Philip Montoro, Reader music editor
Jute Gyte, Discontinuities Adam Kalmbach, aka one-man Missouri avant-garde black-metal project Jute Gyte, has released 16 full-lengths since 2010, and on the most recent, Discontinuities, he uses guitars retrofitted to play 24-tone equal-tempered scales—meaning he’s got twice as many notes in an octave as an ordinary guitarist. His songs teem with unearthly clusters of seasick dissonance, so that they sometimes sound like early Sonic Youth with blastbeats and shrieking. Unfamiliar microtonal intervals create intricate acoustic interference patterns, so that tones shimmer and dislocate. Ears accustomed to Western 12-tone polyphony can barely process these sounds—they sink into your skull like red-hot stones into ice. It’s like you’re listening to a tape at the wrong speed, or to music warped by a black hole’s gravitational lens on its way here from several galaxies away.
Jake Austen,Roctober editor, Chic-a-Go-Go producer, Goblins front man
Magnetic South You’re not wrong thinking that the cassette revival is dumb, but ignoring the music on this flawed format is dumb too. Bloomington’s Magnetic South, my fave tape label, is home to Thee Tsunamis, a masked-girl garage band straight outta my imagination. Magnetic South’s fifth-anniversary compilation features “Monster Mash”-style novelty revivalist Sir Deja Doog, Wee Giant’s Quintron-esque grooves, and a sitar group covering the Banana Splits!
Tortoise, It’s All Around You It’s been almost ten years since Thrill Jockey released Tortoise’s fifth studio full-length, and it still holds up as my favorite—which is saying a lot. Tortoise is never afraid to do new things, as demonstrated by the last track on the album, “Salt the Skies,” which has a pretty dope video too. In it the band gets pelted with various objects—it’s not exactly Bjork with giant teddy bears and whatnot, but it’s close enough for me.
