle’s guitar contains elements of squallish noise, employing to its advantage the overload of all apparatuses involved. But it also contains a masterful degree of space in which to catch the hypnotic repetition of desert blues, subtly weird pedal experimentation, unselfconscious playfulness, and aural hallucinations. Astonishingly, these pieces feel meditatively paced even as they reach peak intensity, enabling the listener to briefly rest in contemplation while in the eye of a storm about which most guitarists can only cower or fantasize. --- Erica Dawn Lyle - electric guitarRecorded by EDL, Aug 1 2023 at The Buoyant Heart, Birge Street, Brattleboro VTimprovised, single takes --- Mastered by Grant RichardsonPhotograph by EDLLayout by E. Lindorff-ElleryPrinted by Small Fires Press  

Erica Dawn Lyle – Colonial Motels

"Soulcaster" is the third solo record by Brooklyn-based composer/performer Joanna Mattrey. Following Live in Accord and various Notice Recordings-curated performances in the Hudson Valley, this album is a further development in our years-long friendship. With "Soulcaster", Mattrey scrapes, scratches, and wails on viola, prepared viola, and a tromba marina, built by Webb Crawford. Mattrey’s love of unique and unusual sounds has inspired her to alter the pure tone of the viola through preparations with styrofoam, plastic toys, chains, and other objects. But the newest sounds in her arsenal come from the tromba marina, which has one primary playing string and thirteen sympathetic strings. Rather than gently coaxing out the harmonics, as the historical playing style suggests, Mattrey employs a raucous and roaring approach.The title, "Soulcaster", is borrowed from Brandon Sanderson’s book series, "The Stormlight Archive". In the fantasy series, a soulcaster is an instrument that transforms one object or life form into another. Mattrey’s practice connects heavily to the idea of transformation. She uses preparations and objects not only to create new sounds from her instruments, but to embrace the unknown. No matter how many times the same object has been used, depending on the vibrations on a given day, the preparations might bring out totally different sounds. This randomness creates a joyful challenge for Mattrey, who believes that especially during improvisation, music has its own life that activates and guides the sound forward. Mattrey surrenders to this energetic line of sound over the eleven tracks featured on this tape.

Joanna Mattrey – Soulcaster

Recorded live in Accord, New York, this recording stands not only as Notice Recording’s 70th album, but also the first release to document an event organized by Notice as well. June 6th was one of the hottest days of that summer, and the wooden platform on which the performances occurred was on the top of a small hill on Deer Creek Farm. Many sweaty trips up and down that hill carrying gear ensued. Luckily, the performance and audience space was nestled under a shadowy tree canopy of thick leaves, allowing intermittent patches of sunlight. Charmaine Lee performed solo and was soon joined by Weston Olencki. Following this, featured on Side B, was a first meeting of Fred Lonberg-Holm, Joanna Mattrey, and Gabby Fluke-Mogul, with dance accompaniment by Emily Kessler, Sienna Blaw, and Chelsea Enjer Hecht, whose footsteps can be lightly heard in the leaves throughout the recording, a textural element joined by various distant birdsong and other indeterminate shuffling. The final performance of the afternoon was Fred and Weston, another first meeting, a duo of trombone and cello, also joined by the dancers. This album exists as basically a high quality field recording of the event: atmospheric and intense, ephemeral and grounded, an experience amorphous in one’s memory as are the undulating birdsongs that interlaced the entire afternoon.

Charmaine Lee / Fred Lonberg-Holm / Gabby Fluke-Mogul / Joanna Mattrey / Weston Olencki – Live in Accord

Stella Silbert and Nat Baldwin’s "01.30.22" starts with a disorienting and curt mixture of vinyl static, chopped and skewed mysterious acoustic guitar strings, and a loud, acoustic “thud”. It’s an introduction to a strange piece of music from a strange album by two fascinating players in the current improvised and contemporary music landscape. This first piece, “5”, warbles and wobbles its way though oddly lyrical passages, framed in sporadic collaged format by the rapidly cut pitch-shifted classical guitar emanating from Silbert’s prepared turntable, pockmarked with abrasive static. Baldwin’s breathy, thick, and textured double bass playing wonderfully compliments such engaging sounds, while both voices allow one another to breathe freely. This is a consistent feeling throughout the album: one is allowed to breathe and mentally wander throughout these sounds. Despite their intensity, they are never exhausting. (Quite literally, one can hear Baldwin’s labored breath throughout the recording.) Notice became aware of Silbert’s work via the incredible duo Beige, with Liam Kramer-White, and here on "01.30.22", one can similarly hear the unique approach to timbre, dynamic, and pacing. Baldwin runs the much-loved Tripticks Tapes, and has roots in both improvised music and song-based work, with a number of solo albums on Western Vinyl. His plucked, bowed, scraped or otherwise altered double bass exists as an adaptable and amorphous hinge throughout the performances; facilitating movements of sounds both horizontally and vertically, simultaneously closing and opening segments. The duo’s interplay and dynamic is deeply exciting and presents a fresh and weird sound in free improvisation.

Stella Silbert and Nat Baldwin – 01.30.22

"Live Recordings" presents MAW—the trio of Frank Meadows (bass), Jessica Ackerley (guitar), and Eli Wallace (piano/synth)—fully testing the possibilities of their creative dialogue in front of a live audience for the first time. Two concerts in Brooklyn and Saugerties, both staged in October 2021, display the performance of an acute democratic understanding, acquired across formative years of private sessions and conversation, including the late 2020 recording session that produced their Atlantic Rhythms debut “A Maneuver Within”. Notice Recordings became aware of the trio via Ackerley, a recent Notice artist who recorded a blistering album with Patrick Shiroishi. Having then become familiar with Wallace and Meadows’ engaging playing in other configurations, we were immediately allured by the prospect of the new trio. On this album, MAW traces a broad rhythmic and dynamic range, engaging in fierce rhythmic interplay and patiently suspended motion, all the while maintaining a controlled emphasis on colorful gesture and textural counterpoint. The trio’s knowledge of each other, as well as a diverse range of influences, is carefully condensed into a hard-won syntax which produces the concise recorded summaries presented here. Each set has a heaviness, but they are never imposing. They are taut and physical, yet their fluidity is inviting. Atmosphere becomes important here: One can feel the dark, open, resonant room of Mise-en-Place and its industrial surroundings on Side A, augmented by Wallace's prepared piano, a thunderous and haptic blend with Ackerley and Meadows’ playfully interwoven string work. Alternatively, Side B's recording has the close intimacy of the small gallery setting at Opus 40 in upstate New York, albeit with the door open to a rainy evening, permitting the occasional pastoral ambiance, such as cawing of crows, to settle into the recording. Despite this, Side B is an intense endeavour, with swathes of Wallace's synth laced throughout the performance, a fine example of an unhinged and untamed "electric MAW". 

MAW – Live Recordings

Sunik Kim’s Raid on the White Tiger Regiment arrives three years after 2019’s Zero Chime on First Terrace Records. Raid has strong political undertones and is named after one of the eight core revolutionary operas produced during the Cultural Revolution. This particular opera focuses on the joint struggle of Chinese and Korean communists during the Korean War, during which there were devastating US attacks on the northern part of the peninsula. Raid is an insanely wild ride made with software Sunik custom-built in Max MSP and SuperCollider using free orchestral soundfonts at hyper-speed tempos. Despite the presumed chaos of this album, there is a strong and present voice that permeates the barrage of noises, almost as if the teeming and swirling sounds coalesce to create a slowly shifting mass that is somehow soothing. There is a constant regeneration of textures and sensations here: simultaneously shedding and accumulating, receding and emerging. A multidirectional presence, both solidly grounded but also unpredictable in its motion. Side B presents a unique live document of Sunik’s performances of the Raid material: a lengthy 30 minute piece created from multiple field recordings of the performances at Cafe OTO in London and Counterflows in Glasgow. “Raid Live” stands as an interesting counter to the meticulously crafted studio-created material. Its weight is held by roomtone, pockmarked with the audience’s yelling and mingling; a cathartic experience felt by many.---Artist's statement:This is possibly the second album named after one of the eight core revolutionary operas produced during the Cultural Revolution; to my knowledge, the first is Brian Eno’s Taking Tiger Mountain By Strategy. Raid on the White Tiger Regiment, the opera, focuses on the joint struggle of Chinese and Korean communists during the Korean War—a truly “forgotten war” in much of the world, in which the US dropped 635,000 tons of explosives and 32,557 tons of napalm on the northern part of the peninsula, killing 20 percent of the population, and massacred tens of thousands of Korean communists and suspected sympathizers from Nogeun-ri to Daejeon.Raid, the album, pulls its titles from the opera’s program and thereby positions the music as a soundtrack: an inherently limited and dependent form that requires a broader historical and political context—a connection with the world—to reach its fullest state of development. In substituting my wordless, “abstract” music for that of the original opera, I hope to establish a living nexus of contradictions between: (1) the original opera, as direct an example of “political art” as there can be; (2) the extended historical and political processes that birthed it; (3) our current conjuncture; (4) the immediate listening experience. In this clashing and intertwining of timelines, histories, and sense-perceptions, I hope to facilitate a visceral act of comparison, a tracking of excess and deficiency: what aligns, what collides, what falls horribly or comically flat, what brings tears of joy or sadness? And why?The music is constructed with custom software I built with Max/MSP and SuperCollider that controls banks of free orchestral soundfonts at chaotic tempos. I hope the overt “cheapness” of the materials, and their constantly coalescing, collapsing, disintegrating, reassembling movement, establishes a dramatic—operatic!—tension internal to the logic of the music itself: one that, above all, argues that possibilities—aesthetic, yes, but also historical and political—have nowhere near been exhausted, and that the present order will one day be rightfully relegated to “the museum of antiquities, next to the spinning wheel and the bronze ax.”Sunik Kim, 2022

Sunik Kim – Raid on the White Tiger Regiment

Two sets of music by Chik White, an alias of Darcy Spidle, whose Nova Scotia-based Divorce Records has been slinging LPs of sonic bemusement since 1999. Jaw Works is made up of solo jaw harp performances, wringing mesmerizing detail from variations in rhythm and tempo, while achieving a wide variety of barely believable, almost synthesized-sounding timbres. Behind A Dead Tree On The Shore also features the jaw harp, albeit in concert with the North Atlantic Ocean, which inspired the more minimal, rhythmic pieces performed on the shore. Organic and personal, this is folk music created by a single person in his environment, using the most basic of musical tools. "The immense, magical strangeness of the jaw harp – man, that twanging, cartoonish sproing – fuels this release. It’s essentially a series of brief exercises. On Side A, the Nova Scotia-based White cycles through variations on his daily practice; on Side B, he improvises along a shoreline. Since each track is no briefer than 50 seconds and no longer than four minutes, a game freshness reigns and there is never a sense that the artist is repeating himself: the coiled spritely bounce of “Hiding In A Dead Tree” is as distinct from the breathy, fading hesitancy of “Dreamer’s Words” or the steady, strident vibrations of “Dreamer’s Question.” White’s tones sidle from hypnagogic to inquisitive to – in the case of “Cliff Collapsing Slowly” – downright cybernetic, the echoed thrumming contrasting deliciously with the ceaseless crash and dispersion of waves. “Meditative” is a descriptor that’s thrown around a lot in experimental or drone music, but it’s rarely this earned, even as a crepuscular unease lurks at the edges of this cassette." - Cassettegods   ---   Artwork, layout by E. Lindorff-ElleryPrinted by Minuteman Press  

Chik White – Jaw Works & Behind a Dead Tree on the Shore