I certainly spend a great deal of my time curating, writing, analyzing, concluding, etc., but as I’m sure is also true for many of you, listening is and always has been my top priority. Thus, my root source for all non-listening activities is listening: why do I enjoy this? What does it make me think about? Recently much of my attention lies with the burgeoning practice of “non-music,” a term that has always existed but now refers to a much more unified tradition of artful mundanity. I personally believe assigning names to genres is perfectly fine in order to simplify discourse, but this particular descriptor comes with concessions that must be made. First, as is this case for the title of this site as well, I don’t view any organized or presented sound, no matter how subversive of convention, as “not music.” Non-music refers to the extreme removal of these auditory results from what is commonly considered to be music, and does not argue against their actual musicality. It’s also important to recognize the back-endedness of assigning genre names. It’s reductive to assume that artists produce their work with these things in mind, so any and all arbitrary classification must refer to the works when they are actually observed; thematic/aesthetic unification instead of individual suppression.

To preface a review of such a short release with such a verbose disclaimer may seem odd, but I hope I’ve made clear that this sort of music is some of the most rich and thought-provoking art being produced today, so to me, no level of analysis seems too excessive. Hair Clinic is a project that like many others I know very little about. Their artist photo on Bandcamp appears to be one of those stroke simulation images, which display an assortment of nonsensical, distorted objects that nonetheless look familiar. The music on Mirror in a Bag, unsurprisingly, can be similarly described: the six diminutive tracks make use of the subdued domestic fanfare with which I’m sure we’ve all become quite well acquainted recently: squeaking chair legs, creaking furniture, old squealing hinges, backyard nature-symphonies, running water. There’s something mysteriously infectious about these recordings; I’m constantly coming back to it like some sort of sonic surveyor, unconsciously trying to identify and place each sound within its environment. Mirror in a Bag is meditative home life fragmented into small but well-formed pieces, each shard enough its own to be recognizable yet jagged enough to always remind us of the glaring absence of the whole. If you’re able to listen more passively, this enigmatic debut is a sublime dose of household improvisation, but if you (like me) are inclined to dig deeper, beneath the surface lurks a deceptively vast depth of ambiguity to excavate.

“Why do birds suddenly appear?” is less a question regarding phenomena of nature and more of a recognition of humanity’s increasing irrelevance in the environment surrounding us. Birds don’t “appear,” they simply find their way into our field of perception, but it’s a very human thing to place our own senses in the role of objective observer (though here there’s somewhat of a sardonic concession with the inclusion of “suddenly,” seemingly a recognition of the beholder’s inattentiveness/fallibility). The first release from Finnish duo Ahti & Ahti (Marja Ahti and Niko-Matti Ahti) follows an evolving tradition in contemporary experimental music of uncertain or distorted origin as captured field recordings, modular synthesis, and household improvisation are carefully assembled into a fluid composition. Both sides of the LP open with quaint yet slightly mysterious vignettes of breezy garden domesticity in a similar vein to the first track on Daniel Löwenbrück’s cassette 1800m, both of which blur the border between active participation and passive observance. The birds sing of their own accord, but is that just a wind chime swaying lazily in the wind or the intentional sounds of a homemade instrument? Is that some sort of flute-like wind instrument or the sporadic interjections of a distressed gull? Further uncertainties creep into the mix when the separately recorded electronic elements are introduced, creating unexpected and indecipherable textural interactions with irreconcilable spacial implications. Shifting, ambiguous, and deceptively eclectic, Why Do Birds Suddenly Appear is a pleasant and disorienting romp back and forth through a partition that many artists refuse to cross.

If you don’t already, make sure to follow Ted Byrnes’ Instagram account. One of his greatest strengths as an improviser and performer is his ability to retain the assaulting physicality of his approach in audio recordings, but seeing the techniques, setups, and speed he uses is a wonder to behold. Seriously, it seems like I always need to pause his videos to make sure he doesn’t secretly have more than two arms. Something else gained from witnessing Byrnes play is that, no matter how abstract and alien his work often sounds, much of it is generated using a standard drum kit setup. This element is crucial to Tactility, his most recent full-length on Cincinnati’s very own Arkeen imprint, a new venture from Fantastique Distribution. Not only are these all drum set improvisations, but some of the pieces are even dedicated to much more conventional drummers whose styles and music have influenced Byrnes: Jamie Muir (King Crimson) and John Bonham (Led Zeppelin). Byrnes’ reverence for the latter is especially palpable in the corresponding track (“JH Bonham”) which sees him executing a dexterous hand solo reminiscent of Bonham’s legendary “Moby Dick” performances. The following tracks are less conventional; “Shells” is a brief but detailed array of pleasing clatter ostensibly generated using strings of the titular objects, while “Small and Large” demonstrates some of Byrnes’ most awe-inspiring acrobatic phrasings as he transforms simple metal-on-skins percussion into a lush, enrapturing sonic environment. “Auto Parts” is another illustratively titled track much sparser than the cacophony conjured by Byrnes’ project with Sam McKinlay (a.k.a. The Rita, whose remix of Tactility is included on a 3″ in the deluxe version of the album), Cackle Car. By the end of “Fix It,” the album’s longest and most eclectic piece, you’ll feel as battered and bruised as if you were just another one of Byrnes’ objects—but also exhilarated and astonished.

Berlin harsh noise duo Jugendwerkhof are a project I’ve been following ever since Low Life High Volume put out their debut release Blutstätte ‎in 2018. Their deafening dual assault of “scrap metal, electronics, broken instruments, feedback, [and] voice” offers up equal amounts of the two qualities I appreciate most in this genre: intensity and immersion. Schandwandlung is their longest album yet, and as the first track wastes no time in revealing, it’s also a different beast. Newly heightened emphasis is placed on the percussiveness of the waves of noise the duo generates, and desperate, incoherent howls and shrieks are often foregrounded, giving the music an undeniably metallic edge (both in the stylistic and the textural sense). And that’s just part one. The next segment evolves from tightly orchestrated clatter to a warped, savage stretch of depraved vocalizing, contact mic abuse, and torrents of distortion that resembles the violent death of some horribly mutated beast. Schandwandlung seethes, spits, slices, and smears itself over the remaining half hour, as Jugendwerkhof’s fiendish industrial emissions manifest in forms ranging from plodding, punishing static walls  to roiling, white-hot, hyperactive blasts. A terrifying new release from this great band in an equally terrifying year.

One of the countless reasons that freely improvised music is so exciting is the near-limitless possibilities that extended techniques open up in the hands (or other body parts) of skilled artists. Standard musical instruments once viewed as innocuous, constrained tools become sources for untamed sonic energy. There’s an online review of Derek Bailey’s Aida by Rate Your Music user ac_church that puts it well (I’m pretty sure I’ve quoted it here before): “it’s strange to find yourself in a same room with a guitar after you’ve listened to Derek Bailey… it suddenly becomes an incredible alien artifact of immense power… ‘you really could do all that? how come I didn’t know?’ ” Alex Cunningham is no stranger to escaping the restraints of a conventional approach; his nimble, abrasive violin assaults instantly drew me in when I first heard Fiddle back in 2018. But as the title track on that release—produced using the self-imposed constraint of “improvise a fiddle tune”—makes clear, Cunningham also owes a great deal of reverence and love to the traditional music to which his instrument of choice is essential. His most recent release Echo’s Bones Were Turned to Stone continues in the direction of last year’s Knell on Fort Evil Fruit with a set of extended dynamic pieces. As always, we not only hear the deep, dense drones Cunningham coaxes from the violin but also the resin-shredding strength of the bowing that produces them, the mesmerizing swirl of cascading string slides and ersatz chords, the moments of invigorating Appalachian fiddle stomp (however brief or abstract). The St. Louis String Sawer’s latest is a jagged, harrowing, and triumphant exclamation from the dark depths of isolation.

I’m pretty glad the title of Terror Cell’s debut release isn’t timely; with everything going so wrong on this planet the last thing we need is for the sun to finally wink out. Luckily, at least here in the Midwest, temperatures are becoming somewhat palatable and our old yellow friend in the sky has been occasionally peeking out from behind the clouds. So, in conclusion, it’s the perfect weather for holing up inside in the dark and thinking about how awful humanity is while blaring Last Day of Sun at full volume. There’s no better way to experience the powerful opening instrumental “[REDACTED]” than with the knob all the way to the right, but the monolithic slab of crushing low end and swirling psychedelic blackness is sure to set the stage for the rest of the album well at any decibel level. The following five tracks present a formidable fusion of modern metallic hardcore, dense sludge/doom, and an overwhelming sense of anger, pain, and uncleanliness that can only come from the darkest corners of extreme metal. The new Richmond quartet’s influences manifest differently on each song: patient, plodding atmosphere-building on “Modern Failures”; malevolent crust and pounding metalcore on “White Phosphorous”; cinematic post-metal crescendos on the title track. The vocals are well done too, varying from unnatural wails to throat-gouging bellows. Solid and much-needed stuff from a promising new band.

I’ve often discussed the marked difference between directly recorded and reverb-filled, space-utilizing tabletop improvisation, and how artists’ work can fall into either category (or both). Like Dylan Burchett’s bread, the piece which most recently engendered this discussion, Ancient Lights seems to possess elements both internal and external, with a spectacular intensity that could only from these three mad sound-scientists at their eclectically equipped laboratory surfaces. Each participant is a formidable force in their own right: Ingrid Plum, accomplished improviser and performer, lends choice contributions from objects, Walkman, and utterance; Anton Mobin, master of his singular, lushly intimate style of théâtre d’objets, amplifies and broadcasts miniature percussive events from his prepared chamber; and Graham Dunning, dedicated sound artist and educator, bewilders (as usual) with his virtuosic extended turntable techniques. This well-controlled mess of machinery takes a while to emerge from the recording which begins “Frame Makers,” which one might think captures the sound of audience members and the surrounding locale during the music’s recording—but all of Ancient Lights was documented in the controlled studio environment of Sound Savers in Hackney. This is just one of many instances in which field recordings and other disparate intrusions are used to play around with physical space in its communicative form, when a somber, wordless croon or distant clunk greases the already precarious surfaces of churning cogs and rotating plates.