Music Week

Expanded blog post, July archive (in progress).

Tweet: Music Week: 47 albums, 11 A-list

Music: Current count 44435 [44388) rated (+47), 23 [24] unrated (-1).

This will be another premature post, put up early so I can get back to working on my major project at the moment, which is wrapping up the Francis Davis Jazz Critics Poll: Mid-Year 2025. Deadline is tomorrow, July 1. While one wants to appear hardass about deadlines, you probably know by now that I'm a big believer in counting every vote, so I've always welcomed a few late ballots. Moreover, I figure that, like normal Americans, ArtsFuse will be taking July 4 off to enjoy the holiday. As a fairly abnormal American, I'll probably be hunkered down, working, playing music, trying to drown out sounds of fireworks and gunfire I once enjoyed but now have grown to despise.

I did manage to steal a few moments to compile a Loose Tabs last week. I posted it on Friday, but kept adding things over the weekend, so the expanded version (12549 words) will appear at the same time as this post. I haven't really dumped everything I have into it: a couple things figuring I should write more on them later. I also didn't do an obituary trawl, but there have been quite a few worth noting since the last time I did a section (May 14), including Brian Wilson and Sly Stewart, and most recently, Louis Moholo-Moholo. One item of possible interest here is my list of mid-year music lists. I haven't had time to do an exhaustive list of such, but I have incorporated these lists into my metacritic file (which otherwise I've struggled to find time to keep current).

A week ago, I was impressed by how many albums our poll critics were voting for that I hadn't heard or in many cases hadn't even heard of. But as I rushed to check out the most promising -- at least those most readily accessible -- I found that most were indeed quite interesting, but few made my A- grade. That changed big time this week, with one album crashing my ballot list, and another that quite likely could if I could afford to give it another spin. (The former is by Rodrigo Amado; the latter is by another Portuguese group, Motian & More.) Still much more I haven't gotten to. I've been especially remiss on following up on download links, and I'm afraid I've also neglected two vinyl albums I was generously gifted. (They don't fit in the physical queue, and I play LPs so rarely it's rather inconvenient to even get to the turntable. I will at least get to them this week.)

What I can do for now is disclose my own ballot (which may at least inhibit me from fiddling with it further):

NEW JAZZ ALBUMS

1. Steve Lehman Trio + Mark Turner, The Music of Anthony Braxton (Pi)
2. Archer, Sudden Dusk (Aerophonic)
3. Rodrigo Amado & Chris Corsano, The Healing: Live at ZDB (European Echoes)
4. Deepstaria Enigmatica, The Eternal Now Is the Heart of a New Tomorrow (ESP-Disk)
5. Larry Ochs - Joe Morris - Charles Downs, Every Day → All the Way (ESP-Disk)
6. James Brandon Lewis Trio, Apple Cores (Anti-)
7. Russ Anixter's Hippie Big Band, What Is? (self-released)
8. Cosmic Ear, Traces (We Jazz)
9. Satoko Fujii Tokyo Trio, Dream a Dream (Libra)
10. Ivo Perelman & Matthew Shipp String Trio, Armageddon Flower (TAO Forms)

RARA AVIS (REISSUES/ARCHIVAL)

1. James Moody, 80 Years Young: Live at the Blue Note March 26, 2005 (Origin)
2. Jimmy Lyons, Live From Studio Rivbea: 1974 & 1976 (NoBusiness)
3. Charles Mingus, Mingus in Argentina: The Buenos Aires Concerts (1977, Resonance)
4. Horace Tapscott's Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra, Live at Widney High December 26th, 1971 (The Village)
5. Cecil Taylor & Tony Oxley, Flashing Spirits (1988, Burning Ambulance)

At present, I have 69 ballots counted, plus another half-dozen or so in my inbox. My best guess is that we'll wind up somewhere in the 85-100 range. Last year's mid-year poll wound up with 90 ballots, far short of the 177 who voted in the year-end poll. While many critics keep running lists and/or can rattle one off the top of their heads -- which is something I try to encourage, possibly because I'm one of them -- others insist on preparation and review, so were unprepared for my late invite to a somewhat less solemn affair. Still, we already have accumulated a huge store of information on how the year is developing, and I think that anyone with the slightest concern to keep up with the state of the art will find much of interest here, both at the highly competitive tops of the charts and on the far fringes.

I will probably update this post later, or maybe offer a separate one on the poll. I've done minimal work to open up a new July Streamnotes archive, postponing the usual indexing. Other projects are worth talking about, but no time here.

New records reviewed this week:

• Rodrigo Amado/Chris Corsano: The Healing: Live at ZDB (2016 [2025], European Echoes): [bc]: A-
• Benny Benack III: This Is the Life (2024 [2025], Bandstand Presents): [cd]: B+(***)
• Antonia Bennett: Expressions (2025, self-released): [cd]: B+(**)
• Christer Bothén 3: L'Invisible (2024 [2025], Thanatosis): [sp]: B+(***)
• BROM: Чёрная голова [Black Head] (2023 [2025], Addicted Label): [sp]: B+(***)
• Michael Buckley: Ebb and Flow (2025, Livia): [sp]: B+(**)
• Terri Lyne Carrington & Christie Dashiell: We Insist 2025! (2025, Candid): [sp]: B+(***)
• Daniel Carter/Ayumi Ishito: Endless Season (2023 [2025], 577): [bc]: B+(***)
• Anita Donndorff: Thirsty Soul (2022-24 [2025], Fresh Sound New Talent): [cd]: B+(***)
• Drank [Ingrid Schmoliner/Alexander Kranabetter]: Breath in Definition (2023 [2025], Trost): [bc]: B+(***)
• Marty Ehrlich: Trio Exaltation: This Time (2024 [2025], Sunnyside): [sp]: A-
• David Grollman/Andy Haas/Sabrina Salamone: SCRT (2025, self-released): [cd]: A-
• Noah Haidu: Standards III (2023 [2025], Sunnyside): [cd]: B+(***)
• Mary Halvorson: About Ghosts (2024 [2025], Nonesuch): [cd]: A-
• Hanging Hearts: Where's Your Head At (2023 [2025], Ropeadope): [sp]: B+(*)
• Sun-Mi Hong: Fourth Page: Meaning of a Nest (2025, Edition): [sp]: B+(*)
• Jason Kao Hwang: Myths of Origin (2022 [2025], True Sound): [cd]: A-
• Jane in Ether: Oneiric (2023 [2025], Confront): [bc]: B+(*)
• Sven-Åke Johansson Quintet: Stumps (2022 [2025], Trost): [bc]: B+(***)
• Stefan Keune/Sandy Ewen/Damon Smith: Two Felt-Tip Pens: Live at Moers (2023 [2025], Balance Point Acoustics): [sp]: B+(***)
• Maruja: Tír na nÓg (2025, Music for Nations, EP): [sp]: B+(**)
• Roscoe Mitchell: Gratitude: One Head Four People (2024 [2025], Wide Hive): [sp]: B+(*)
• Motian & More: Gratitude (2022-23 [2025], Phonogram Unit): [bc]: A-
• Eva Novoa: Novoa/Kamaguchi/Cleaver Trio Volume 2 (2020 [2025], 577): [bc]: B+(**)
• Potsa Lotsa XL: Amoeba's Dance (2024 [2025], Trouble in the East): [sp]: B+(**)
• The Quantum Blues Quartet: Quantum Blues (2025, Ropeadope): [sp]: B+(**)
• Resavoir & Matt Gold: Horizon (2025, International Anthem): [sp]: B
• Matthew Shipp: The Cosmic Piano (2024 [2025], Cantaloupe Music): [sp]: A-
• Mark Solborg: Tungemål: Confluencia (2025, ILK Music): [sp]: B+(*)
• Kevin Sun: Lofi at Lowlands (2024 [2025], Endectomorph Music, EP): [sp]: B+(*)
• Sun & Rain: Waterfall (2022 [2025], Out of Your Head): [sp]: B+(**)
• Transcendence: Music of Pat Metheny (2025, FMR): [cd]: B+(**)
• Terry Waldo & the Gothim City Band': Treasury Volume 2 (2025, Turtle Bay): [sp]: A-
• Wheelhouse: House and Home (2024 [2025], Aerophonic): [cd]: A-
• Brandon Woody: For the Love of It All (2025, Blue Note): [sp]: B+(**)
• John Yao and His 17 Piece Instrument: Points in Time (2024 [2025], See Tao): [cd]: B+(**) [07-11]

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:

• Anthony Braxton: B-X0 N0-47A (1969 [2025], BYG): [sp]: B+(**)
• Marco Eneidi Quartet: Wheat Fields of Kleyehof (2004 [2025], Balance Point Acoustics): [bc]: B+(***)
• Bill Evans: Further Ahead: Live in Finland 1964-1969 (1964-69 [2025], Elemental Music): [sp]: B+(**)
• Charles Kynard: Woga (1972 [2025], We Want Sounds): [sp]: B+(***)
• David "Fathead" Newman/Ellis Marsalis/Cornell Dupree: Return to the Wide Open Spaces (1990 [2025], Amazing/Steady Boy): [sp]: B+(**)
• Kristen Noguès/John Surman: Diriaou (1998 [2025], Souffle Continu): [bc]: A-
• Ray Russell Quartet: The Complete Spontaneous Event: Live 1967-1969 (1967-69 [2024], Jazz in Britain): [bc]: A-
• Louis Stewart: I Thought About You (1977 [2025], Livia): [sp]: B+(**)
• Sun Ra: Nuits De La Fondation Maeght (1970 [2025], Strut): [sp]: B+(***)
• Sun Ra: Stray Voltage (1970s-80s [2025], Modern Harmonic): [sp]: B+(**)
• Clifford Thornton: Ketchaoua (1969 [2025], BYG Actuel): [sp]: B+(**)

Old music:

None.

Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:

• Antonia Bennett: Expressions (self-released) [06-13]
• Kevin Brunkhorst: After the Fire (Calligram) [07-11]
• Etienne Charles: Gullah Roots (Culture Shock) [06-30]
• Lafayette Gilchrist & New Volcanoes: Move With Love (Morphius) [07-25]
• José Gobbo Trio: Confluence (Calligram) [07-11]
• Bonnie J Jensen: Rise (MGM Metropolitan Groove Merchants) [08-01]
• Lili Maljic: The Nearness of You: In Loving Memory of Jim Rotondi (Pacific Coast Jazz) [09-12]
• Chad McCullough/Gordon Spasovski/Kiril Tufekcievski/Viktor Filipovski: Transverse (Calligram) [07-11]
• Sarah Wilson: Incandescence (Brass Tonic) [07-18]

Loose Tabs

See blog file.

Daily Log

First draft of a mid-year new jazz ballot:

1. Steve Lehman Trio + Mark Turner: The Music of Anthony Braxton (Pi)
2. Archer: Sudden Dusk (Aerophonic)
3. Deepstaria Enigmatica: The Eternal Now Is the Heart of a New Tomorrow (ESP-Disk)
4. Larry Ochs/Joe Morris/Charles Downs: Every Day → All the Way (ESP-Disk)
5. James Brandon Lewis Trio: Apple Cores (Anti-) **
6. Russ Anixter's Hippie Big Band: What Is? (self-released)
7. Cosmic Ear: Traces (We Jazz) **
8. Sylvie Courvoisier/Mary Halvorson: Bone Bells (Pyroclastic)
9. Satoko Fujii Tokyo Trio: Dream a Dream (Libra)
10. Ivo Perelman & Matthew Shipp String Trio: Armageddon Flower (TAO Forms)
11. Amalie Dahl: Breaking/Building Habits (SauaJazz) **
12. Anthony Joseph: Rowing Up River to Get Our Names Back (Heavenly Sweetness) **
13. Nels Cline: Consentrik Quartet (Blue Note) **
14. Damon Locks: List of Demands (International Anthem) **
15. Frank Carlberg: Dream Machine (Red Piano)
16. James Brandon Lewis Quartet: Abstraction Is Deliverance (Intakt) **
17. Mary Halvorson: About Ghosts (Nonesuch)
18. Branford Marsalis Quartet: Belonging (Blue Note) **
19. Terry Waldo & the Gotham City Band: Treasury Volume 2 (Turtle Bay) **
20. Loot: Loot (ICP) **
21. Keiji Haino/Natsuki Tamura: What Happened There? (Libra)
22. Korham Futaci: Heavyweight Rehearsal Tapes (PUMA) **
23. Nnenna Freelon: Beneath the Skin (Origin)
24. Adam O'Farrill: For These Steets (Out of Your Head)
25. Wheelhouse: House and Home (Aerophonic)
26. Peter Brötzmann/Jason Adasiewice/Steve Noble/John Edwards: The Quartet: Cafe Oto, London, February, 10 & 11, 2023 (Otoroku) **
27. Nils Agnas: Köper Sig Ur En Kris (Moserobie)
28. Samo Salamon & Ra Kalam Bob Moses Orchestra: Dream Suites Vol. 1 (Samo)
29. Satoko Fujii This Is It!: Message (Libra)
30. David Grollman/Andy Haas/Sabrina Salamone: SCRT (self-released)
31. Joe Morris/Elliott Sharp: Realism (ESP-Disk)
32. Eunhye Jeong/Michael Bisio Duo: Morning Bells Whistle Bright (ESP-Disk)

And for rara avis:

1. James Moody: 80 Years Young: Live at the Blue Note March 26, 2005 (Origin)
2. Jimmy Lyons: Live From Studio Rivbea: 1974 & 1976 (NoBusiness)
3. Charles Mingus: Mingus in Argentina: The Buenos Aires Concerts (1977, Resonance, 2CD)
4. Horace Tapscott's Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra: Live at Widney High December 26th, 1971 (The Village) **
5. Cecil Taylor/Tony Oxley: Flashing Spirits (1988, Burning Ambulance) **
6. Irène Schweizer/Rüdiger Carl/Johnny Dyani/Han Bennink: Irène's Hot Four (1981, Intakt) **
7. Joe Henderson: Multiple (1973, Craft) **
8. Stanley Cowell/Billy Harper/Reggie Workman/Billy Hart: Such Great Friends (1983, Strata-East) **
9. Ginger Johnson and His African Messengers: African Party [Deluxe Edition] (1967, Innovative Collective/BBE Music) **
10. Ryan Truesdell: Shades of Sound: Gil Evans Project Live at Jazz Standard Vol. 2 (2014, Outside In Music)
11. Ellery Eskelin: Trio New York About (or On) First Visit (2011-13, Ezz-Thetics) **
12. Dave Burrell/Sam Woodyard: The Lost Session: Paris 1979 (NoBusiness)
13. Misha Mengelberg/Sabu Toyozumi: The Analects of Confucius (2000, NoBusiness)
14. Charles Tolliver With Gary Bartz/Herbie Hancock/Ron Carter/Joe Chambers: Right Now . . . and Then (1968, Strata-East) **
15. Motoharu Yoshizawa/Kim Dae Hwan: Way of the Breeze (1993, NoBusiness)
16. Charles Tolliver Music Inc: Compassion (1977, Strata-East) **
17. Mary Halvorson Quartet: John Zorn's Bagatelles: Volume 1 (2019, Tzadik) **

Music Week

Expanded blog post, June archive (in progress).

Tweet: Music Week: 31 albums, 5 A-list

Music: Current count 44388 [44357) rated (+31), 24 [27] unrated (-3).

I've got a ton of work to do today, and tomorrow, and probably well into the near future. Music Week is one part of that work, the one that's most tightly scheduled -- is supposed to be done each and every Monday -- but not as important as urgent work on the Francis Davis Jazz Critics Poll: Mid-Year 2025. I sent a batch of invitations out to my jazzpoll [at] hullworks.net list a week ago (back on June 13) offering July 1 as the deadline for submitting lists. I had meant to do list and website maintenance before the mailing, but things got out of hand, so I figured I should go ahead and send out what I had to the list I had (210 members), and catch up later. I'm still working on that. So what I figured I'd do here is to post a Music Week stub, so I can scratch that off my todo list today, and update it later, at which point (probably not today) I'll have more definitive news on the Poll, possibly other projects as well.

I'm omitting the reviews for now. They're all in the June archive. (The Bandcamp pages for my pick hits are also linked on my Bluesky feed.) It wouldn't be a lot of work to dig them out at this point, but their absence underscores that this is just a stub. On the other hand, I thought I could use this space to organize my thoughts on what I need to do today on the Poll. Otherwise I just have this cloud of thoughts clashing around in my brain -- which needless to say is already agitated over the beyond-insane Netanyahu-Trump attack on Iran, probably not the worst thing either has done but the most performatively pointless exercise in self-delusion . . . well, I can't think of a comparison.

But back to basics: Of those 200+ invites, I've received and counted 20 ballots so far. I'm not sure how that compares with past polls, but it doesn't give me a lot of confidence that the invites have been received much less taken seriously. I like this particular mail list because with it all I have to do is compose one message and hit "send" and it goes to everyone. But the list has been a massive headache in the past, because many email providers regard the messages as spam, so they get routed to rarely-checked spam folders and sometimes flat-out rejected. Moreover, it's impossible for me to monitor how much mail is delivered and read, which allows considerable operating room for my paranoia. I had some hope that this year would be better because the list is hosted on a new server and the vendor has a system for maintaining its reputation. But again, I have no metrics showing that is the case. (That is something I need to look into, but that will also be take a lot of time.)

I have an alternate method for sending out invites, which is to use the Thunderbird MailMerge utility to generate individualized emails, which I can then send out one-by-one -- a process which takes several very tedious hours. These messages are much more likely to be delivered. Given the large number of people who never got invites because I hadn't updated the list, I've reluctantly decided I have to do this again this week. I should also resend invitations to the initial list members who have not voted. The largest piece of work here was to figure out who's missing from the two lists. That much I largely got done yesterday -- leaving aside the question of whether invitations should be extended to new people (which is not something I'm terribly worried about). That leaves for today:

1. I need to edit the standard long-form invitation to produce a short-form version. The short-form gets straight to the point, trying to be less intimidating, with less emphasis on the fine points of rules and points, and fewer links that can add to spam scores. The short-form will be the basis of today's mass mailing.

2. I need to check a couple more website files, to make sure the information in them is consistent and coherent. At this point I'm not going to worry about the "-notes" files, which try to provide very detailed explanations of everything. I will still need to work on them after today. I also need to make a programming change to reflect the decision to sort totals on votes and tie-break with points, a reversal from past polls, but that can wait, as the totals aren't public yet. The key point here is that when someone receives an invitation, they need to be able to access the website for further information, including a reference copy of the invite. That's the point of the update.

3. Next thing is to write an email message based on the short-form invite, and run it through MailMerge, which will generate and queue up about 300 messages. (Although the program can send the mail, my ISP will start rejecting messages if sent too quickly. There may be a delay mechanism, but it's unclear how to tune it. Plus there is an advantage to not sending everything automatically.) I can then go through the folder and delete messages to people who don't need them. I can also individually edit the messages, not that I want to. The sent messages can also be used as templates for later invites. I usually send 5-8 messages in series, then take a break for a minute or two before sending the next batch. It takes several hours to send 200 messages.

4. Next I will compose and send a message to the jpadmin mail list, which consists of volunteers who have taken an interest in the Poll. I write to them whenever I do a website update and/or have significant news to share and/or want them to look at something. In this case, it will be the updated website, and the prospective voter list. I can send further invites based on their feedback, as well as my own further research.

5. Finally, I will need to update this Music Week post. More then. Maybe I'll get around to mentioning other projects. Perhaps I'll even come up with my own ballot.

New records reviewed this week:

• Sophie Agnel & John Butcher: Rare (2024 [2025], Les Disques Victo): [sp]: B+(**)
• Sophie Agnel: Song (2022-24 [2025], Relative Pitch): [sp]: B+(*)
• Yves Brouqui: Mean What You Say (2024 [2025], SteepleChase): [sp]: B+(**)
• Gerald Clayton: Ones & Twos (2025, Blue Note): [sp]: B
• Michel Doneda/Lê Quan Ninh/Núria Andorrà: El Retorn De L'Escolta: A La Memòria De Marianne Brull (2023 [2024], Fundacja Słuchaj): [bc]: B
• Signe Emmeluth/Ingebrigt Håker Flaten/Axel Filip: Hyperboreal Trio (2023 [2025], Relative Pitch): [bc]: B+(***)
• Alon Farber Hagiga: Dreams | Dream (2024 [2025], Origin): [cd]: B+(**)
• Paul Flaherty: A Willing Passenger (2021 [2025], Relative Pitch): [bc]: B+(*)
• Danny Grissett: Travelogue (2025, Savant): [sp]: B+(**)
• Kneebody: Reach (2025, GroundUP Music): [sp]: B
• Littorina Saxophone Quartet: Leaking Pipes (2024 [2025], NoBusiness): [cd]: B+(***)
• K. Curtis Lyle/George Sams/Adi Du Dharma Joshua Weinstein/Damon Smith/Ra Kalaam Bob Moses/Henry Claude: 29 Birds You Never Heard (2022 [2024], Balance Point Acoustics): [bc]: A-
• Joe Magnarelli: Concord (2024 [2025], SteepleChase): [sp]: B+(**)
• Mark Masters Ensemble: Sam Rivers 100 (2023 [2025], Capri): [cd]: B+(***)
• Mark Masters Ensemble: Dance, Eternal Spirits, Dance! (2024 [2025], Capri): [cd]: B+(***)
• Camila Nebbia/Kit Downes/Andrew Lisle: Exhaust (2025, Relative Pitch): [bc]: B+(***)
• Ivo Perelman & Matthew Shipp String Trio: Armageddon Flower (2024 [2025], TAO Forms): [cd]: A-
• Andrew Rathbun: Lost in the Shadows (2023 [2025], SteepleChase): [sp]: B+(**)
• Felipe Salles: Camera Obscura (2024 [2025], Tapestry): [cd]: B+(***)
• Frank Paul Schubert/Dieter Manderscheid/Martin Blume: Spindrift: Trio Studies (2022 [2025], Jazz Haus Musik): [sp]: B+(***)
• Julian Shore Trio: Sub Rosa (2024 [2025], Chill Tone): [cd]: B+(**)
• Ches Smith: Clone Row (2024 [2025], Otherly Love): [cd]: B+(***)
• Ches Smith: The Self (2023 [2025], Tzadik): [sp]: B+(*)
• Inés Velasco: A Flash of Cobalt Blue (2025, self-released): [cd]: B+(*)
• Dan Weiss Quartet: Unclassified Affections (2024 [2025], Pi): [cd]: B+(***)

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:

• Misha Mengelberg/Sabu Toyozumi: The Analects of Confucius (2000 [2025], NoBusiness): [cd]: A-
• Irène Schweizer/Rüdiger Carl/Johnny Dyani/Han Bennink: Irène's Hot Four (1981 [2025], Intakt): [sp]: A-
• Cecil Taylor/Tony Oxley: Flashing Spirits (1988 [2025], Burning Ambulance): [sp]: A-

Old music:

• Kenny Burrell With Art Blakey: On View at the Five Spot Café (1959 [1960], Blue Note): [sp]: B+(*)
• K. Curtis Lyle: The Collected Poem/For Blind Lemon Jefferson (1971, Mbari): [yt]: B+(**)

Grade (or other) changes:

• Wolf Eyes X Anthony Braxton: Live at Pioneer Works, 26 October 2023 (2023 [2025], ESP-Disk): [cd]: [was: B+(*)] B+(**)

Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:

• Jacob Garchik: Ye Olde 2: At the End of Time (Yestereve) [08-29]
• The Haas Company Featuring Jerry Goodman: Thirteen (Psychiatric) [08-01]
• Mary Halvorson: About Ghosts (Nonesuch) [06-13]
• Jason Kao Hwang: Myths of Origin (True Sound) [07-07]
• Kaze & Koichi Makigami: Shishiodoshi (Circum/Libra) [07-11]
• Billy Lester Trio: High Standards (Ultra Sound) [09-12]
• Los Angeles Improvisation Ensemble: Insubordinate Lunar Transgressions (Denouement) [03-26]

Daily Log

Tony Karon tweet::

Calling this what it is: A war to maintain the regional nuclear-weapons monopoly of a genocidal State of Israel [instaram link]

I replied (compressed awkwardly to fit char limit):

It's a gamble to goad Iran into developing nuclear weapons and using them on Israel: what's held Iran back so far was their lack of motivation. But also US-Iran war would firm up US support for genocide, which is all this has really been about since 10/7/23.*

*Israelis have been brought up to believe that Hitler invaded Russia to get and kill more Jews, not primarily to seize more land, which then had to be cleared of its people. They also know the Holocaust was intensified under the fog of war, and they like and expect forever war.

*They also feel that with US backing they are invincible against Iran, and that the more the US pays for their war, the harder the US will fight for them. I've attributed this to the euphoria of revolutionaries who suddenly find themselves free to kill: [link]

*Two theories of nuclear weapons: they deter attack by others (even nuclear powers); they can be used to bully others (especially non-nuclear powers). Israel's nuclear monopoly is their license to blackmail, and Iran is their test case. (Syria/Lebanon are just examples.)

Daily Log

Need adjustable shelf brackets. Checking Amazon:' 20 x 9-inch: $52.99; 20 x 11.5-inch: $52.49; 20 x 14.5-inch: $56.99.

Lowes: Project Source: 7.22-inch: $3.98; 9.53-inch: $4.98; 11.75-inch: $5.98; 14.86-inch: $6.98. 48-inch rail: $11.98; 70.5-inch rail: $14.98.

Yet another attempt to spec out a computer for Laura. Mostly looking at Newegg deals:

• CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 9600X 6-Core 3.9GHz Socket AM5 w/Radeon Graphics Processor (passmark 29993; single thread 4570), no cooler: $179.99
  combo with Corsair iCUE Link H100i RGB Liquid CPU Cooler [out or stock]: $249.98
• Motherboard: ASRock B650M Pro RS WiFi AM5 Micro ATX: $139.99
  or ASRock B850M Pro RS WiFi AM5 B850 Micro ATX: 149.99 (4xDDR5 DIMMs up to 8000, 1 PCIe 5.0x16, 1 PCIe4.0x4, 1Blazing M.2, 2 Hyper M.2, 4 SATA3))
• DDR5-5600: Corsair Vengeance 65GB: combo offer $159.99
  or Team T-Force Delta RGB 64GB 2x32GB: $184.99
  or G.Skill Ripjaws S5 Series DDR5 5200 96GB (2x48GB): $172.99
  or G.Skill Ripjaws S5 Series DDR5 6000 64GB (2x32GB): $149.99
  or G.Skill Trident Z5 Neo Series DDR5 6000 64GB (2x32GB): $239.99
• M.2 SSD: Samsung 990 Pro SSD 1TB PCIe 4.0 M.2: $99.99
  or Western Digital WD_Black SN770 2280 1TB: $74.99
• Case: SAMA 2851 ATX Mid-Tower pre-installed 4 fans: $84.99 (420x285x380)
  or Sama SV02 ATX Mid-Tower w/3 ARGB fans: $67.99
  or Corsair 3500X ARGB Tempered Glass Mid-Tower White 3x R120 ARGB Gans: $119.99
  Zalman P30 Micro ATX Case, 3 fans, tempered glass (453dx235wx429h): $84.99
• CPU Cooler: Cooler Master MasterLiquid 360L: $98.99
  MSI MAG A13 240 Dual 120mm ARGB PWM Fans: $84.99
• Power Supply: SAMA XP 1000w ATX: $119.99

I'm curious how an AM4 build might compare:

• CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 5800XT 8-Core 3.8GHz AM4 no graphics (passmark 28027; 3540 single thread): $149.99
  or AMD Ryzen 5 5600GT 60Core 3.6GHz AM$ + Radeon graphics: $141.99
• Motherboard: ASRock B550M PRO4 AM4 AMD B550 Micro ATX: $102.99
  or ASUS Prime B550M-A AM4 micro ATX: $133.02
• DDR4: G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 64 GB (2x32GB: $159.99

Also looking at a $400 mini PC, which has 32GB RAM, an AMD Ryzen 7 5700U CPU (passmark 15653, single thread 2562).

Wednesday, June 18, 2025

Music Week

Expanded blog post, June archive (in progress).

Tweet: Music Week: 25 albums, 5+2 A-list

Music: Current count 44357 [44332) rated (+25), 27 [32] unrated (-5).

I made the cutover in reasonable time on Monday, but didn't get anything written until late, so this will be posted late. Big thing I've been doing is a fairly massive reorganization of what I refer to as the woodpile. We did a major renovation of the kitchen/dining area roughly 15 years ago, and it produced a lot of scrap wood that's been piled up in the basement ever since. Moreover, there is quite a bit of wood in the garage: one wall as a rack for stick lumber, and the opposite wall has a cage that I built that holds 4x8 sheets (plywood, MDF, underlayment, paneling, etc.), and there are lesser scraps of everything. As the woodworking tools are mostly in the garage, I wanted to move the wood from the basement to the garage and a nearby shed. That's involved building more storage for odd bits. I've averaged several hours a day on this for a couple weeks. Progress is slow, as everything gets harder the older one gets. But I'm hopeful of getting the wood sorted and moved by the end of the week. Next step beyond that will be building a kiosk that can be used as a staging area for recycling. Other storage projects are likely to follow, as well as a serious effort to sort the tools and hardware. And books and CDs, which are by far the largest categories.

Meanwhile, I've sent out a round of invitations to the Francis Davis Jazz Critics Poll: Mid-Year 2025. I'm still way behind on cleaning up the website, and perhaps more urgently on checking the mailing lists, which I suspect are missing a number of 2024 voters. I have three ballots counted so far, but another 10-12 sitting in my inbox. Deadline is June 30, so we still have a fair amount of time. I'm already finding new records I wasn't aware of. [PS: Trying to close this Tuesday evening, I have 10 ballots counted, with 2 more uncounted, and a similar number of promises, plus 2 notes from usually reliable voters regretting (or perhaps just thinking) they'll skip this round. Thus far we have votes for 106 albums (75 new, 31 old), 29 of which weren't previously in my tracking file, which previously stood at 502 jazz albums. The 2024 jazz tracking file wound up with 1572 albums.]

Two upgrades this week from Robert Christgau's Consumer Guide. I already had the Buck 65 and Willie Nelson albums at A-, and Tune-Yards at B+(*). I still have more work to do there (Arcade Fire, Ghost Wolves, Girl Scout, Justin Golden, Eli "Paperboy" Reed, Bruce Springsteen). I've added the MY lists at AOTY into my Metacritic file, but haven't yet gone looking for more trouble. One list I'm aware of but haven't catalogued yet is the set from RiotRiot: Albums (30-11); Albums (10-1); and Songs.

I got rained out on Tuesday. We had a pretty severe storm blow through around 5 AM, which took down a lot of small limbs. The rain finally let up when I got up around 9, so after breakfast I opened the garage/shed up to work, but wound up spending a couple hours just picking up limbs, cuting them up, and packing them into the newly emptied trash can. I quit when I ran out of space, having not even started on the back yard. I broke for lunch, counted a few ballots, kept meaning to get back to it, until I heard thunder and had to pack everything back up. Still raining as I write this.

Tomorrow's going to be disrupted by a dentist appointment, and whatever I feel like doing after as opposed to coming home to work. I did manage to listen to some stuff today, kicking off with three straight A- albums under old music. They're not in Music Week yet, but are in the June archive if you care to go there (link up top). What I will do is refer you to the Loose Tabs draft file, which has two long sections, one on Israel as a revolutionary experience, another on the "abundance" political pitch.

So much shit is happening in the world these days that it's hard to just ignore it all, especially when it's so easy to see the delusions people in power are acting on. There is absolutely no sense to be made out of Israel's attack on Iran, nor is there any sense to be made out of Trump's willingness to take credit for starting the war. Netanyahu is effectively demanding that Iran finally fulfill his prophecy and build and use the nuclear weapons he claims he's trying to safeguard against. Still, the only realistic defense against nuclear war is peace, which is the one option Netanyahu is unwilling (or unable) to consider. Sure, it's possible that Iran will never take the bait, but who's going to admit that just proves how wrong Netanyahu has always been.

The real message that Israel is sending is their intention to do things so horrific that other nations will be so repulsed they may be driven to unthinkable measures just to stop them. The last time any nation has worked so hard to turn the world against them was Germany and Japan in starting WWII. (Even there, it is sobering to note that it wasn't genocide against Jews that motivated the UK, USSR, and USA to fight Germany and Japan, but direct attacks against their own imperialist interests.) It will be much harder for Israel to provoke devastating reaction this time, because most sensible people are wary of entering into war, especially to stop an arsenal of nuclear weapons. That seems to be part of their calculation for aggression.

When we look back at all this, we should realize that BDS was an opportunity to peacefully but firmly remind Israel that there must be limits to abusing the powers of a nation to inflict suffering on one's own people and others. It failed because Israel was able to organize corrupt support from the US and Europe, and in doing so, especially with "blank check" support from Trump and Biden, has only fed the arrogance of Israeli politicians, including some who were until recently regarded as criminals within Israel -- not a coincidence that America installed another escaped criminal as president.

PPS: Just as I was getting ready to post this late Tuesday evening, the internet went out, pushing this post into Wednesday. It stayed out all night, but was working by noon today. By then, I took a look at what I had written, and decided to add a few more words on Israel and Trump. One more point: both are convinced that the harder they get hit, the more their people will rally to their support -- a conceit that makes they especially reckless, especially given their inability to see that Iran's leaders understand that just as well. It was, after all, Hitler who turned Stalin and Churchill into heroes, erasing their long and lamentable histories of misrule.

New records reviewed this week:

• Aya: Hexed! (2025, Hyperdub): [sp]: B
• Hannah Cohen: Earthstar Mountain (2025, Bella Union/Congrats): [sp]: B+(*)
• Michika Fukumori: Eternity (2023 [2025], Summit): [cd]: B+(***)
• Ms. Ezra Furman: Goodbye Small Head (2025, Bella Union): [sp]: B+(**)
• Alexander Hawkins: Song Unconditional (2025, Intakt): [sp]: B+(**)
• Izumi Kimura & Gerry Hemingway: How the Dust Falls (2024 [2025], Auricle): [cd]: B+(***)
• James Brandon Lewis Quartet: Abstraction Is Deliverance (Intakt) **
• Carol Liebowitz/Nick Lyons: The Inner Senses (2023 [2025], SteepleChase LookOut): [cd]: B+(***)
• Lifeguard: Ripped and Torn (2025, Matador): [sp]: B
• Ramon Lopez: 40 Springs in Paris (2024 [2025], RogueArt): [cdr]: B+(**)
• Momma: Welcome to My Blue Sky (2025, Lucky Number/Polyvinyl): [sp]: B+(**)
• Greg Murphy: Snap Happy (2025, Whaling City Sound): [cd]: B+(**)
• Billy Nomates: Metalhorse (2025, Invada): [sp]: B+(**)
• Ploy: It's Later Than You Think (2025, Dekmantel): [sp]: B+(**)
• Scowl: Are We All Angels (2025, Dead Oceans): [sp]: B+(***)
• Sherelle: With a Vengeance (2025, Method 808): [sp]: B+(***)
• Bartees Strange: Horror (2025, 4AD): [sp]: B+(*)

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:

• African Jazz Invites O.K. Jazz (1961-70 [2025], Planet Ilunga): [bc]: B+(***)
• Dave Burrell/Sam Woodyard: The Lost Session: Paris 1979 (1979 [2025], NoBusiness): [cd]: A-
• Jimmy Lyons: Live From Studio Rivbea: 1974 & 1976 (1974-76 [2025], NoBusiness): [cd]: A-
• Motoharu Yoshizawa/Kim Dae Hwan: Way of the Breeze (1993 [2025], NoBusiness): [cd]: A-

Old music:

• Docteur Nico: Dieu De La Guitare (1954-70 [2018], Planet Ilunga): [bc]: B+(***)
• Muriel Grossmann: Universal Code (2022 [2023], RR Gems): [bc]: B+(**)
• Resilient Vessels: Live at the Cell (2020 [2021], RR Gems): [bc]: A-

Grade (or other) changes:

• Robert Forster: Strawberries (2025, Tapete): [sp]: [was: B+(***)] A-
• Lambrini Girls: Who Let the Dogs Out (2025, City Slang): [sp]: [was: B+(*)] A-

Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:

• Alchemy Sound Project/Sumi Tonooka: Under the Surface (ARC) [06-27]
• Ryan Keberle & Collectiv Do Brasil: Choro Das Aguas (Alternate Side) [07-18]
• Wheelhouse: House and Home (Aerophonic) [07-22]

Daily Log

Newegg has a deal on an AMD Ryzen 5 9600X CPU, Socket AM5 65W, with Radeon graphics processor (6 cores, 12 threads), for $189.99. Specmark multithread: 29984, single thread 4570.

According to Passmark, the best price performance (CPU Mark/$Price) is the AMD Ryzen 5 5500 (19343/$73.00). AMD EPYC 7532 is second (52232/$209.95; Amazon has that price, but Newegg does not come close).

Amazon has a AMD Ryzen 9 5950X 16-core 32-thread Socket AM4 cpu for $320.00 (45445); also a AMD Ryzen 7 5800X 8-core, 16-thread AM4 for $160.54.

Let's say for the sake of argument, we built Laura a computer\ around this CPU:

• AMD Ryzen 5 9600X (Zen 5) 6-Core 3.9GHz Socket AM5 65W Radeon Graphics Processor, no cooler: $189.99; built-in graphics described as "for non-gaming desktop use"; main caveat seems to be that AM5 motherboards are pricey
• Corsair iCue Link H100i RGB Liquid CPU Cooler: $89.99 ($259.98 in combo with CPU)
• Motherboards:
  • ASUS TUF Gaming B850-Plus WiFi AMD5 B850 ATX motherboard, 14+2+1 80A stages, AI ready, DDR5, PCIe 5.0, 3x M.2, Wi-Fi 7, 2.5Gb LAN, DisplayPort, HDMI, USB 10Gbps & 20 GBps Type-C, BIOS FlashBack: $229.99
  • ASUS TUF Gaming B650M-E WiFi AMD5 for Ryzen 7000: $139.99
  • ASRock B650M Pro WiFi AM5 Micro ATX: $139.99

Music Week

Expanded blog post, June archive (in progress).

Tweet: Music Week: 32 albums, 4 A-list

Music: Current count 44332 [44300] rated (+32), 32 [23] unrated (+9).

I published a Loose Tabs on Wednesday, June 4. I've added an article index, which is useful if you want to link to a specific section. I've fixed a couple typos, edited a tiny bit, and added some more reviews of the Jake Tapper book, although nothing I find all that revealing. [PS: I added some more reviews/notes on 06-10.] If I did have to do the research, the question I'd want to find an answer to is how the people advising Biden fail to recognize that his persistent low polling after leaving Afghanistan -- which should have been a big plus after 20+ years of repeated failure -- was a problem that Biden simply wasn't articulate and/or empathetic enough to talk his way out of.

I've really avoided working up any new material since posting, so the current scratch file doesn't have much, and isn't likely to for a while. There is so much really dreadful crap going on that it's hard to know where to begin, and harder still to decide when to stop. I will say that overhearing some 10-15 minutes of Fox News spin on Trump's deployment of national guard to quell "riots" in California was enough to convince me that Trump is picking this fight because he believes it generates reactions that he believes will help him (and hurt Democrats) politically. And it's not really even immigration policy where he thinks he has the advantage. What turns him and his fans on is the action, underscored by the performative cruelty. It doesn't really matter how many people he deports -- Biden and Obama generally topped his counts -- but how people perceive his commitment and toughness.

Not much to say about music here. I got a lot of the records below from Phil Overeem's list, plus the latest batch of reviews by Dan Weiss, and what I've picked up from the first few mid-year lists that I've factored into my metacritic file:

• Consequence [06-02] [AOTY] The 30 Best Albums of 2025 So Far
• Exclaim [06-02] [AOTY] Exclaim!'s 25 Best Albums of 2025 So Far
• Rolling Stone [06-05] [AOTY] The Best Albums of 2025 So Far
• Stereogum [06-02] [AOTY] The 50 Best Albums of 2025 So Far

New today and not counted yet: The Fader; Paste; Spin. Rolling Stone started off their list in typical form: "What a year it's been for great music -- as opposed to, say, everything else." But looking at my metacritic file, I'm not all that impressed: while my tastes rarely align with the critical consensus, the current top five strike me as exceptionally weak: FKA Twigs (*), Bon Iver (**), Japanese Breakfast (*), Horsegirl (**), Lady Gaga (***). Beyond that: Julien Baker & Torres (***), Mogwai (*), Black Country New Road (B), Lambrini Girls (*), Sharon Van Etten (*). Granted, I have five A- records between 14-20 (Lucy Dacus, The Delines, Craig Finn, Billy Woods, Jason Isbell). But my scale is skewed to favor records I like (also Robert Christgau and some of his close followers), and he has all but the thus-far-unreviewed Woods at A- or higher.

Speaking of mid-year polls, I'm thinking about running a jazz critics one, as I did in 2024. If so, I really should get invites out this week, with a June 30 deadline and an early-July publication date. Setting up the website should be easy enough, and firing off the mail list is easy if it works. (Last year it didn't work very well, but I have a new server this time, and supposedly it comes with a better reputation, although over-aggressive spam filters are still a risk.) One good reason for doing this would be to force me to do some prep work for the end-of-year poll.

Downside is that a lot of people who will vote in the annual poll aren't really up for a mid-year poll. But we got 90 ballots last year -- albeit only after a lot of laborious nagging -- and that produced some very useful information. And while I'm unimpressed with the non-jazz so far this year, this seems to be shaping up as a typically solid year for new jazz releases (although maybe not yet for rara avis). I haven't split my 2025 list into jazz and non-jazz yet, but I have a healthy 56 A/A- albums so far, which on first pass are evenly split 28-28.

I've been putting a fair amount of time into household tasks, which will continue for the foreseeable future. Big project this week has been to clean and reorganize the garage and shed, where along with much junk I have a lot of scrap lumber. I'm making slow but fairly steady progress, but it's taking a lot of time from my listening and writing, so things like the planning documents have been suffering.

New records reviewed this week:

• Yugen Blakrok: The Illusion of Being (2025, IOT): [sp]: B+(***)
• Car Seat Headrest: The Scholars (2025, Matador): [sp]: B+(**)
• Central Cee: Can't Rush Greatness (2025, CC4L/Columbia): [sp]: B+(**)
• Sarah Mary Chadwick: Take Me Out to a Bar/What Am I, Gatsby? (2025, Kill Rock Stars): [sp]: B
• The Convenience: Like Cartoon Vampires (2025, Winspear): [sp]: B+(**)
• Cosmic Ear: Traces (2025, We Jazz): [sp]: A-
• Amalie Dahl: Breaking/Building Habits (2024 [2025], SauaJazz): [bc]: A-
• Dickson & Familiar: All the Light of Our Sphere (2024 [2025], Sounds Familiar): [cd]: B+(**)
• DJ Shaun-D: From Bubbling to Dutch House (2025, Nyege Nyege Tapes): [sp]: B+(***)
• Rocio Giménez López/Franco Di Renzo/Luciano Ruggieri: La Forma Del Sueño (2023 [2025], Blue Art): [sp]: B+(***)
• K. Curtis Lyle/Jaap Blonk/Alex Cunningham/Damon Smith/Kevin Cheli: A Radio of the Body (2024, Balance Point Acoustics): [sp]: B+(***)
• Madre Vaca: Yukon (2025, Madre Vaca): [cd]: B+(***)
• Mean Mistreater: Do or Die (2025, Dying Victims Productions): [sp]: B+(*)
• Ela Minus: Día (2025, Domino): [sp]: B+(**)
• MonoNeon: You Had Your Chance - Bad Attitude (2025, Floki Studios): [bc]: B+(*)
• Joe Morris/Elliott Sharp: Realism (2023 [2025], ESP-Disk): [cd]: A-
• Mourning [A] BLKstar: Flowers for the Living (2025, Don Giovanni): [sp]: B+(**)
• Nao: Jupiter (2025, Little Tokyo): [sp]: B+(***)
• The Onions: Return to Paradise (2025, Hitt): [bc]: C+
• Sverre Sæbo Quintet: If, However, You Have Not Lost Your Self Control (2025, SauaJazz): [bc]: B+(**)
• Samia: Bloodless (2025, Grand Jury): [sp]: B+(***)
• The Sharp Pins: Radio DDR (2025, K/Perennial Death): [sp]: B+(*)
• Deborah Silver/The Count Basie Orchestra: Basie Rocks! (2025, Green Hill): [cd]: B
• Um, Jennifer?: Um Comma Jennifer Question Mark (2025, Final Girl): [sp]: B+(**)

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:

• The Bitter Ends: The Bitter Ends (2022 [2025], Trouble in River City): [bc]: A-
• Mazinga: Chinese Democracy Manifest: Greatest Hits, Vol. 2 (2024 [2025], Rubber Wolf?): [sp]: B+(***)
• Sweet Rebels: The Golden Era of Algerian Pop-Raï: The Ecstatic Electro Sound of Original Raï Cassettes 1986-1991 (1986-91 [2025], We Want Sounds): [bc]: B+(***)

Old music:

• Amalie Dahl/Henrik Sandstad Dalen/Jonar Jeppsson Søvik: Fairytales for Daydreamers (2022 [2023], Nice Things): [sp]: B+(*)
• Amalie Dahl: Memories (2023, Sonic Transmissions): [sp]: B+(*)
• Amalie Dahl/Jomar Jeppsson Søvik/Henrik Sandstad Dalen: Live in Europe (Nice Thing) **
• Andy Haas/David Grollman: Act of Love (2023, Resonant Music, EP): [bc]: B+(*)
• Les Rallizes Denudés: Blind Baby Has It's Mothers Eyes ([2003], bootleg): [yt]: B+(***)
• Mazinga: Mazinga (1999, Reanimator): [bc]: B+(**)
• Deborah Silver: The Gold Standards (2016, Deborah Silver): [sp]: B+(*)

Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:

• Benny Benack III: This Is the Life (Bandstand Presents) [06-27]
• Dave Burrell/Sam Woodyard: The Lost Session: Paris 1979 (NoBusiness) [05-02]
• Ran Blake/Claire Ritter: Eclipse Orange (2019, Zoning)
• Anita Donndorff: Thirsty Soul (Fresh Sound New Talent) [06-06]
• Noah Haidu: Standards III (Sunnyside) [06-06]
• Izumi Kimura & Gerry Hemingway: How the Dust Falls (Auricle) [05-20]
• Litorina Saxophone Quartet: Leaking Pipes (NoBusiness) [05-16]
• Jimmy Lyons: Live From Studio Rivbea: 1974 & 1976 (NoBusiness) [05-02]
• Misha Mengelberg/Sabu Toyozumi: The Analects of Confucius (2000, NoBusiness) [05-02]
• Claire Ritter: Songs of Lumière (Zoning) [01-01]
• Jeff Walton: Pack Animals (none) [06-27]
• John Yao and His 17 Piece Instrument: Points in Time (See Tao) [07-11]
• Motoharu Yoshizawa/Kim Dae Hwan: Way of the Breeze (1993, NoBusiness) [05-02]

Daily Log

I posted Loose Tabs early enough on Wednesday that I was able to get a couple hours in on what I had prioritized as my top house work project: sorting out the lumber pile. Since we remodeled the kitchen in 2009, I have been collecting scrap wood in the basement, filling up one 8-foot section of wall, which previously had been set up with hanger boards (pieces of 1x4 extending a foot from the wall, each braced with a diagonal piece of 1x2, which would support a loose shelf, or a pile of wood up to 8 feet long), with smaller pieces of scraps on shelves and in boxes. My goal was to move all of that wood to the garage, opening up fresh wall space I could use for temporary storage of CDs/books as I try to figure out what to weed out.

The garage itself already has two lumber organizers, as well as its own share of loose scrap. It makes sense to put the wood there, because that's where the saws, the compressor, and most of the wood tools are. On the south wall, I have a rack for stick lumber: rails screwed into the studs, and steel shelf holders that hook into the rails. I started by pulling everything out of there, to be sorted and restacked, including a couple loose piles of 2x4 and 1x6, plus similar boards pulled out of the basement. I had a big 2x12, so I set if off the floor on some bricks, forming the bottom shelf, and piled some more heavy lumber on top of it. In the end I wound up with more 1x6 than I had space for, but I'll find uses for some of them.

On the south wall, I have a cage I built, raised a couple inches off the floor, that I can slide 4x8 sheets into. It's wider at the top, so I can flip the sheets to get one in the middle, then pull it out the end. The unit has a top board, and too much junk piled on top of it. I need to take an inventory of what's in the cage, but it includes 1-2 sheets of plywood, 2-3 sheets of MDF, and various forms of thinner material (underlayment, masonite, paneling), and maybe some drywall. In addition to full sheets, I keep large scrap pieces there, plus I have more leaning against it on the side.

I recently bought a new plastic shelf unit (36 wide, 18 deep, 72 high), which I thought I might use for smaller pieces of scrap, but I need to give that some further thought. I have no shortage of clutter that needs to be shelved somehow.

I resumed work on Thursday, and cleared out the basement wall area, and moved most of the bigger pieces upstairs. A couple large pieces (8-foot long strips of plywood) I left in place as shelves, which seems like the best possible use of them for now. That leaves three rack rows, so what I'm thinking about doing there is taking an 8-foot 1x6, attaching end pieces (lots of 1x6 scrap to use for that), and some kind of minimal back: sit them on the rack, and fill them up with loose CDs, which should suffice for everything I have loose and unorganized elsewhere (especially in my office area).

Most of the scrap is still in the basement, but off the wall, most in partially sorted stacks. I need to start bringing them up, but don't immediately have space in the garage -- although I have untapped space in the shed, which may be the best place to build some sort of organizer. I woke up this morning thinking of ways I could build something, but need to take a look both at the space and at the material I have to work with there is the trash.

Loose Tabs

See blog file.

Music Week

Expanded blog post, June archive (in progress).

Tweet: Music Week: 24 albums, 2 A-list

Music: Current count 44300 [44276) rated (+24), 23 [22] unrated (+1).

Rated count well down this week. Main reason was I spent two days cooking, which are documented in the notebook here and here, and on Facebook here (second dinner just merited a comment to the initial post). Both came out of a desire to use up leftovers from an earlier and more ambitious Thai/Burmese dinner (cf. Facebook and notebook). I feel like I'm done with that sort of thing for a while, but am generally pleased with the food. While I"m conscious of my physical and (to some extent) mental decline, this is one area where I'm still capable of producing exemplary results. In some respects, perhaps better than ever: while I've always been able to follow complex recipes, I'm much better than I used to be at fixing mistakes and improvising enhancements.

Only two A- records this week, but a whopping 10 B+(***): seemed for a while like everything was landing there. Good chance a couple of those could have benefitted from the extra plays I gave Ochs and Truesdell -- not that my third play of Madre Vaca today has moved the needle beyond B+(***). I've struggled a bit picking out new records to check out, but a new list from Phil Overeem as well as the latest from Dan Weiss should help. A big part of finding as much as I do comes from knowing who to lean on.

My count of Bluesky followers was stuck at 102 for a week, then dropped before recovering. I haven't been posting much, but got to one of this week's two pick hits today. I skipped Truesdell because I couldn't find a playable link, although the previous volume, Lines of Color (an A- in 2015) seems to be on Soundcloud. Some info on the new album is here. Still, my forecast is for below-average reviewing for the next few weeks. While I'm unlikely to do much cooking, I have a lot of tasks around the house to attend to, and other things that will take me away from the computer. When on the computer, I hope to make more progress on my planning documents. I'm generating a lot of ideas -- far more than I can possibly act on, I'm afraid, but much that strikes me as worthwhile.

I also lost an afternoon last week when Robert Christgau's website got shut off. It took a good deal longer than it should have to fix, due to various miscommunications between Christgau, me, and the vendor. It's been resolved, and shouldn't recur. It reminded me that the tech stuff is more fun than the writing, not least because it can reach a successful conclusions, whereas writing never feels really done. (Cooking in this regard is more like programming, and possibly more satisfying.)

One thing I need to think about is whether to run a Mid-Year Jazz Critics Poll. Target publication should be July 1, so this is about when I should send invites out. I don't quite feel up to it. Related to this is that we haven't had further discussions since Francis Davis passed. I haven't felt the need to move on, so haven't pressed the issue, it would be unfortunate to miss the opportunity.

I've avoided doing any work on Loose Tabs, but the last one came out on May 14, and the scratch file turns out to have a lot more in it than I remembered (4800 words), which is probably enough to dump out on its own -- especially as it's already becoming dated: only two tweets and a Roaming Charges since May 20, nothing since May 26. On the other hand, I wouldn't be surprised to find a dozen or maybe even two open tabs (which I need to clean up, as I'm already getting snap complaints). So expect something on that front later this week, even if I don't put much more work into it.

I got my books from the big April 25 Book Roundup. I finished Pankaj Mishra's The World After Gaza before they came, so read Gideon Levy's The Killing of Gaza in the meantime. While Mishra went deep into the psyches that allowed and ultimately rationalized the genocide -- territory I was generally familiar with from Norman Finkelstein and Idith Zertal, although it resonates with books by dozens of other writers, and is more systematic than anything before -- Levy just batters you with a series of weekly columns, each with new details of the same old brutality, and many redundant salvos of his opinion that most Israelis have lost all sense of what they're doing, and ultimately of their own humanity. It was hard reading, but thankfully ended after less than six months, leaving it to the reader to fill in the following year, same as the old but even more craven.

After that, I moved straight into Greg Grandin: America, América: A New History of the New World, despite its daunting length. I'm still in the first section, but I'm already impressed by the novelty of describing the Spanish Conquest through the words of its dissidents, and not just Bartolomé De Las Casas. To get a sense both of the book and of its relevance today, see Grandin's TomDispatch piece, The Conquest Never Ends.

New records reviewed this week:

• Tunde Adebimpe: Thee Black Boltz (2025, Sub Pop): [sp]: B+(**)
• Aesop Rock: Black Hole Superette (2025, Rhymesayers): [sp]: B+(***)
• Jon Balke: Skrifum (2023 [2025], ECM): [sp]: B+(*)
• Bon Iver: Sable, Fable (2025, Jagjaguwar): [sp]: B+(*)
• Miley Cyrus: Something Beautiful (2025, MCEO/Columbia): [sp]: B+(**)
• Robert Forster: Strawberries (2025, Tapete): [sp]: B+(***)
• Joe Lovano: Homage (2023 [2025], ECM): [sp]: B+(**)
• The Pete McGuinness Jazz Orchestra: Mixed Bag (2025, Summit): [cd]: B+(**)
• Ava Mendoza: The Circular Train (2024, Palilalia): [bc]: B+(**)
• Larry Ochs/Joe Morris/Charles Downs: Every Day → All the Way (2023 [2025], ESP-Disk): [cd]: A-
• Bill Orcutt Guitar Quartet: HausLive 4 (2024 [2025], Hausu Mountain): [bc]: B+(**)
• PinkPantheress: Fancy That (2025, Warner, EP): [sp]: B+(*)
• Preservation Brass: For Fat Man (2025, Sub Pop): [sp]: B+(***)
• Marc Ribot: Map of a Blue City (2025, New West): [sp]: B+(*)
• Viagra Boys: Viagr Aboys (2025, Shrimptech/YEAR0001): [sp]: B+(***)
• Jim White/Marisa Anderson: Swallowtail (2022 [2024], Thrill Jockey): [sp]: B+(*)
• Yeule: Evangelic Girl Is a Gun (2025, Ninja Tune): [sp]: B+(**)

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:

• Nellie McKay: Gee Whiz: The Get Away From Me Demos (2003 [2025], Omnivore): [sp]: B+(***)
• Moskito: Idolar (2001 [2025], Awesome Tapes From Africa): [sp]: B+(***)
• Gerry Mulligan: Nocturne (1992 [2025], Red): [sp]: B+(**)
• John Surman: Flashpoints and Undercurrents (1969 [2025], Cuneiform): [dl]: B+(***)
• Ryan Truesdell: Shades of Sound: Gil Evans Project Live at Jazz Standard Vol. 2 (2014, Outside In Music): [cd]: A-

Old music:

• Syran Mbenza: Sisika (1986, Syllart): [sp]: B+(***)
• Soft Works: Abracadabra in Osaka (2003 [2020], MoonJuine): [bc]: B+(***)
• Soft Works: Abracadabra (2002 [2023], MoonJune): [sp]: B+(***)

Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:

• Alon Farber Hagiga: Dreams &vbar; Dream (Origin) [06-16]
• David Grollman/Andy Haas/Sabrina Salamone: SCRT (self-released)
• Greg Murphy: Snap Happy (Whaling City Sound) [06-06]
• Felipe Salles: Camera Obscura (Tapestry) [06-06]
• Julian Shore Trio: Sub Rosa (Chill Tone) [06-06]

Daily Log

Last week, when we went to Thai Binh to pick up some Red Boat Fish Sauce -- essential for the pad thai that I always assume I can make on a moment's notice (need shrimp, in the freezer, and scallions, in the refrigerator, plus a few staples that are easily kept in stock). While I was in there, I picked up a few dinner fixings I can't source from our usual Kroger (local name Dillons): a chunk of pork belly (thinking twice-cooked pork), baby bok choy, Japanese eggplants, and on the way out, I saw a roast duck.

I had just made panang duck curry, but I had a bunch of curry paste left over, so I thought a reprisal would help finish the leftovers. Same for the eggplants, as I had leftover peanut sauce. So I came away with making for two fairly elaborate dinners, with no specific guest plans. I did the twice-cooked pork on Thursday, and Janice and Tim came over for a farewell before they drive off to Washington, where he has a house, and the summers are more agreeable than in Kansas. (Winters are more agreeable as well, but that's another story.) I reported on that dinner on Facebook and recounted in the notebook. I added a subsequent comment to that Facebook entry tonight:

I did a more modest reprisal of the May 16 Thai menu tonight, just as it turned out for Laura & myself. When I bought the pork and eggplants here, I also picked up a roast duck half, so I stripped the meat from the carcass and used it along with the rest of the panang curry paste. Also made another pad thai, and used up the leftover eggplant and peanut sauce. Strawberry shortcake for dessert. That's probably all of the cooking for a while.

I didn't take any more pictures. We had gotten into kind of a rut, inviting the same people repeatedly, and they all turned out to be on the move this week -- one all the way to Japan. Several last-minute invites didn't pan out. Jerry Stewart has been incommunicado for quite a while now, so while I left him an invite message, I wasn't surprised when he didn't RSVP. I tried several others I hadn't seen in ages, but they all had other plans. So when my abbreviated menu was ready at 5:30, we went ahead and ate. I didn't even set the table. We went to a back room and watched a movie: State of Play (2009), which was based on a UK series (2003, 6 episodes). Laura thinks we've seen the series, but I doubt I have. Movie is necessarily streamlined, and relocated in Washington DC, which makes the corporate scoundrels all the more obvious. Not sure I buy the final plot twist, but the movie was pretty good until then, and not exactly spoiled.

I spent a couple days writing a letter to Michael Tatum, which included the following section, collecting my thinking about writing:

Night before I was finally working on planning documents, at least the writing one. In a nutshell:

1. Primary focus will be on memoir. Having failed at writing something straight through, my new plan is what I call the pile of notes: a directory with many small files, some time-specific, some topical (I have a few of these already, like one on cars, another on card games), some historical, some relating to ideas, probably a bunch of notes on various people, places, and things. Basically, raw material that can be pieced together later. Could eventually be turned into multiple essays, perhaps books.

2. Did Something Weird Happen in the 2024 Election?" Latest iteration of the political book, but I'm finally able to shed my biases toward happy endings and embrace Trump as a convoluted revolutionary. There is precedent for this: an old, slim, and somewhat deranged book called "The Confederacy as a Revolutionary Experience." Approach is to outline then flesh out, working fast and completely off the top of my head (maybe with the occasional search into the blog), until I produce a 60-100 page rough draft that I can RFC. Then, if it seems viable, I can consider turning it into book form, possibly with a co-author. Rough outline is: intro section on methods and models (how to think); a brief synopsis of American history up to Trump (I originally thought from Reagan, then Nixon, now I see bits even further back), possibly titled "Breaking Bad" (I'm leaning toward a liberal sprinkling of pop culture references); three chapters on the three Trump campaigns, and how they moved from mainstream Republicanism to radical derangement; sandwiched between them will be shorter interludes on how Republicans (Trump I admin) and Democrats (Biden admin) attempt to cope with the crises their misguided politics aggravate; two more necessarily short chapters to wrap up: the first is what I see as a rational outcome, to establish the notion that such a thing is conceivable; the second is what you get as various elements of the rational solution fail. In other words, I don't want to end up with the customary wish list, but to make the point that the wish list is necessary, a point that people only seem to be capable of learning the hard way. "Weird" is the pivotal term here, because the Democrats thought they would win by disparaging it, while the Republicans did win by embracing it. The only hope we have is for democrats to reclaim the revolutionary spirit deeply embedded (along with a lot of other detritus, for sure) in American history, including acceptance of our own weirdness. (And I use lc for "democrats," as the party is just a vehicle for the people to take over and drive, and I use democrats instead of progressives because I want to ultimately uncouple the notion of progress from democracy -- it had its moment, sure, but we're almost where we want to be, and need to start thinking in terms of soft landings.) This idea has come a long way since my original 1990s draft, when I was thinking in terms of a well-engineered static utopia. It's become very dynamic (one could say dialectical). Seems to me like there's some value here, if only one could bottle it up and sell it.

3. Meanwhile, I'll keep writing short notes on records and (mostly unread) books, and adding them to the pile. I really should sort these into some more useful website order. I don't think the .odt files have been updated since 2020, so that could be a start. It just occurs to me that someone else could organize a GoFundMe (or something like that) to do the actual grunt work, which is mostly what it is. I've long held the idea that this could be turned into a website that other people could take over and build on, so it's sort of up for grabs. I know I made the mistake of holding on too long once before (with ftwalk).

4. I have several ideas for white papers. The best one is probably the scheme I call Representative Democracy, where legislature are composed of representatives who hold proxies for the actual votes of their constituents. Thus, for instance, if the Republican here in Wichita got 130,000 votes, and the Democrat got 105,000 votes, both would be elected, and each would have as many votes as they received to cast on legislative matters. Then, for instance, 235,000 Wichitans would have a representative in Congress, instead of just 130,000 being represented (because, Lord knows, Ron Estes doesn't represent me in any way, shape, or form). This rather elegantly solves a whole bunch of problems that are endemic to winner-take-all or first-past-the-post systems. In particular, it makes gerrymandering ineffective. It makes money far less critical, and as such it makes it easier to provide adequate public financing (without overly impinging on the "freedom of speech" of the uber-rich). It introduces some marginal problems (there probably should be some minimum for 3rd party/independent candidates, as there will likely be more opportunities for them), but they're relatively manageable. I also have a scheme for ending the Gaza genocide which would also help end the Ukraine war, but let's not get into that here. I could see eventually collecting these under the Paul Goodman rubric, "Utopian Essays & Practical Proposals." A lot of these involve open source software. Some are the residue of ancient utopian thinking. (Before discovering Marx, I was into Edward Bellamy and William Morris, although I must say that I always thought Thomas More was a shit.) The problem here is that any of these could be a hopeless time sink. I'd be aiming for rough sketches I could throw to the wind.

5. I'm also likely to continue the occasional "loose tabs" posts, although I worry that they'll turn into a horrible time sink. I run across relevant items pretty much every day, and can find myself losing many hours writing notes that go nowhere. Progress on the aforementioned items depends on limiting my time here, and/or recapturing it for other purposes. I obviously have a lot of backlog, so I wonder if it might be possible to organize that into subject threads.

6. A relative priority is a series of planning documents, which I have at least started, but sort of stands alongside all of the above, and lets me flex my engineering skills. Most relevant here, this gets into the questions of tools and platforms. One document was nothing more than shopping for a web server, which has since been followed by one on how to use said server (although my websites have their own doc). One, "subscriptions," deals with my social media accounts and whatever else I'm following and/or using. Two ideas I'm seriously considering: setting up a Substack, which I hope to call "Notes on Everyday Life," which could go beyond being a push version of the blog to some kind of journal of ideas -- whatever pops into my mind that's worth a couple paragraphs. The other is that I kept the notesoneverydaylife.com domain name, so I'm thinking about using it to host a Mediawiki, which would be a "for public consumption" version of my "pile of notes." In particular, it would indulge my tendency to drop into footnotes, as every word in every piece is a potential link to further exploration. It could also, to a large extent, be populated with extracts from the notebook. It occurs to me I could distinguish this from AI, and call it an OI [Organic Intelligence] Knowledgebase. (Of course, in the end it will all be fodder for AI.)

7. There is also a planning document on website work. The Jazz Critics Poll needs a major overhaul. Christgau needs a minor overhaul. My site is a mess. I'm thinking about writing a "philosophy of the website" white paper, which could invite similar projects. It might be fun to shift my focus from writing to programming, assuming I can still do it.

I started the list above Saturday morning, and got up to item 6. At that point, I broke off to go to the grocery store, and never got back into the writing, which suggests that my work window is narrowing. (Most of 6 and 7 came Sunday morning.) I haven't been able to write anything at all after midnight for several months now, and my evening hours are also trialing off, so I probably need to consider that I have much less bandwidth these days than I used to. That's a pretty sobering thought, especially given that much of what I wrote in the 7 points seem like pretty good ideas, sensibly planned and practical (although perhaps not in combination). I'll probably excerpt this section and distribute it to some other people, to see if I get any feedback.

May 2025

Jul 2025