Reviews

David Greenberger and Prime Lens

Good Perspective (Fabrica Records) Rambutan.bandcamp.com Spiral Wave Nomads Spiral Wave Nomads (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

(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.”

Rambutan Inverted Summer

—Michael Eck

Baby Sage Glorious (Poe Records)

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

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.

Catskills Farm to Table Cookbook

Courtney Wade HATHERLEIGH PRESS, 2020, $20

The recipes collected by Wade, a Catskills native, capture some of the best farms and restaurants the region has to offer, from the Phoenicia Diner and Bull & Garland to Buck Hill Farm and Scrumpy Ewe. The vivid accompanying images will guide you as you embark on a culinary journey through upstate New York. Emphasizing the importance of knowing what’s in the food you consume, this cookbook turns the fresh vegetables, fruit, meat, dairy, wild game, and foraged produce native to this region into unpretentious recipes.

50 Plus Years of Pride: The Impact of Bars, Taverns, and Clubs

Michael Boyajian JERA STUDIOS PUBLISHING, 2020, $9.95

Local author and former human rights judge Michael Boyajian explains how the LGBTQ community created their own safe havens and how watering holes were central nodes in gay activism as well as social life. In a timely discussion about civil rights, Boyajian informs readers of how the LGBTQ community has been secretly and not so secretly discriminated against by society.

I of the Storm

Verna Gillis THE I OF THE STORM PUBLISHING, 2020, $10

Sit-down comedian and producer Verna Gillis’s dry sense of humor shines in this collection of short form poetry, aphorisms, and amalgamated odd thoughts about age and aging. You’ll find sage advice, jokes, witty one liners, thoughts on sex, and warnings about what happens when you get older, like so: “I have discovered the cure for hypochondria: Live long enough and it all becomes real.”

Trump off the Wall

Cary Bayer BAYER COMMUNICATIONS, 2020, $19.95

Life coach and long-time Woodstock resident Cary Bayer honors the long and storied tradition of political satire in America by poking fun at a man so outrageously over the top that he often seems a satirical version of himself: President Donald Trump. Broken up into three “terms,” (“Lampoons of the Tweeterin-Chief, “Trumped-up News,” and “You’re Fired!”) Bayer roasts Donald Trump over 34 chapters, which feature scathing titles like “Dolt 45,” “The Predator of the United States,” and “From Russia with Love & Collusion.”

A More Graceful Shaboom

Jacinta Bunnell & Crystal Vielula PM PRESS, 2020, $16.95

Hudson Valley resident Jacinta Bunnell makes the complicated and necessary conversation around gender identity and sexual orientation easy for parents and their kids in this new children’s book with illustrations by Crystal Vielula. Featuring a nonbinary protagonist and LGBTQAI+ characters, this book delicately weaves together teaching moments into this story of magic, imagination, joy, and purpose.

Eliza Starts a Rumor

Jane L. Rosen BERKLEY, $23.49

The bucolic town of “Hudson Valley” is the backdrop for this entertaining, timely, and often humorous story of sisterhood, secrets, betrayal, triumph, and complex relationships. Eliza Hunt, a local girl who returned to her childhood home with her loving husband, Luke, to raise their twins, finds herself missing the sisterhood of her single career life. So, she creates the Hudson Valley Ladies Bulletin Board, an online source for exchange and support, bringing her small town into the 21st century and joining women from around the world in embracing online forums with candor and humor. To her happy surprise, “moderating the bulletin board felt like a gift...just what had been missing in her life.”

Fifteen years later, while battling a recurrence of crippling agoraphobia and forcing herself to go to the local Stop and Shop, Eliza overhears two “sleek millennial Mommas” discussing a new site called Valley Girls, that they feel is more relevant for their generation—“more dirty laundry, less how best to wash it.” Determined not to be seen as obsolete and fearful of losing what has become her lifeline to the outside world, Eliza crafts an anonymous, scandalous fictional post after looking out her bedroom window and seeing a man go from “patiently ringing to obsessively banging” on her neighbor’s front door, to revitalize her site. It works.

But little does she know that it would be seen by Olivia, a young woman who becomes convinced that she could be the wronged wife described in the post. When Olivia enlists the help of her new attorney friend Alison, who, like herself, has recently moved to the valley with a new baby (but no husband), her life begins to unravel under the weight of her husband’s (Spencer) infidelities. They join forces to get the evidence needed to expose his deceit and lies. Their relationship is defined by young motherhood and the men they chose to have children with; in Olivia’s case, the next in line to become the CEO of his parent’s cosmetic empire and in Alison’s, an up-andcoming New York City politician (Marc) who wants nothing to do with their child until it is politically useful. Into the mix comes Jackie, a single Dad who rather innocently joins the bulletin board (posing as a woman) after being egged on by his commuting buddies, so that he can get the help he needs to raise his 15-year-old daughter, Jana. He and Alison engage in friendly online banter but their relationship becomes complicated when they meet in real life and sparks fly. In the meantime, Eliza’s best friend, Amanda, has left her life in LA and her abusive husband (Castor) whose grotesque behavior has been exposed in the #Me Too era, and returns to her childhood home with her two children. She immediately see’s that Eliza too is in crisis and needs help to overcome and move forward from her tragic past and like always, their friendship is what gives them strength.

The intersecting lives of Eliza, Amanda, Olivia, Alison, and Jackie makes for a satisfying page turner while balancing a tough array of timely topics and skillfully using humor to showcase the redemptive power of the truth. —Jane Kinney Denning