FRIEND ROCK

i make a point of using this column as a place to describe music, an exercise that feels immediately like failure with even the most traditional of artists. Using written language to describe music, something always feels left out. Avoiding being too clinical or dry or romantic or intellectual with any characterization of sound in the world feels like dodging rhetorical landmines. The wonderful, wonky, explosive, kaleidoscopic, indescribable soundworld of Foodman really presents the issues with talking about music in words, but it has this lighthearted quality that makes me think it would be fun to try. The Japanese footwork pioneer's cut-and-paste juke-meets-everything-else requires onomatopoeias and poetry - it's full of pops(!) and clicks(!), sizzles, bells, and bangs, with frenetic percussion grooves swirling around the speakers. It's charming, borderline-cute music at times, drawing on Japanese media culture, noise/avant-garde music, and DJ Rashad, all at once. Foodman at times feels like an off-kilter, more dancefloor-ready take on the delicate and playful IDM of rei harakami. I really love his record and DJ sets, and his collaborations with the percussionist and producer Nikki Nair are strange and fun sonic ear candy. It'll be strange and fun to see them play together.

I have conflicting feelings about Pianos: it's probably not as bad as everyone says it is, but it's also not necessarily a place that I want to hang out more than I have to. That said, I've been winding up there recently much more than in my previous years in the city. Experimental venues are consistently shuttering and getting squeezed, with great artists pushed to the margins. Recently, Pianos has become a bit of a hub for avant-garde music. I recently saw Loren Connors play there with Lee Ranaldo, their Stereo Mandrax series extends the programming of Artist Space's legendary monthly Abasement series into the Lower East Side, and they recently had a show featuring Laszlo Horvath, who a friend lovingly described to me as "basically Lou Reed." I am not sure how Laszlo would feel about that comparison. He'd probably be humble about it. I saw Laszlo for the first time before I moved to New York: I came into the city from Westchester to see his band Laszlo and The Hidden Strength play a Drunken Canal party at the Bowery Electric, as part of my early investigations into an emergent phenomenon known as Dimes Square. That band, along with The Drunken Canal and the Bowery Electric, no longer exists. It is unclear if Dimes Square ever existed. Laszlo, however, exists. He has a powerful, excellent voice, he's a wonderful artist who tries to make interesting work and actually succeeds. His criminally underrated recent EP, I Don't Have That Problem, equally recalls strands of Nick Drake, 90s Chicago post-rock bands, Ryuichi Sakamoto, and glitch pop. Wonderful, tangible, textural music. Joining Laszlo on the bill is Benjamin Formerly, who evokes medieval MIDI counterpoint and ancient soundfonts in minimalist progressive pop that would probably equally appeal to fans of Otto Benson and Organ Tapes. Opening up is $quib, who I'm long overdue to see live: electronic experimentalist sound art weirdos who've been playing in the city for a while now. I think if you're just trying to find some new stuff, this could be a really good one.

I really don't know what this is going to be. Anastasia Coope posted a flyer on the Bonzo Instagram that says: "Bonzo Presents: 'Get Born Dance,' a micropera by Body Liars." It's a play in the basement of Nightclub 101. Zach Borzone from YHWH Nailgun is going to do the "opening reading." I have no idea what this will be, but I am a huge fan of Anastasia Coope, who I consider a good friend, and I like experimental theater. I've never regretted going to Bonzo.

I listen to music all the time, but I generally try to listen actively and focus intently, which typically means that I can't do anything else when I'm listening to music. If I've listened to an album enough and I'm writing about it, I allow myself to play it and tune in and out as I write as a treat. I can listen to music when I commute or go on walks or runs, but if I'm cooking, cleaning, or doing something that isn't text-related for work (organizing cables, making graphics, or sending mail), then I'll just throw on a podcast. I don't know what it is about the way that my brain processes information, but if I'm listening to interesting music and having a conversation, sending emails, or doing admin at the same time, it makes my brain want to shut down. Anyways, I've been listening to this podcast that my friend Maddie from 8 ball radio and the band Anna Worm recommended to me, which is a podcast about the makings of legendary albums as told by the people who made them. Each episode goes track by track for about an hour, sharing stories, songs, and occasionally playing the isolated tracks. Nobody really hosts or narrates the show, so it just feels like hanging out with Ben Gibbard and DNTEL as they go through Such Great Heights or sitting in the studio with Steve Albini as he breaks down Surfer Rosa. It's a weirdly intimate experience, one that's deepened my appreciation for great songs and rock bands. A few albums I wasn't really into even grew on me because of the show. Some episodes I recommend are The Walkmen (they talk about Jonathan Fire*Eater), Luna, Smog/Bill Callahan, The Replacements, and American Football.

The Swedish digital indie/cloud-rock architects make their long-awaited North American debut at Nightclub 101 this April after releasing one of last year’s most buzzy albums, Another Life. I found Horse Vision on Nina Protocol a little over a year and a half ago when they released an early single called Toxoplasma and asked them to do a mix on Montez Press Radio. Keegan Brady recently wrote a Rolling Stone article about them, Camille Keller, and Organ Tapes, bringing some of the originators of cloud rock into the context of my parents could possibly read about it. Keegan also interviews Ian Kim Judd and Madjestic Kasual, who are both coming onto Montez this week for an episode of Clout Farm. They were two of the first people I heard use the phrase “Cloud Rock,” to describe the music of the aforementioned artists, along with acts like Chanel Beads, Deer Park, Colle, early Bar Italia, Quiet Light, Urika’s Bedroom, and countless others. It points to a loose, IRL-meets-URL international scene, a constellation of musicians largely making music in the wake of Dean Blunt and Drain Gang, bringing together experimental DAW and recording techniques, moody/dark sound palettes, heavy autotune and vocal processing, samples, quasi-samples and samples of yourself. The music feels tied to streaming listening habits, or at least a post-internet listening behavior.  And yet for all its looseness, the scene has real aesthetic convictions. Most of these artists draw from some well of avant-garde composers, 4chan musical canon, chamber music, experimental electronic music, post-hardcore, cloud rap, witch house, emo, rave music, indie rock, and/or pop music — music that would’ve historically been tied to different listening behaviors. This sounds like the scene encompasses anything, but there is a distinct direction and formal boundaries. For instance, King Krule looms over Cloud Rock, especially among the younger generation of artists, many of whom picked up guitar learning his music, but jazz, funk, and soul music largely don't. The project of cloud rock in many ways feels like a reaction to neo-neo-soul, Soulection, “Berklee Funk,” or Jacob Collier’s perceived lack of “style.” I love Weather Report, but it feels like there’s a greater appreciation for Ornette Coleman, Miles Davis, Keith Jarett or Bill Evans, the more abstract, expressionist currents in Jazz. Cloud Rock is a reaction to neo-neo-soul and bedroom pop’s decadence, much in the same way post-punk was partly a reaction to prog's perceived grandiose eclecticism.  There’s much more I could say about this. And it already feels like Ivy Knight (who’s playing this show) and Deer Park are working from a completely different well of references with their new material, and seeing what’s going to come out that feels exciting.

Another long-awaited Scandinavian art-pop NA debut I'm excited about is the Danish duo, Snuggle, who are playing two nights at Baby's All Right in the beginning of May. When I first found Snuggle's music, I was drawn to a tendency in their songwriting that felt like a reinvention of the 1990s alt-rock soft/LOUD formula popularized by Nirvana and Pixies — they write these dissonant, claustrophobic verse sections that melt away into lush, honey-sweet, Sirius-XM-meets-chamber music choruses. If you listen to their songs Marigold, The Orchard, or Woman Lake, you might get a sense of what I'm talking about. I also listen to their song Dust quite a bit, which kind of takes the plasticy, chorus-drenched faux guitars of ML Buch and brings them back into an alt-rock context. It's a great pop song and it weirdly breaks what I kind of think is one of the only rules of pop music, which is that you should have some type of chorus that repeats at some point. I think it's awesome. Maybe it's a riff song like Smoke on the Water. Hard to say. The first night sold out but they just added another.