Genius #30 - Jun '26
New releases from Aldous Harding, Wendy Eisenberg, Fire-Toolz, Jeff Parker & ETA IVtet, Cocanha. Upcoming show calendar for July!
Geniuses, we are halfway through the year. I've been doing a lot of traveling in June & haven't had much time to write, but I had a good amount of time to listen and so I still have 5 recent releases for your consideration (and 3 coming out in July that I'm excited for). You will have to wait until next month for my YHWH Nailgun take, I'm running a month behind everybody else!
Commodity Fetishism
The spirit of this section has kind of shifted and I don't really think "Capitalism" is the correct header anymore, so it has been updated.
A couple months ago, a private equity company acquired the Swedish synth giant Elektron. I've been dreading what this means for the future of the company – I am deep in their ecosystem at this point. BUT! It seems like the employees are dumping all of their good ideas right now before things get enshittified.
I have an old Analog Four mk1, a synth box that has 4 independent synths inside of it, each with its own sequencer. While Elektron stopped manufacturing these about 10 years ago, that didn't stop the company from releasing a new firmware for it that introduces a bunch of cool updates like a Euclidean Sequencer (basically an autofill for notes into the sequencer using logic to move notes around). The thing that is the most exciting to me: the synth has always had ability to change its sound per-step in the sequencer – the new update allows you to save each step's sound to the soundbank. The big update for a lot of people is "Control All" which allows you to control all 4 monosynths from one knob. Just nice that this thing is still being supported! I'm enjoying it while it lasts.
Album Recommendations
Due to me becoming sick of ambient music, there are some regular singer songwriters in the mix again. I have been spinning the new Aldous Harding basically non-stop since I first heard it. Wendy Eisenberg, also featured below, included Harding's LP in their top albums as well! The other 3 are slightly more abstract – Cocanha's Occitan traditions sit comfortably in their harder rocking context, Jeff Parker's ETA IVtet bring 2 long-form jammy gooey jazz(ish) improv pieces, and blackened synthpop DIY maintstay Fire-Toolz hits the big stage with her Warp Records debut.
Aldous Harding - Train on the Island (4AD, May '26)
entrancing & spare songwriting
K.K.
I've been turning this record over and over in my mind like a puzzle box since it was released. Just nonstop listening to it – including one strange day at the gym. Harding's writing is like Kate Bush doing a Bob Dylan thing – she pulls the listener into her world, then pushes you away as soon as you get too close for her comfort. I love the sound of this record: it's giving rainy warm day in the city. Close-mic'd pianos buzz and click against sweetly composed minimal parts for her band (a flute takes off in flight in the background for just 2 bars in the middle of the title track, later there's some prepared harp I think) – but Harding's voice is always the focal point for every song, way up front in the mix. Her dusky singing, gasping, drawling, scratching at the bottom of her range – discovering new ways to pronounce vowel sounds. At first blush many of Harding's lyrics are strange and naive, but the more I read along, the more they circle in on themselves and open into deeper meanings. She mumbles through intensely personal stories from childhood and then compares to how boring it is to tilt towards stardom ("I met the real John Cale . . . I packed the stage while he ate rice"), playing with the central tension between a listener's desire for personal connection to an artist and the artist's desire to maintain some level of secrecy. Just before the end of the record, she dunks on the listener for even trying to follow along with some of her more cryptic lyrics, her voice cracking as she hits the top of her range: "I'm only riding that symbol / no one knows what I'm into."
Fire-Toolz - Lavender Networks (Warp, May '26)
black metal & synth-pop
Raphael
Angel Marcloid's oil-and-water vision of 80s synth tones & Norwegian metal riffing has finally broken into a worldwide audience with her first Warp Records release. And this LP fucking slams! Glassy FM synth arpeggios, huge drums, some stellar features (including Zola Jesus on the first track), and (of course) her full-on shrieks (tastefully low in the mix!). The tracks jump between ambient exploratory synth tracks and harder-edged pounding techno-metal. If you're not familiar with this project, I highly recommend checking this record out as an entry point. There's an extra sheen of production quality that the earlier entries are missing – The drums hit extra hard, there are features from more melodic vocalists. The softer moments are legit touching – great dynamics.
Wendy Eisenberg - Wendy Eisenberg ( Apr '26)
jazzy folky singer-songwriter
stevielorann
I didn't really expect this star turn for Wendy Eisenberg! I think of them as a member of the post-hardcore band Editrix, or a free improv wizard who join Bill Orcutt's guitar quartet.. but this is a big bright solo release indebted in equal measure to mathy emo music, the type of confessional expressive modern folk music sung by artists like Richard Dawson, and wall-of-sound 60s pop music. Eisenberg calls this a work of "folk songs," but I'm not convinced that the folk are as interested as we are (you and I, dear reader) in polyrhythmic guitars and Eisenberg's oblique poetic lyrics sung in leading tones over chord modulations. The best analog to me is something akin to J-Pop, with naive melodies against serious jazz and folk influences. highlight for me is "Another Lifetime Floats Away" where Eisenberg's singsongy voice drifts over the countrified fiddles from More Eaze' Mari Rubio, while Trevor Dunn's bassline perfectly pulls the whole piece into focus.
Cocanha - Flame Folclòre (Bongo Joe, May '26)
blistering occitan folk-rock
chuck p
I love hearing something new to me! The duo of Caroline Dufau & Lila Fraysse write interlocking vocal melodies that feel like they take flight away from their dulcimer-ish percussive pulses. But this is not just folk music!!! There's glitchy Ableton trickery, there's high tempo drumming, moments of legit mathy hardcore. Their songs are rooted in Occitan folk singing traditions of polyphonic vocals, shifting harmonies, some crazy hocketing in subdivided rhythms, but incorporated into a high tempo and high intensity modern rock band. Like a "what if Gogol Bordello was actually still pretty cool" kind of vibe. Minimalist-maximalist: I think almost every instrument is just playing one note, but the way the vocalists dance around those pulses makes for a hypnotizing listen. Tons of stereo field trickery & over-biased saturation, which is an immediate ear candy thing for me. Is this the first record to be released by a French rock band with a Luigi Mangione reference?
Jeff Parker & ETA IVtet - Happy Today ( May '26)
electrifying live nu-jazz
bwprager123
LA continues to be the most exciting jazz scene in the country to me. Jeff Parker held a weekly show with this quartet (feat session drummer Jay Bellerose & SML's Anna Butterss and Josh Johsnon) for 7 years at ETA, a small bar in LA. The group started just playing standards and getting to know each other, but after so many years they have charted an entire new language together that merges jazz, abstract ambient music, post-rock, hip-hop. While ETA shuttered in 2023, the band released one live recording from the space in 2024 and the band remains. Parker's guitar playing is clean – if you've listened to much Tortoise, you know what his buttery playing sounds like. The band is really cooking on this one, it sounds like they're having a blast in front of this audience. There are so many moments where Bellerose stops playing the drums, then finds a completely new rhythm to put behind the band and then you hear someone in the crowd lose their mind and whoop at the band.
Upcoming July albums:
- Typically slow-moving experimental R&B singer/composer Kelela is jumping ahead and releasing another new record (her first came out in 2017, second in 2023). New Avatar is out 7/10 via Warp Records.
- Speedy Ortiz' Sadie Dupuis is releasing another record under her Sad13 moniker. She describes it as being indebted to Thierra Whack's incredible Whackworld – 13 songs hovering around 1min. 1331 is out on 7/10 via Exploding In Sound.
- Milwaukee's climate-focused post-screamo trio Snag are releasing their first for Deathwish, Inc. All The Cages Holding Us Will One Day Turn To Dust on 7/10
Scene Report
More on this next month, but I'm playing a few shows in August and September:
8/20 @ The Ottobar: Chanp with Star Card, Ella Can't Save You, and Choking Boys
9/15 @ Pearl Street Warehouse: Catherine Savage with Anna Graves
Upcoming Shows
Baltimore
- 7/1 (Wed) Virtua DX, Jumpy, The Haiku 2, Fruits of Heaven @ The Undercroft
- 7/1 (Wed) The Arm, The Caribbean @ Design Distillery
- 7/3 (Fri) Black Country, New Road @ Nevermore Hall
- 7/3 (Fri) Insignia, Nesting, Sage Is Alive, Glass Island, Citric @ Wax Atlas
- 7/6 (Mon) Man Man, Death Valley Girls @ Ottobar
- 7/6 (Mon) Mind On Fire @ Comptoir Du Vin
- 7/9 (Thu) Earl Sweatshirt & Mike @ Nevermore Hall
- 7/9 (Thu) Ratboys, Blessing Jolie, Fitzkee Brothers @ Canton Waterfront Park
- 7/11 (Sat) Plrls Album Release, Twings, Party Nerves, Choking Boys @ Ottobar
- 7/12 (Sun) Magic Tuber String Band, Anthony Pirog, Steve Strohmeir @ Comptoir Du Vin
- 7/14 (Tue) Wombo, Shower Curtain, Powerwasher @ Metro
- 7/16 (Thu) Marie Ann Hedonia, Moth Broth, Simmone Wrath, Sickle Cell @ Metro
- 7/16 (Thu) Cate Kennan, Deakin, Zach Levinson @ Current Space
- 7/18 (Sat) AMICA Center Benefit w/ Ragdollz, Unwithered, Trash Diva, Scorpion, Severence @ Skatepark
- 7/21 (Tue) Thank Your Lucky Stars, Sixteen12, Starvling, Pitfallsatthirdlaw, 9Amygdalae @ Baltimore Unity Hall
- 7/23 (Thu) Muscle, Abbatia, Radium Girl, Oxrun @ Bogus Gallery
DC
- 7/1 (Wed) Sabel Jane, Xk Scenario, Grace A. Keller @ Songbyrd
- 7/2 (Thu) Cherub Tree (album release show!), Dorinda, Kinda Evil @ Pie Shop
- 7/12 (Sun) Jejune, Ethel Meserve @ Songbyrd
- 7/12 (Sun) Jivebomb, Agonesiac, Fade To Nothing, Bad Wave @ Pearl St Warehouse
- 7/13 (Mon) Murena / Thumbsucker26 / Guillermo Pizarro @ Rhizome
- 7/16 (Thu) Cola, PARKiNG, Emotional World @ Songbyrd
- 7/21 (Tue) Slippers, Dim Wizard @ Quarry House
- 7/22 (Wed) Downtown Boys, Pop Music Fever Dream @ DC9
- 7/30 (Thu) Psyop, Body Farm, Vomit Dolls, Trepanate @ Quarry House
NYC
- 7/9 (Thu) youbet, Sweet Baby Jesus @ TV Eye
- 7/9 (Thu) No Fun New Perspectives, Night #1/3: Bill Nace / Carlos Giffoni / Charmaine Lee, Twig Harper / Hada Benedito / Michael Foster, Lea Bertucci & David Watson, Mark Morgan / Samara Lubelski / Greg Kelley @ Roulette
- 7/10 (Fri) No Fun New Perspectives, Night #2/3: Carlos Giffoni / Lee Ranaldo / Raven Chacon, Keith Fullerton Whitman & Chris Goudreau, C. Spencer Yeh / Brandon Lopéz / Sean Meehan, Marcia Bassett / Chuck Bettis / Christopher Reid Martin / Gabie Strong @ Roulette
- 7/11 (Sat) Scarcity, Editrix, Wellness, Duchess @ The Broadway
- 7/11 (Sat) No Fun New Perspectives, Night #3/3: NIKA & Nate Wooley, Zeena Parkins / Ryan Sawyer / Elaine Carey, Mir Naqibul Islam & Randall Dunn, Michael Vallera & Alan Licht @ Roulette
- 7/12 (Sun) Summer Thunder: Angel Du$t, No Idols @ Union Pool
- 7/12 (Sun) Brooklyn Free Spirit Festival, Day #2/2: Cooper-Moore, Zeena Parkins / Nate Wooley / Ryan Sawyer, Interstellar Duo (Jamal R. Moore / Warren Crudup III) @ Ibeam
- 7/14 (Tue) Styrofoam Winos, Wendy Eisenberg, Paco Cathcart @ Union Pool
- 7/14 (Tue) Sam Wenc, more eaze & Alan Licht @ Night Club 101
- 7/18 (Sat) Gregory Kolm Bday: Arklight, Chaser, Short Porch, yard. ( free) @ Wonderville
- 7/18 (Sat) Matana Roberts, Ben Vida with Sara Magenheimer @ Issue Project Room
- 7/23 (Thu) Spirit of the Beehive, Choir Boy, Phantasia @ Knockdown Center
- 7/31 (Fri) Zoh Amba @ Baby's All Right
- 7/31 (Fri) Dan Deacon, Macula Dog, MSHR @ Pioneer Works
Future Shows
- 8/1 (Sat) Zoh Amba @ Pearl St Warehouse (DC)
- 8/1 (Sat) All The Feelings Tour with Metric, Broken Social Scene, And Stars @ The Anthem (DC)
- 8/6 (Thu) The Body, Big ‡ Brave, Carl Gene @ Metro (Baltimore)
- 8/10 (Mon) Lip Critic, Jade Weapon, Consumer Culture @ Songbyrd (DC)
- 8/13 (Thu) Splendor & Misery Fest: clipping., SPELLLING, Shabazz Palaces, ELUCID, Fatboi Sharif, evicshen, Maria Chavez @ Knockdown Center (NYC)
- 8/14 (Fri) Yard Act, The Armed @ Black Cat (DC)
- 8/20 (Thu) Ella Can’t Save You, Star Card, Choking Boys, Chanp @ Ottobar (Baltimore)
- 8/22 (Sat) Flowerbomb - Homecoming Show, Cal Rifkin, Taisha Estrada @ Union Stage (DC)
- 8/23 (Sun) Flowerbomb, Micah E. Wood, Little Lungs @ Metro (Baltimore)
- 8/29 (Sat) Froggy, Cherub Tree, Ragdollz, D3vilish Bri @ Ottobar (Baltimore)
- 9/11 (Fri) Aldous Harding, Sam Burton @ Howard Theatre (DC)
- 9/13 (Sun) Shearling, Brother Dragon @ Comet Ping Pong (DC)
- 9/14 (Mon) Jeff Rosenstock @ Ottobar (Baltimore)
- 9/15 (Tue) Angine de Poitrine @ The Atlantis (DC)
- 9/15 (Tue) Anna Graves, Catherine Savage @ Pearl St Warehouse (DC)
- 9/15 (Tue) Colin Stetson, Brìghde Chaimbeul @ Pioneer Works (NYC)
- 9/17 (Thu) Angine de Poitrine @ Lincoln Theatre (DC)
- 9/18 (Fri) Kim Gordon, Bill Nace @ Black Cat (DC)
- 9/19 (Sat) Grouper @ Lincoln Theatre (DC)
- 9/19 (Sat) El Ten Eleven @ Pearl St Warehouse (DC)
- 9/24 (Thu) Nitzer Ebb @ Soundstage (Baltimore)
- 9/26 (Sat) Slothrust @ The Recher (Baltimore)
- 9/27 (Sun) Armand Hammer @ Union Stage (DC)
- 9/29 (Tue) Ryan Davis & The Roadhouse Band, Styrofoam Winos @ Black Cat (DC)
- 9/30 (Wed) New Pornographers @ The Recher (Baltimore)
- 10/4 (Sun) Unsane, Consumer Culture @ Pearl St Warehouse (DC)
- 10/5 (Mon) Russian Circles, Pelican @ Soundstage (Baltimore)
- 10/8 (Thu) Horse Lords @ Pioneer Works (NYC)
- 10/8 (Thu) Cor de Lux, Editrix, Yuvees, Big Girl @ The Broadway (NYC)
- 10/10 (Sat) Horse Lords with Crying Laughing & Duncan Moore @ Ottobar (Baltimore)
- 10/11 (Sun) Panopticon, Catharsis, more TBA @ Ottobar (Baltimore)
- 10/18 (Sun) The Dillinger Escape Plan @ Nevermore Hall (Baltimore)
- 10/23 (Fri) Yhwh Nailgun with guest KeiyaA @ Ottobar (Baltimore)
- 10/29 (Thu) They Are Gutting A Body Of Water @ Ottobar (Baltimore)
- 11/5 (Thu) Built to Spill Fall 2026 Tour @ Union Craft Brewing (Baltimore)