So I made another mix. Close friends have heard it, and I feel it’s time I shared it here. This was an attempt to capture my outlook right now. Or then, rather. There are distinct first and second halves, and I feel that the latter could be a “healing” side. It’s definitely a warmer, rising sensation. There’s more than that, but the sound is what matters.
It’s called In Heaven.
This video is old and I haven’t written a post about Gang Gang Dance in a while, but neither fact matters. This is a freewheeling ode to getting high on your music.
I really can’t say more. Watch the video.
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Having already introduced Diamond Terrifier here, I’ll strike the heart of the matter: Sam Hillmer’s debut solo album is one of the most transcendent pieces I’ve heard all year. Simultaneously an abstract yet tactile experience, Kill The Self That Wants To Kill Yourself is dark and beautiful and weirdly refreshing.
The first sound heard on the titular opener is a warming synth pad straight from Brian Eno‘s playbook. Dream sequence, loving eulogy or triumphant reunion; it’s a lifting wind over which Hillmer solos to melodic catharsis. Arresting in its direct simplicity, this track eases us into the unshackled gravity of romantic disorientation. Slipping on a shattered cloudy fabric Oneohtrix Point Never might wear, he never lets the human presence or real instruments drift out of mind. As the album deepens it never loses grip on the tangible reality of its construction: guitar, handclaps, cymbals and the commanding saxophone are practically visible, yet even the drone swells and programmed drum bits crackle and hum right before me. There is so much life stabbing outward from the perceptual dervish at the center of this album. Kill The Self That Wants To Kill Yourself, beyond being one of the greatest titles ever, feels like the beginning of a new fruitful path for Hillmer. I just hope this doesn’t preclude growth (and future albums) in his main band. Zs are, after all, one of the most interesting bands I perpetually neglect to share.
I will rectify this.
Here’s a track from the album. Like I said yesterday, it works best as a single piece.. this is still great.
Buy this at Northern Spy. As I said before, they are quick with help and priced beyond fairly.
For fans of: Zs, Don Cherry, Fennesz, John Fahey, John Coltrane, Sun City Girls, Coil
Diamond Terrifier is the solo project created by saxophone destroyer Sam Hillmer, as a vehicle for the exploration of more nuanced territory than the blast furnace his day job in avant-jazz-noise group Zs embodies. He’s got a new album out which I’ll get to in a moment.
For now, check this:
Twenty seven minutes of otherworldly bliss. I’ve now listened three times in a row. Each set bringing something new to the fore, shifting around the sweet spots. Each time a novel element flashes brighter: the swarming Pharoah Sanders and Don Cherry echoes in the horn play, the primitively menacing percussion, the psychotic guitar threatening to derail everything at one point, even the familiar ghosts hissing between the cracks (hello, He Loved Him Madly). It begins in earnest with Hillmer laying out a lyrical solo somewhere between siren and whale song and progresses to a full band tsunami where we have a synthy bass pulse emerging at times like a ship refusing to sink, only to rise in full sail near the end in a sax-and-laser maelstrom.
This incredible piece is just a taste of what this man creates, something taken to a much more personal and direct place on the new album, Kill The Self That Wants To Kill Yourself. There’s a stream of one of the tracks on the Diamond Terrifier soundcloud, though I believe it works much better as part of the whole.
There it is. Get it at Northern Spy. They have great prices and (seriously) fast and helpful customer relations.
For fans of: John Coltrane, Terry Riley, Boredoms, Colin Stetson, Anthony Braxton, Ultralyd, adventures
So here we go.
I was lost in a youtube hole with Yo La Tengo tonight when the notion occured to me that I have never fairly represented my deep seated love for the band on this blog. I can’t possibly hope to convey it in one or a dozen posts so I’m starting off with this fantastic take on a very recent track. It speaks for itself. This band is fucking phenomenal and always has been.
I often play host to a great hunger, longing for a new piece of music to burrow into for weeks. I’m grateful that in this age I have a reasonable chance of striking that vein several times a year, or having a trio new addictions at once (or two or five albums of the year).
Growing up, I remember falling in love with an album and listening to it with abusive regularity for months on end, because I had no clue that another perfect sound was out there beyond my grasp and lack of internet. So I swell with gratitude every time it happens. This time it’s Marielle V Jakobsons with her debut Glass Canyon.
Optimistic Underground 