music David Greenberger and Prime Lens Good Perspective (Pel Pel Recordings) Davidgreenberger.com I can see, but I’m worried. I’ve developed diabetic macular edema, something of a family curse, which I’ve helped along with years of bad behavior. I now receive injections, in my eyeballs, every couple of weeks. Fun. Don’t even start with me on the old “better than a sharp stick in the eye” saw. I can tell you firsthand, having been routinely trussed up like Alex Droog, that just about anything is better than a sharp stick in the eye. When my mother, who passed away a year older than I am now, was going through a similar situation 25 years ago, I read her Rilke’s “Going Blind.” She loved romance novels; Rilke’s dense, hoping words winged past her, but I think of them now in a new, selfish light, dreaming of radiance, joy, and flight. Which is to say, David Greenberger’s latest disc, Good Perspective, is a clear sky. Greenberger, particularly through his Duplex Planet magazine, has made an admirable career of translating interviews with senior citizens into art, work rich in “fractured narratives” and “accidental poetics.” Speaking with residents at a Chattanooga, Tennessee, facility for the disabled and visually impaired, Greenberger—joined by composer Tyson Rogers’s team—moves through many rooms, noting obstacles in the way. The aural results, smart, caring, inquisitive monologues developed from those conversations and paired with supportive sound collages, are, as Rilke might note, “beyond all walking.” —Michael Eck
Rambutan Inverted Summer
Baby Sage Glorious
(Fabrica Records) Rambutan.bandcamp.com
(Poe Records)
Spiral Wave Nomads Spiral Wave Nomads
It is always fun to discover a record from the ’90s that I somehow missed. Baby Sage’s Glorious, originally released as a seven-inch in 1995, is an earnest, winsome, and subversive example of great alternative rock with 1980s-college-radio influences; comparisons to Belly, Pixies, and Throwing Muses would not be far afield. The lineup features Gardiner’s Michael and Kristina Rose (Astro-Zombies, Melted Americans, Wild Irish Roses, Templars of Doom), and you can tell that, like some Soul Asylum records, their live energy was even better than the dynamic recordings. “The Man with Two Fingers” allows for some Sonic Youth-esque guitar soloing to cut loose; “Sunday” is a fairly perfect indie song with hooks and a desire to “eat the holy flesh”; and “I Am the Leper” is like if the Dead Milkmen and the Breeders tried to make an outro that felt like an Iron Butterfly jam but was still under four minutes. —Morgan Yvan Evans
(Twin Lakes Records/Feeding Tube Records) Twinlakesrecords.com Eric Hardiman has been a principal participant on the Albany experimental scene for the last two decades, releasing piles of recordings with Burnt Hills, Century Plants, and other projects. Inverted Summer marks the full-length vinyl debut of his solo guise Rambutan, and its gentle, oscillating synths and dark dronescapes make it the perfect platter to put on before you slide open your retractable skull lid and melt into your comfortable couch. Also premiering here on wax is Spiral Wave Nomads, the duo of Hardiman, on guitar, sitar, and bass, and Michael Kiefer (More Klementines), on drums. The trippy twosome trades in soaring, searching, psychedelic sonics that evoke spiritual jazz and Middle Eastern modes (“Floating on a Distant Haze” is a tell-tale track title). To really keep the brain juice flowing, try spinning both these mind-melters back to back. Tie your tether tightly, though. —Peter Aaron 48 MUSIC CHRONOGRAM 8/20
Wolfgang Muthspiel/Scott Colley/Brian Blade Angular Blues (ECM Records) Ecmrecords.com Love of melody and collaborative creation pervades this alluring new recording by guitarist/composer Wolfgang Muthspiel, ably abetted by bassist/Hudson Valley resident Scott Colley and drummer Brian Blade. The trio reveals their manifold gifts right out of the gate on the album opener “Wondering,” as the warm luster of Muthspiel’s nylon-string acoustic guitar weaves tapestries of chordal lines around the rugged, tough-love tone of Colley’s bass taking the piece’s lead melody and Blade’s coaxing such sweet, quiescent thunder from his kit. The title track certainly lives up to its name in its start-stop dynamics, while developing a singularly orotund swing. And if there’s a lovelier tune released in 2020 than Muthspiel’s discreetly rapturous, countrified “Hüttengriffe,” it won’t be for lack of sublime competition here. It all seems over too soon, but the nearly 54 minutes that comprise Angular Blues are rich with subtle, absorbing invention. —James Keepnews
