Finally -- Loren Connors & Clint Heidorn's debut Light is out this week. It's quite a package to match the music: a one-sided, clear vinyl 12” packaged with two pieces of Connors’ art -- a detail of a recontextualized Matisse painting. One piece is transparent plastic, the other paper. Together, the opaque block of 11-inch x 11-inch sheets are intended to be hung in your window so the light can illuminate the hidden colors.

As for the music -- it sounds just like that. 

Only 300 copies of this record were made and only a few remain today. 

My heart goes out to all of Jed Speare's friends in Boston, beyond and his family. I truly loved how Jed remained wholly committed to his art over the decades and searched for the perfect combination of "holistic, ecological, and even spiritual" means to create.

In 2006 Jed contacted me after hearing I'd bought some CDRs of his music he'd consigned at Twisted Village. Soon after we began talking about producing, what would become, Sound Works 1982-1987 -- the first collection of his long-form musique concrete compositions. His immaculate liner notes spelled out the origins, the collaborators and insight about himself.

Jed lived and breathed these sound sources, knew them more intimately than anyone, yet as he prepared them for release, he wrote "... I could sometimes lose track of where the sounds came from; it seems that the course and flow of the work might go far beyond the actual origins, somehow surpassing the source, and create a whole new reality. At those moments I experienced at once an existential remorse and an exhilaration of venturing into the unknown."

When the 2xCD set was released in January 2008 it was the only way to hear his groundbreaking audio sculptures (unless you knew to dig up his 1982 Folkways LP Cable Car Soundscapes). We both expected the collection to sell like hot cakes -- it didn't.

But a lot of people took notice and I believe it clearly made the case for Jed's standing in contemporary sound art. It also laid bare the utterly human emotion he could amplify/construct through rumblings, cracks, bellows, howls, scree, murmurs, clangs and all those many voices, especially in works such as: "Taboo Death" the accompaniment to Pons Maar's dance performance about AIDS in 1982; and the cathedral-like sheets of tone and shifting clouds that make up "Sleep Tight" (1983).

And overall, it was just a badass collection of exhilarating sound (expertly mastered by Bhob Rainey).

What struck me at that time was how Jed was so open to living inside those pieces he created more than 20 years earlier, celebrating those collaborations and looking to the future. Sound Works will always be one of my favorite releases and an undisputed document of Jed's power and dedication to art. -- Eric Weddle/fv

Jed passed away the morning of March 22, 2016 with family at his bedside. 

(Photo: Susanna Bolle)

It's been awhile since Loren Connors & Suzanne Langille released anything as a duo -- sure, there was the Haunted House band album from a few years ago, but, that's a totally different dynamic. Now, thankfully, the Belgium label Tanuki just issued the "Strong & Foolish Heart" b/w "Blue Ghost Blues" 7-inch single. It was recorded live at the 2013 Counterflows Festival in Glasgow, Scotland and sounds fantastic. Loren's contemporary abstraction style gives a different feel to these familiar songs as Suzanne's always powerful, soulful bellow anchors each. But we've never heard a version of "Blue Ghost Blues" (aka Lonnie Johnson's "Haunted House" from 1960) like this. Loren's hair-raising replication of fluttering bat wings, as heard first on In Pittsburgh (1989), is transformed here into a slab of scree and feedback. Just 250 copies with three cover variations -- get at it.

They're back: Tyler Damon and Darin Gray are heading out on a Midwest slog in support of For Four -- their second release of electro-acoustic duos for percussion and bass guitar. Released via Damon's Yolk imprint.

The live performances: 

11/20 - Louisville, KY @ Dreamland, with Keenan Lawler
11/19 - Nashville, TN @ Portland Brew, with William Tyler
11/18 - Knoxville, TN @ The Pilot Light, with Give Thanks, Will Fist
11/17 - Lexington, KY @ Al’s Beer Garden, trio with Robert Beatty
11/16 - Cincinnati, OH @ The Comet, trio with Jon Lorenz, 75 Dollar Bill, Pete Fosco
11/15 - Bloomington, IN @ Player's Pub, with 75 Dollar Bill

Akira Sakata and Chikamorachi are on a tour of Japan right now... when they are not telling everyone about the Flying Basket 2xLP, expect the trio to be performing with some heavies, such as dancer Min Tanaka (at Super Deluxe). Photo from Glenn Kotche.