Genius #29 - May ‘26

Hello geniuses,

I have 5 records on offer for the month of May and a little intro to some v cool new old school music software. ALSO, I am playing with Catherine Savage at The Ottobar on Thurs 6/18. Come through!!

I've been traveling a little, with a lot more travel coming up, but I'm going to try to stick to my monthly schedule. The records down below are killer, great for these late spring-early summer days. And one of them even has lyrics! In English!

Ok Let's listen to some tunes, together.

• Capitalism
• Album Recs
• Upcoming Shows

Capitalism - Rebirth of old tech

In May, 2 different ex-Elektron employees put out separate music softwares designed for the Commodore Amiga (1984-1994) and the Nintendo Game Boy Advance (2001-2005), respectively. Both of these are little groovebox sequencers with different approaches to sound design.

I love that developers are working to put new software into old platforms! Chiptune enthusiasts have been using Game Boys to make music for like 20-30 years, but it's been a while since I've seen an evolution of retrofitting old tech for new software.

Pink Parrot - QuadTrack

QuadTrack

Pink Parrot studios is led by Cenk (aka Dataline) who was fairly high profile at Elektron until his departure in 2021. Quad Track is a 4-track dynamic sequencer designed to run on the Commodore Amiga (a PC produced in the 80s and 90s). It runs in the command line of my more modern Windows PC via a Batch file. The file structure is sort of confusing, but you basically pick a sample pack, which consists of 64 Amiga samples split into 4 tracks (kick, snare, "perc", "synth"). Each of those 4 tracks can be set to play any of 16 samples and can also be set to randomly pick samples from the track. The randomization is the key to using this software; There are a ton of glitch options and effects for every single element and there’s hotkeys so you can use the keyboard to generate fills and then return to the base beat. In 30min, I got some crazy Aphex Twin shit going on and found some some Los Thutanaka lofi sounds.

Lo-bit Club

Lo-bit Club is led by Ess Mattisson, who was also at Elektron until 2020. FMS is a tracker-style sequencer (similar to Renoise) for the Gameboy Advance that can either be flashed onto a GBA cart OR used in an emulator. I've only used the emulator so far (on both my PC and my phone/iPad), but I'm going to dig out my old GBA and buy a blank cartridge for it soon. This is more my speed: 5 tracks – 4 tracks are open-interpretation FM synths where you set the notes, their envelopes, values of FM, ratios, etc. The 5th track is a noise track made of samples from the GBA (if you are using on the GBA, then it's the noises available on the GBA). Nothing I've made on this sounds any good, but I've been staving off my desire for a Dirtwave M8 for a looong time and this is scratching that itch.

Album Recommendations

Does it ALWAYS have to be ambient music? Is that all this blog is now? "Ambient" music?? No! There's a drum & bass album, a drone record, and (yes) an ambient record. But there's also TWO (2) rock records in here and Sluice is a rock band with a true singer-songwriter.

Xylitol - Blumenfantasie (Planet Mu, Mar '26)

smeary & bright drum'n'bass

Blumenfantasie, by Xylitol

10 track album

XylitolTeeDubyaBee

What if jungle was invented in Berlin instead of the UK? What kind of shimmery tones could be layered underneath textured drum breaks? I can't get over the percussion hits that Xylitol pulls from – tambourines, crispy snare hits, punchy kicks. Satisfyingly dense transients, it sounds like each one has a little ghost note trapped inside. Then the drum mangling is glitchy without being harsh, which adds an impressionistic smear to the minimal melodies and airy pads. Her bird-call modular blips and insanely deep sine wave sub bass push into a slight lofi crunch that makes these tracks straight up blissful. If you listen through to the last track "Falling," you'll hear the only vocal sample, a repeated pitched-up voice repeating "I′m deep in love with you / Oh boy, you know I'm falling / I've come to rescue you / Yes, I heard you calling me" over the same sonic palette we've had for the whole record – true bliss on the dance floor.

Sluice - Companion (Mtn Laurel, Mar '26)

folky-shoegazey slowcore

Companion, by Sluice

10 track album

Sluiceindiscreet

Been a while since I got got by a singer-songwriter! I think Justin Morris's backwoods sad and funny songwriting is a perfect match to his simple songwriting with intricate orchestration. The first track had me immediately — after the narrator describes crying at the county fair and then getting "back on the SSRI" he starts comparing his failed relationship to his favorite television couples. Hard to not compare to fellow NC songwriters like MJ Lenderman or Wednesday's Karly Hartzman, but these songs are direct with a specificity and free associative feel that I really responded to. Morris' expressive voice quivers, drawls, and twangs — the rest of the band breathes life into his songs with a good balance of slowcore ragged distortion & Appalachian folk instrumentation. The last track, "Vegas," in particular, where he outlines what it's like to lose the love of playing music, to try imagining a different world you could exist in, and then to get pulled back in.. it's very familiar to me personally and might be very familiar to my readers. "Crying hard in an arena in Vegas watching my middle school favorite band and I don’t think I like them anymore."

Kali Malone & Leila Bordreuil - Music for Intersecting Planes (Ideologic Organ, Apr '26)

textural droning organ, cello, feedback

Music for Intersecting Planes, by Leila Bordreuil + Kali Malone

4 track album

KALI MALONEThom Novi

I love a drone record where it's so hard to figure out what it is that is even happening! These 2 planes were recorded by the 2 young maestros live in an old Swiss church. Both artists are more like sound sculptors, exploring how their notes change the way that the air moves inside of the space. Malone's organ generates harmonics, while Bordreuil's cello and feedback system interrupts the held notes and introduces new rhythms, as the slightly-off harmonies produce constructive and destructive interference. The natural reverb of the space brings even more subfrequency beatings as the notes find walls and apses, push against each other. The final track is a short 1:30 piece that I think is a great introduction to the deep listening that a record like this benefits from.

The Messthetics and James Brandon Lewis - Deface The Currency (Dischord, Feb '26)

weirdo mathy jazz-punk

Deface the Currency, by The Messthetics and James Brandon Lewis

7 track album

The Messtheticsrichmondpinball

The Messthetics, of course, are made up of the drummer and bassist from legendary DC post-hardcore band Fugazi, teamed up with DC jazz guitarist Anthony Pirog. They welcomed James Brandon Lewis in for a collab album in 2024 – but to be honest I wasn't a fan really of the earlier Messthetics stuff or really JBL's earlier work.. and I especially did not care for their collab album. It felt very round, like there were 4 people playing the same thing on every track. I haven't gone back to revisit, it's totally possible that I misread the record. But this latest record scratches an incredible itch – the rhythm section offers an earthy push & pull, while the 2 leads on guitar & sax play igneous little intersecting lines that criss-cross each other, touching the rhythm and then running parallel in their own world. This is really close to the type of jazz-rock music that I wished had existed when I was in high school.. gigantic solos, primal energy, song structures that are better than verse-chorus-verse. Reader, I got saddled with an embarrassing Primus phase at age 16! It's horrible to imagine.

Whitney Johnson, Lia Kohl, Macie Stewart - BODY SOUND (Int'l Anthem, Apr '26)

BODY SOUND, by Whitney Johnson, Lia Kohl, Macie Stewart

11 track album

International AnthemKK

When I'm dreaming up ambient music, this is what I'm hoping for. Each player is playing an orchestral string while singing and looping. An incredibly intimate recording, the strings are mic'd up close so you get the bow sounds and a mild cross-stereo effect of all of the instruments in each others' microphones with all 3 performers singing wordless tones in harmony. The trio sounds like one organism, growing and shifting. Come on!! Seeing this performed live was wild, they're just absolutely locked in with each other.

Upcoming June albums:

• 6/5
  • LA twee pop solo act Slippers who I wrote about last month has a new one! Slippers 08 is out via K Records
• NYC jazzer Zoh Amba is releasing a folk rock album (?) Eyes Full out via the legendary Matador Records, sounds like kinda Big Thief heel turn away from skronky jazz, I'm stoked about it.
• 6/12
  • Germany-by-way-of-Baltimore microtonal math rock quartet Horse Lords are one of my favorite bands working today. The singles from Demand to be Taken to Heaven Alive! (their 3rd for RVNG) are very promising of some new ideas and new shapes !
• Montreal gothic-doom metal Big|Brave have released some of my favorite heavy music, their latest In Grief or in Hope should be another banger via Thrill Jockey
• CDMX post-punk band Diles que no me maten are bringing more downer jams with Escrito en agua out on Moonlight Activities
• Baltimore free improv freaks MC Schmidt & John Berndt are releasing a wild collab album, Cloud Machines thru Thrill Jockey
• 6/19:
  • Backwoodz lady rap duo Sha Ray & DJ Haram are reunited after Sha Ray was featured on DJ Haram's first solo record. Can't wait for the wonderfully titled Critical Thot.
• 6/22
  • NYC experimental pop project Chanel Beads is returning with a second album titled Your Day Will Come thru Jagjaguar. So intrigued, I think this is the first band I know of that has re-used an album title.

Scene Report

Upcoming Shows

Baltimore

• 6/4 (Thu) Ousted, Prisoner, Pisscorpse, Mass Ego @ Holy Frijoles
• 6/5 (Fri) N X 10: 10 Minute Concerts w/ Dave Heumann, Adam Holofcenter,Amsies, Derek Torsani, +MORE @ 2640 Space
• 6/6 (Sat) Loudsounds, Crow’s Foot, Annette Before @ Wax Atlas
• 6/7 (Sun) Bill Frisell Trio @ Keystone Korner
• 6/9 (Tue) Mdou Moctar (solo) @ Ottobar
• 6/10 (Wed) Choking Boys, Suburbanabuse, Be My Friend, Prognoz @ Ottobar
• 6/10 (Wed) Devo @ The Lyric
• 6/11 (Thu) Bearduo & Caroline Jesalva & Charlie Reichert Powell. New River. @ 2640 Space
• 6/12 (Fri) Ceremony Drum, Reaches, Functionary @ Current Space
• 6/13 (Sat) CCAS Reunion Weekend (NoMan, Rob S from Ruinier, WarxGames, Beach Creeper, Unicorn Dogs, more) @ Metro
• 6/13 (Sat) Baltimore Soft Fest w/ Ami Dang, Glorian, Marie Ann Hedonia, Daoure Diongue @ Current Space
• 6/13 (Sat) Baltimore Pedal Show @ Union Craft Brewing
• 6/14 (Sun) Eyelet, Life, Oxrun, Consumer Culture @ Ottobar
• 6/16 (Tue) Wednesday @ Nevermore Hall
• 6/18 (Thu) Thee Windows, Boat Water, Catherine Savage, Fozzy Mare @ Ottobar
• 6/23 (Tue) The Breeders @ Nevermore Hall
• 6/24 (Wed) Spoon, The Beths @ Nevermore Hall
• 6/25 (Thu) Fred Frith @ 2640 Space
• 6/28 (Sun) Delta Sleep, Michael Cera Palin, Combat @ Ottobar

DC

• 6/1 (Mon) Built To Spill, Guerilla Toss @ 9:30 Club
• 6/4 (Thu) Portrayal of Guilt, Street Sects, The Infinity Ring, Ostraca @ DC9
• 6/6 (Sat) Ousted, Prisoner, Pilau, Mass Ego (early show) @ Pie Shop
• 6/14 (Sun) Kalia Vandever / I hate performing alone (Emily Francisco & Alex Tyson) @ Rhizome
• 6/20 (Sat) Rostam - American Stories Tour, Elori Saxl, Henry Solomon @ 9:30 Club
• 6/20 (Sat) The Bad Plus Farewell Tour @ Blues Alley
• 6/21 (Sun) The Bad Plus Farewell Tour @ Blues Alley
• 6/21 (Sun) Heems @ Pearl St Warehouse
• 6/26 (Fri) Fred Frith / Chao Tian @ Rhizome
• 6/28 (Sun) Tortoise @ 9:30 Club

NYC

• 6/6 (Sat) Marc Ribot's Ceramic Dog (w/ Shahzad Ismaily, Ches Smith) @ Pianos
• 6/18 (Thu) Alan Sparhawk, Circuit des Yeux, POLIÇA @ Knockdown Center
• 6/25 (Thu) Tortoise @ Knockdown Center

Future Shows

• 7/3 (Fri) Black Country, New Road @ Nevermore Hall (Baltimore)
• 7/6 (Mon) Man Man, Death Valley Girls @ Ottobar (Baltimore)
• 7/9 (Thu) Earl Sweatshirt & Mike @ Nevermore Hall (Baltimore)
• 7/11 (Sat) American Football, Ian Sweet @ 9:30 Club (DC)
• 7/12 (Sun) American Football, Ian Sweet @ 9:30 Club (DC)
• 7/12 (Sun) Jejune, Ethel Meserve @ Songbyrd (DC)
• 7/14 (Tue) Wombo, Shower Curtain @ Metro (Baltimore)
• 7/16 (Thu) Cola, PARKiNG @ Songbyrd (DC)
• 8/6 (Thu) The Body, Big|Brave @ Metro (Baltimore)
• 8/10 (Mon) Lip Critic @ Songbyrd (DC)
• 8/14 (Fri) Yard Act @ Black Cat (DC)
• 9/11 (Fri) Aldous Harding @ Howard Theatre (DC)
• 9/18 (Fri) Kim Gordon, Bill Nace @ Black Cat (DC)
• 9/19 (Sat) Grouper @ Lincoln Theatre (DC)
• 9/27 (Sun) Armand Hammer @ Union Stage (DC)
• 9/30 (Wed) New Pornographers @ The Recher (Baltimore)
• 10/4 (Sun) Unsane, Consumer Culture @ Pearl St Warehouse (DC)