Blowing minds on a Saturday night

At least my own mind.

I pre-ordered Sonancy, the new album by Loop late last year when it was announced, and it came in yesterday. I listened to it tonight. For those who are already fans, I'd say this fits somewhere between the acidic garage rock of Fade Out and the overwhelming cloud of hellgaze that is A Gilded Eternity* (one of my favorite albums for crashing into another dimension as it's burning to ash) - unless you get the bonus EP, which contains mixes of four songs that put them more in line with Eternity. Anyway, if you're a fan like me, you'll dig it a bunch.

I also received yesterday a Brad Mehldau album I had missed upon release, and now it's blowing me away as I type. It's a blend of rearranged versions of the progressive rock songs he loved as a kid with meditations on Christian faith. (His own? The opening essay certainly indicates so, but the more I listen the less I think it's that simple.) The songs are recognizable but heavily fucked with, and it reminds me more of Donny McCaslin's jazz/alt.rock hybrid Blow. from a few years ago than either prog or Mehldau's usual piano trio jazz. Mehldau's indulged his own creative tangents a lot since the pandemic started, and I'm digging it.

*I've always found it interesting that Loop made the weird and noisy Eternity after signing to RCA. I don't know if access to a major label budget allowed them to set the controls to the heart of the sun (if the rocket you're in is out of control and plunging in a watermelon thrown off a skyscraper) or that's just where they were going anyway when they got offered the contract. But surely it wasn't what RCA was hoping for.

I hadn't thought of Mehldau in years. I know he played on Joshua Redman's Moodswing from the early '90s, but I haven't followed his career. Your description of Jacob's Ladder sounded intriguing so I looked it up on Spotify. It is absolutely bonkers. I love it! Thanks for the recommendation.

I finally got around to listening to the new Loop album. It's much better than I expected from a group who haven't recorded in 30 years. I can see why they received constant Spacemen 3 comparisons when they were first together, but this sounds much grimmer and more menacing. Also, the production is carefully thought out - the drums sound programmed on "Eolian" but stick to tom-tom rolls on "Isochrone" and reverb comes and goes on the cymbals throughout. "Penumbra II" would make great closing credits music for a sci-fi/horror movie like EVENT HORIZON.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/13/2022 12:31AM by steevee.

I bought it recently too and I generally dig it. Like pretty much everything Loop has done, there's not a ton of variety from song to song, but that's OK. The drums kinda annoy me throughout though and those tom rolls do sound like they're programmed. I read an interview with Hampson and he said he'd written very rudimentary drum parts on a drum machine when he wrote the songs, and I guess the live drummer decided not to depart very much from those. Overall though, it's a fun return to form and I hope there's more to come.