Things we like: Circlons, Zoh Amba, Texas Butt Biters

These days it seems as though a lot of bands will release albums a song at a time, only letting the final product drop after all the individual components have been internet available for awhile. When Only the Music Is Pretty, an EP by Circlons that arrived in my mailbox the other day, seems like Something Entahrly Other -- what could be a taste of four distinctly different albums. The project is the brainchild of guitarist-songwriter Kjehl Johanson (Urinals, Trotsky Icepick, Narrow Adventure), with three collaborators whose bloodlines include Trotsky Icepick, the Last, and the Leaving Trains, fronted by a rotating cast of singers. On "I Wanna Be On Your Radio (Not In Your Arms)," with lyrics that could have been written by the Wonders' careerist frontman from cinema's That Thing You Do, and enough chords to be a Radio Birdman song, John Talley-Jones does the vocal honors. Title track, sung by Adam Marsland, has a string arrangement that lifts it into Love Forever Changes territory -- appropriate for a song about the machinations of the L.A. music business. "Blue Cheer" isn't a proto-metal homage like you might expect from its title, but rather an R&B flavored tale of domestic violence, forcefully sung by Bellrays' force of nature Lisa Kekaula. "Moon Over Babaluma" is a credible Krautrock homage, as its title tips you off, with spoken word by Barbara Manning that recalls what Dan McGuire was doing with Unknown Instructors a few years ago, or Anne Sexton was with Her Kind decades before that. A mixed bag then, and a welcome surprise. 

Since her arrival in New York last year, 22-year-old tenor sax wunderkind Zoh Amba has had a slew of releases and played with an impressive array of the city's heaviest talents. I first got wind of her via Ra Kalam Bob Moses, who'd played a festival in her native Tennessee with her, and then heard her trio with William Parker and Francisco Mela, released on 577 Records as O Life, O Light Vol. 1. (A duo album with Mela, Causa y Efecto Vol. 1, just dropped on the same label this week.) Myself, I liked O, Sun on John Zorn's Tzadik label -- featuring pianist Micah Thomas and bassist Thomas Morgan from the band Zoh is taking to Europe -- even better. But Bhakti, just released on Mahakala Music, might just be her most substantial statement yet. What you hear on the disc is what went down in the studio, for Zoh values spontaneity. The spiritual longing in her music is buoyed here by the supportive contributions of Thomas, Morgan, and drummer Tyshawn Sorey (replaced for the tour by ex-Cecil Taylor/David S. Ware sideman Marc Edwards). The musicians are clearly listening closely to each other, and the music wends its way through numerous dynamic shifts, but always remains powerful and expressive. On the closing "Awaiting Thee," guitarist Matt Hollenberg sprinkles shards of splintered notes over the roiling maelstrom. Listening to Bhakti takes me back to the first time I spun Trane's Ascension (with Amiri Baraka's liner notes suggesting that one could use the record to heat up the apartment on cold winter nights), or the night in '78 when Charles Moffett brought his three sons to sit in at the Recovery Room on Lemmon Avenue in Dallas and they raised the roof with '60s style energy music. That spirit still lives in music, and it will as long as players like Zoh come along to channel it.

In a similar vein, Texas Butt Biters is a collaboration between the peripatetic American saxophonist John Dikeman and three members of the transcontinental free jazz/hip-hop/metal supergroup The Young Mothers: drummer Stefan Gonzalez, bassist Ingebrigt Haker-Flaten, and guitarist Jonathan F. Horne. Recorded late one night in Amsterdam, the three tracks are a surging tour de force of controlled violence and insane abandon. It's the sound of systems in overload -- bold and bracing, but not for the faint of heart. Young Mothers will be touring Norway later this month, so one hopes there'll be new music from them soon.