Music Week in Advance

Delayed again, but here are eight revies to tide you over.

Once again I got caught in an end-of-month jam, where I have several Notes on Everyday Life draft files open, but none near completion. I see some people cranking out pieces nearly every day. No idea how they manage to do that, as I struggle to get more than one per month out. In my defense, I do write every day, but most of what I write goes into my online notebook or a draft file on its way to becoming a blog post. In some cases (e.g., Loose Tabs) those can grow so large as to be mind-boggling, even to me. After I finished my May 12 Loose Tabs, I meant to go back and pull out a few excerpts, and add a few extra thought, to send out here. That's just one of this month's incompletes. Makes me wonder if I have the order right: may I should kick out most of my longer comments there, or maybe even some link clusters, here first, then use the blog post as an archive.?

My hope for Notes on Everyday Life was to write more focused articles, on single topics, and I have written a few of those I'm reasonably pleased with, but mostly I just find myself flailing about, trying to keep on top of the avalanche of news and so-called thinking, as well as a wide swathe of the year's new music. For the latter see my Music Week posts, which then get compiled into my monthly Streamnotes files (and perhaps eventually into something more book-like). My standard procedure is to kick a Music Week post out every Monday, collecting all my notes on all the records I've listened to in the week. That should be straightforward enough, but it takes a couple hours to pull the paperwork together. And then I feel the need to write some kind of introduction, which may offer background information, further thoughts, and/or may just give me a chance to spout off about lots of things going on in my life. And that could tack on anywhere from a couple more hours to the whole day, and sometimes then some.

However, two more factors enter today: this is the last Monday in May, and that imposes a couple hours of extra work, as I have to close off my May Streamnotes file and open up a new one for June; also, I have a cooking project for tomorrow, which requires some shopping and prep work today, so I don't have a lot of time to work with. So I've decided to hold off Music Week until Wednesday or Thursday (still within May). In olden days, I might have announced that on one of my social media feeds. But hardly anyone ever sees them anyway. And most of the people I care about are subscribers here.

But just sending a "nothing today" notice would ring hollow. So it occurred to me that I could offer a sneak peek at what's coming whenever I finally get it posted. That way we still have some substance here, but without a lot of overhead: no real introduction (other than the setup above); no extra accounting; only a minimal editing pass (which, by the way, helps, and Music Week rarely gets on its own). I thought 6-8 reviews might be a nice sample size. With 35 albums rated so far, that wasn't hard to do.

Carsie Blanton & the Burning Hell: Everything Is Great! (2026, self-released): Political. Sure, "nobody wants to talk about it" is as ironical as "everything is great!" (what with starting world war three and all — "third time's the charm?"). But what can we do about it? After a disclaimer, political violence may not be the exclusive fantasy of the right. Sample quotes: "going to turn the one to the zero percent"; "fascists are best when they're under the ground"; "hoist the guillotine"; "them billionaires aren't worth a hill of beans"; "the American dream is a pyramid scheme"; "let the fire into our hearts." Sure, these suggestions are not exactly reasonable, but I have news for her: the day of "your car has a six-disc changer" is already gone. Then there's: "It took a lot of love to end the war to end all wars." A [sp]

Carsie Blanton: The Red Album Vol. 2 (2026, self-released, EP): Eight-song, 19:54 sequel to 2024's six-song, 13:25 Vol. 1, which spawned the two-sided single "Ugly Nasty Commie Bitch"/"The Democrats" (will shoot you in the back). Contempt for Elon Musk, and sympathy for Luigi Mangione. A sign of the times. A- [sp]

E-Dancer: E-Dancer (2025, One House): Techno producer, originally an alias for Kevin Saunderson, now Danitiez Saunderson (middle son of Kevin and Ann Saunderson), family from Detroit but Danitiez now based in Chicago, with singles under his own name starting 2013. I'm not familiar with the father, but this is pretty classic Detroit techno. B+(***) [sp]

Nandipha808: Who Made Who (2026, Stena Academy): South African amapiano album, 9 songs running 56:22. Some sources also credit this album to CAAZA, with Givem Tyler Litch, Nation Deep, Shoes Meister, and possibly others appearing on song credits. Minimalist beats, with occasional sonic fillips, some vocal, some reminiscent of Kraftwerk. I've seen it suggested that this is nice to nap to, hypnotic even, but I find myself hanging on details, and in many ways prefer it to last year's more highly touted (but also recommended) No Vocal Album. A- [sp]

Neurosis: An Undying Love for a Burning World (2026, Neurot): Atmospheric sludge metal group, from Oakland, released 13 studio albums 1987-2016, went on hiatus, back here a decade later, absent long-time frontman Scott Kelly. Normally I wouldn't bother — it's not like I've heard any of their previous albums — but this is AOTY's top-rated album of 2026 (89/8; note that 5 of the top 7 albums there are metal, which seems suspicious, like metal critics mostly move in a tight pack; there are enough to impact the standings, but non-fans rarely bother). Power riffs and deep-growled vocals (saying what? I have no idea), pretty much par for the course, if you ask me. B [sp]

John Pizzarelli: Dear Mr. Bennett (2026, Green Hill Music): Guitarist, like his father, and standards singer, many albums since his 1983 debut, I'm Hip (Please Don't Tell My Father), including many tributes, especially to Nat King Cole. Bennett's just a prism into everyone else's songbook, which is fine, especially as I like Pizzarelli's "I Left My Heart in San Francisco" more than the original. Backed with piano (Isaiah J. Thompson) and bass (Mike Karn), also listed as co-producers. B+(***) [sp]

Vardis: 100 M.P.H. '79 Revisited (1978-80 [2026], High Roller): British hard rock band, formed 1973 as Quo Vardis, shortened their name in 1977, frontman Steve Zodiac, early singles included covers of Chuck Berry and Status Quo, first album was live, reissued and supplemented with extra tracks here. As such, at least here they have more in common with pre-punk metal bands (I'm thinking Blue Öyster Cult, but also Rick Derringer) than with post-punk (post-hardcore) developments — which I've rarely listened to, beyond Hüsker Dü and Motörhead (and, grudgingly I insist, Deafheaven). B+(***) [sp]

Evan Parker/Derek Bailey/Han Bennink: The Topography of the Lungs (1970 [2023], Otoroku): Sax-guitar-percussion trio, Penguin Guide filed this under the guitarist, but label is pretty consistent in its ordering, and Discogs now lists this as the first album under Parker's name. This might have seemed abstract and scratchy at the time, but looking back could hardly have been the work of anyone else. A- [bc]

Now I have to go pickle some blueberries.