Murder City DevilsThe White Ghost Has Blood on Its Hands Again (self-released)
PallbearerFoundations of Burden (Profound Lore)
Acoustic guitarist Daniel Bachman grew up in Virginia and lives in North Carolina, but he’s spent much of the past few years on tour. Thus homesickness for the rural southeast figures heavily into his new collection of instrumentals, Orange County Serenade, as does the experience of being on the road. The swooping slide licks on the jaunty title track feel like happy memories of a place you’d rather be, and the brisk clip and celebratory melody of “Up and Down the C&O” would make it a good soundtrack for one of those open-prairie road trips where you end up racing a train just for the hell of it. The creeping cadence of “Coming Home,” on the other hand, is full of foreboding—what bad news awaits the returning traveler? Bachman is a strong player, but his greatest gift is his knack for using rustic melodies and open-string drones to evoke such vivid and specific scenarios. —Bill Meyer
Jenny Hval & SusannaMeshes of Voice (SusannaSonata)
Poland’s Agata Zubel is a composer and a vocalist—a rare breed indeed in the new-music world—and on Not I, a collection of four of her recent pieces performed by protean Austrian chamber orchestra Klangforum Wien, she sings on three. On “Labyrinth,” which uses an English translation of a Wislawa Szymborska poem, her vocal delivery shifts along with the instrumental backing, moving from throaty interjections to furtive whispers as it changes from choked tenor saxophone to knotty, throttled double bass to choppy flute. The moody, dissonant “Aphorisms on Milosz” explores shadowy harmonies and strident textures, unfolding slowly as Zubel sings phrases from Czeslaw Milosz in a clear, bracing soprano. The harsh, spiky title composition sets Samuel Beckett’s work of the same name, and “Shades of Ice” replaces her voice with harsh electronics, so that blasts of thunderous noise trip up brittle clarinet and cello. Zubel’s work is so detailed and demanding that it tires me out to listen to it, but that’s the best kind of exhausted. —Peter Margasak
Tarbaby with Oliver Lake and Marc DucretFanon (Rogue Art)
