Smothered's "Dirty Laundry"

(Photo by Grace Forrester)

I first encountered Smothered frontwoman Taylor Watt when we were both sacrificial locals for a couple of touring poets who were reading at Recycled Books. (I am a reporter, not a poet, but when someone asks and it's my week for doing something new, I can't refuse.) The Denton native's grandmother had just passed, and she read a poem she'd written in her memory, in which her departed dear one's phone number (does anybody still remember phone numbers?) served as a recurring refrain, giving the piece the power of an incantation. When she finished, even the veteran headliners were visibly impressed by Watt's courageous self-disclosure. 

So, it was no surprise that when Smothered's new album, Dirty Laundry, arrived on my hard drive, it was replete with songs in which Watt expresses her innermost emotions potently and honestly: pervaded by an atmosphere of anomie and unease that fits these times, but with the intimacy of a phone message from a friend. It's Smothered's music that really caught my ear first, though. While the band's basic sound is informed by the grunge rock Watt grew up listening to, her songcraft adds some surprising twists and turns to the formula, and the band's instrumental attack is a lot more intricate and varied than one might expect.

For instance, "Crosslegged Behavior" explodes out of the gate like a garage pounder, but its clever arrangement is full of surprises, including a half-time bridge and shifting guitar textures (a signature of this record). Watt and her second guitarist/co-producer Zach Palmer intertwine and contrast their lines in interesting ways, while the rhythm section of bassist Mal Frenza (who made an impressive appearance at November's Molten Plains Improv Lotto) and drummer Raegan Smythe (the newest member, who joined the band last year) drives and grooves relentlessly. "Slump" starts out as a textbook example of light-to-heavy grunge dynamics, with a breathless vocal from Watt, but then midway through, the flow is interrupted by densely layered vocals that give the piece a totally different vibe. 

"My Southern Girl" is pure sex, slithering out of the speakers at a seductive medium tempo (with a quick tempo shift at the bridge just to keep listeners on their toes), and I can imagine a lesbian teen responding to its heat the way youngsters have to the Dance of Romance depicted in song since time immemorial: the mystery revealed. The crown jewel here, for my two cents, is "A Splinter," released as a single a year ago with a clever video (featuring sock puppets!). Watt says it was her first foray into writing more complex constructions, and indeed, the arrangement is downright orchestral, like a music of the spheres, with the blast of guitar feedback at the end as the icing on the cake. 

The closing "Squeeze Me" sounds something like coming to terms. While Watt sings "There's something in me / reeling, I feel sure," she also allows, "I'm in love with a patient woman" (she got married last year) and the song concludes, "I've been eating all of my / vegetables and / I am running out of / things to say..." Here's hoping she's kidding us. Taylor Watt is the kind of songwriter who could make growing up sound compelling, and Smothered is the kind of band who could make it rock.

Arlington, 1.25.2025

Went to Growl Records in Arlington to see a damn rockaroll show. My old Stoogeaphilia singer Ray Liberio kicks the traps in a new band, Bull Nettle Jacket, with Rick Sharp (Vorvon) on guitar/vox and Tony Medio (Dragworms) on bass/vox. Also on the bill were C.I., a band that includes old friends Ben Schultz (Magnus) and Bob Nash (Raging Boner) alongside Peter Hawkinson (Inverted Candles), and Andrew Tipps (who also plays with Ben and Bob in the reformed Caddis, who practice at 7am on Saturdays!), and Bone Leech, a new trio fronted by Peter's Inverted Candles bandmate Jack O'Hara, with Candles drummer Brandon Young and 8-string bassist Patrick Michot (Oil Spill). Whew!

I hadn't seen Ray in a minute, so it was good to have time to catch up. His girlfriend Laura was kind enough to ask if we would consider doing a Stooge reunion, which made my heart glad, but I explained to her that Ray and Jon Teague are the only irreplaceable members of that band, and JT now lives in Albuquerque. Later on for old times' sake I went to the pizza place next door and bought a pie which wasn't bad but no match for Big Joe's, the Stooge band's jam room fave. (It was once suggested that we change our name to "And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Mexican Beer Bottles and Empty Pizza Boxes.") And I told Medio about the time we were playing at the Moon on Berry Street and had a Perrotti's pie delivered to the stage (back when JT's Yeti bandmate Eric Harris was delivering for them).

Bull Metal Jacket's opening set started promptly at 8pm. I never saw Vorvon, so this was my first time hearing Ray drum and Rick Sharp play guitar (although I've played through his amp on a couple of shows). Their sound was doom metal with some garage and punk elements (a couple of Rick's songs reminded me of early Pretty Things, always a welcome association), and it felt good to be swept away on a tide of distortion and feedback. Rick plays an SG Special with P-90s and the big scratch plate, same as my first "good" guitar, and Tony rocks a Rickenbacker. The vocals are rough and ready and Raymond is a terrific kick-and-snare man, using tumbling fills as punctuation. Glad I got to see 'em; I'd do it again.

I missed Bone Leech's set while waiting for the aforementioned pizza but I saw Jack O'Hara later and he hipped me that he'd had the songs ("sludge metal about video games") for a couple of years but only recently was able to recruit musicians to play them. Jack and his pal Alex Atchley are in so many bands I wonder how they can remember which one they are from one gig to the next. They have a bunch of shows booked so I'll have to catch one. Their subject matter is of interest as I'm reading a mystery novel about gamer culture (Terry Miles' "Rabbits;" thanks, Larry Hill!).

Who knew; Bob Nash has a fan club! A bunch of Arlington punk kids who hang at a coffee place he frequents showed up for his gigs wearing DIY "Bob Motherfucking Nash" (with Anarchy A) T-shirts. It seems they've adopted the superannuated skater punk as an elder, sort of like the way some Denton music peeps have your humble chronicler o' events. (Speaking of Denton noisicians, was pleasantly surprised to see Louise Fristensky there with Jack.)

Before C.I.'s set, I asked Bob what the initials stood for and he told me, "It changes with every album. For the first one, it was Contemplating Impermanence. For the second, it was Cenotaph Inscriptions. For the new one, it might be Constant Irritation. Or Car Insurance." C.I.'s an instrumental outfit (their last album featured vocals on one track) that purveys a heavy math rock powered by Andrew's thunderous blast beats, with Ben and Peter's percussively picked guitars alternating unison, harmony, and contrapuntal lines, and Bob splitting the difference between Andrew's foot and Ben's guitar. Since reading Jonathan Haidt's The Anxious Generation I've been thinking a lot about awe -- of the natural beauty around us, or of music and art. Or as I usually say, when I see something I don't understand but know is real, I call it magic. So I'll call C.I.'s music magic -- loud, in-your-face magic, but magic nonetheless.

Denton, 1.22.2025

My first night out of this already daunting year was the premiere event of Joan of Bark Presents, the monthly series curated by Sarah Ruth Alexander and Stephen Lucas at Rubber Gloves Rehearsal Studios. (Molten Plains is dead, long live Joan of Bark Presents.) The Improv Lotto was scheduled to feature 12 musicians, but percussionist Bobby Fajardo and dancer Sarah Gamblin were unable to perform, so the evening's program consisted of a quartet and two trios. I missed the drawing of names, between a stop at Recycled Books and another at a friend's house, but 75% of the opening quartet was already familiar, in one way or another.

Said quartet comprised cellist Will Frenkel, drummer Cade Bundrick, vocalist Julia Eva Boheme, and guitarist Mike West. Frenkel was familiar from previous improv appearances. Bundrick (whose uncle used to play keys for some English band) fronted BIGHAND/BIGKNIFE, whom I witnessed at a skateboard event in Fort Worth a few years back, and currently kicks the traps with post-rockers Please Advise and Southern gothic songster Chris Welch. West was in experimental improv outfit Violent Squid, and works with Bundrick at Recycled. 

Only Boheme was new to me, and she definitely made an impression with her paroxysmal physical presence and wordless vocal utterances. From the beginning, the group was surprisingly cohesive, with Frenkel starting things off, Bundrick playing mutant one-drop groove, with West responding with chorused chords, like Andy Summers but out. They all ended together, then resumed with a second piece, and finished with a third that was more bombastic and ended with a yelp from Boheme that was definitely conclusive and brought laughter from the audience. Free improv can be fun, and funny.

Second set was a vocal-with-electronics trio comprising another improv stalwart, Sarah Jay; a newcomer, Grae Gonzalez, and Lotto co-curator Alexander. The three women blended their voices, and Jay and Alexander interwove their electronic sounds, in a manner that was cosmic and ethereal and almost begged for visual accompaniment. 

The concluding set was a keyboard-and-strings trio with Lotto co-curator Aaron Gonzalez on stand-up bass and vocal, Matthew James McNabb on electronic keyboard (using an acoustic piano sound), and the always stellar Kourtney Newton on cello. Gonzalez met McNabb when they were working on a production at Dallas' Ochre House Theater, and the keyboardist brought many influences to bear in his extemporization. Newton responded empathetically with virtuosic chops, including mastery of extended techniques, and deployed a melodica to break things up texturally. 

At one point McNabb attacked the keys percussively and Newton picked up on his rhythm; another time, she started a three-note ostinato that he took and developed. Throughout, Gonzalez provided the tonal foundation with arco drones and made occasional vocal interjections. There were a couple of times I saw the string players reach a conclusion, only to hear McNabb start a new thought stream. Finally Gonzalez signaled closure with a guttural vocalism. Improv's a good metaphor for life: You start with what you have, you respond to what's around you, you follow it where it takes you. I'm glad Joan of Bark is continuing to present these evenings.

Things we like: Sawyer Editions

Sawyer Editions, a label focused on "contemporary, experimental, and improvised music, especially of new and unreleased artists," is the brianchild of Kory Reeder, a modest and affable Nebraskan with a PhD in music from the University of North Texas who has toured and had his compositions performed around the world. Now based in Denton, Reeder characterizes himself as a guy who "just [wants] to do cool stuff with my friends." He releases albums in batches of five twice a year on both Sawyer Editions and sister label Sawyer Spaces, which is devoted to soundscapes and field recordings.

Denton in 2025 might not be Buffalo in the '60s, but Reeder is part of a cohort of composer-performers associated with the UNT school of music -- others include Andrew May, Elizabeth McNutt, Stephen Lucas, Mia Detwiler, Kourtney Newton, and Louise Fristensky -- who have done interesting work that I've witnessed over the last few years, whose energy pervades the improv and noise scene there. His aesthetic leans toward the calm, slow, and quiet, and that's reflected in the music he releases as well as his compositions. 

The last couple of years, the way I listen to music has changed. I no longer keep music playing continuously around la casa -- perhaps a rejection, in a way, of the continuous passive listening that Spotify promotes. Some listens require concentrated attention, while others I find useful as part of an environment in which I can do other things -- read, cook, clean, rearrange media. Not "easy listening" or "ambient" per se, but rather, sound that creates a contemplative atmosphere, with sufficient sonic stimulation to be more than background music. This is the space in my life Reeder's releases fill.

In his latest Sawyer Spaces batch, Feldman and Hume: Intermissions is a dialogue between two composers: the pioneering 20th century New York experimentalist Morton Feldman, whose influence pervades new music (no Feldman, no Tyshawn Sorey, for one) and the 17th century Scottish mercenary soldier and advocate of the viola da gamba Tobias Hume, whose work straddled the Baroque and Renaissance periods. Juxtaposed in this way, their works present a less startling contrast than one might imagine, perhaps due to the interpretations rendered by violist Luciana Elizondo and pianist Guy Vandromme, and the sonic unity created by sound designer Fabio Gionfrida, who also mastered the album.

The Swiss Insub Meta Orchestra's Exhaustion/Proliferation is the product of a collaboration between experimental noise artist d'incise (aka Laurent Peter) and percussionist Cyri Bondi, with assistance in selecting chords from guitarist Ed Williams. The orchestra comprises 30 players on voice, flute, shakuhachi, clarinet, saxophone, oboe, bassoon, sruti box, spinet, guitar, double bass, cello, viola da gamba, violin, percussion, and electronics. For its size, the group's sound is hardly dense. The two long pieces unfold at a leisurely pace, with plenty of space between the shifting textures and transient instrumental voices. On the second piece, fragments are recorded and played back on smartphones.

The 14 movements on New York accordionist Ben Richter's Dissolution Seedlings began with the composer's interest in the "rhizomatic plant-fungal world and its non-linear life systems" and was affected by the changes to his consciousness from a concussion he suffered in a car accident while writing the piece. (A good metaphor, I think; once begun, life takes on new directions and forms.) The work is performed by the House on Fire Trio, a Southern California ensemble whose members -- all pianists with multi-instrumental capabilities -- get along like the proverbial "house on fire." One hopes that their spaces survived the still raging wildfires in Los Angeles.

enclosures, a collection of works concerned with "space, place, reverberation, and resonance" by the Chicago concert-electronic-electroacoustic composer Kari Watson, is noteworthy for its sonic variety. There's a piece for bass clarinet, bass flute, electric guitar, and viola, performed by the Strasbourg new music ensemble Lovemusic Collective; another for Bostonian Daniel T. Lewis's just intonation vibraphone; a string quartet performed by the Parisian Quatuor Diotima; a saxophone quartet performed by Chicago's ~Nois; and a solo harp piece performed by Chicagoan Ben Melsky. Of the current batch, this is likely the one I'll return to the most. 

Finally, I'll admit to having a weakness for solo piano recordings, but that aside, I'd have to say that Ashlee Mack's recital green is probably the crown jewel of this batch of Sawyers. True, Mack's had wider exposure than most of her label mates, having been a 2019 Pulitzer Prize finalist and the subject of laudatory comments from The New Yorker, The Wire, and the San Francisco Chronicle. She's also an avid hiker, and the four pieces here range in length from eight to 20 minutes and are all by living composers. Listening to Mack's sure touch at the keyboard gives me the same feeling of centeredness and serenity I get when I'm knocking around in the woods with my oldest friend here at the Fort Worth Nature Center. The sound of her last notes reverberating in silence conjures images of open skies and endless vistas.

Natsuki Tamura and Keiji Haino's "What happened there?"

Back in 2008, I was listening a lot to "Japanoise" practitioners like High Rise, Mainliner, and Acid Mothers Temple. The god-king of Japanese noise/rock/experimental improv was (and remains) the shadowy and mysterious Keiji Haino, whose Velvet Underground-meets-James Earl Jones in Conan the Barbarian visual aspect is emblematic of his uncompromising musical stance. 

Recorded artifacts like Haino's 1991 double live album with Fushitsusha, or his collab with folk singer Kan Mikami and bassist Motoharu Yoshizawa from around the same time (Live in the First Year of Heisei) were both rarer than hen's teeth and uber expensive to boot, but the samplings from Haino's intimidatingly mammoth discography I found posted on YouTube were imposing. (I'm thinking in particular of a meeting of Haino with Acid Mothers Temple guitarist Makoto Kawabata and Ruins drummer Tatsuya Yoshida that's kind of terrifying in its unbridled ferocity.) When Black Editions reissued Haino's 1981 debut LP Watashi Dake? in 2017, I found it a more easily fathomable (and quiet) example of his daunting, ominous sound. 

A year ago, Haino appeared at the Aremo Koremo (Each and Every) festival, curated by trumpeter Natsuki Tamura and his wife, pianist Satoko Fujii, in a first time duo with Tamura. On January 24, the couple's Libra Records label will release What happened there?, the live recorded document of the event. Tamura has an eclectic and left-of-center background similar to Haino's, which includes an interest in folk and ethnic musics (cf. Haino's recordings on hurdy gurdy) as well as outre sounds. 

I will admit that in my dotage, I find unremitting intensity difficult to listen to when separated from the energy exchange between performer and listener that takes place and is palpable in live performance. Haino has always been influenced by the Japanese concept of Ma, or the space between the notes. In his maturity, he seems to have embraced this aesthetic more fully, and now his music inhabits a sacred or ritual space. With an experienced improviser and empathetic partner like Tamura to play off, he spins a web of sound that is alternately turbulent and darkly seductive.

In this context, Haino is revealed as a consummate improviser, listening actively and using lots of negative space in between his savage guitar assaults and explosive vocal interjections. Tamura responds with the full expressive range of the trumpet: burnished tones on the open horn, voice-like muted cries and blues-drenched contemplative moments. He uses small instruments -- kitchen implements and squeaky toys -- to add variety and interject occasional humor into the sonic stew. Their conversation winds its way through several episodes. A highly satisfying set, and a good place to go when I want to experience Haino in full flight.