Alexander Noice - Affectation

Sometimes you hear new music so unusual it seems like must have slipped through a crack from some alien dimension, if only because there is nothing on earth to which you can easily compare it. Alexander Noice’s recent releases fall into that category. Noice is a highly sought-after LA-based musician, recognized as a formidable jazz guitarist. He has been a composer and bandleader for various ensembles, most notably Falsetto Teeth and The Alexander Noice sextet.

His upcoming album Noice see him fusing electronic music, jazz, art rock, and minimalist opera, shaking them together like some mad composer-scientist. Somehow, instead of producing an unruly mess, Noice has come out of this process with intricate, compelling compositions.
The press release offers this description:

“Thumping drums and electric bass fuel the engine of NOICE, with interjections of tailor-made samples, organically woven into highly intricate arrangements. The samples include Ethiopian vocal recordings, 808 drum samples, and recordings of children with stuttering speech syndrome, among many others.”

This is music that is challenging, music that makes me squint as I try to remember music theory lessons from long ago, as I do my best to stay on top of the irregular rhythms, tapping them out of the table. This music is manic and explosive. If you want easy listening, you won’t find it here. Towards the end of “Affectation” there is a saxophone solo over a jazz drums, and you start to think you are familiar territory, but just as you feel you’ve gotten your footing, the saxophone begins to shriek, becomes more crude, more visceral than any saxophone you have ever heard before, and you are pulled back into Noice’s world, reminded not to get too comfortable as you watch this “hypnotic space opera” unfold.

Golden Dawn Arkestra - Mama Se

I don't post music for effect or to shock. But Golden Dawn Arkestra might be effective in shocking you. They might shock your socks right off. The 'Golden Dawn' part of their name is inspired by a late 19th century secret society, The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, known for it's occultism, ritualism, and paranormal spiritualism. The 'Arkestra' part is inspired by the legendary Sun Ra Arkestra, from whom the group takes its visual and performative cues. Members perform wearing vividly patterned robes and flowing garments, pink wigs, goggles, Venetian masks, glitter.... It's a true spectacle.

But have you forgotten, I don't post music merely for the spectacle. Everything about the song is infectious: the afrobeat rhythm, the bass-line, the chant - mamasakase mamase mamasaka - (surely based on a similar Michael Jackson chant (which he in turn took from Manu Dibango)). It's uplifting, and gets in your bones, so that by halfway through the track you start to believe you may indeed, in the band's words, "experience the ecstatic joy of drifting upon the ever-loving rays of RA."

Tihomir Stojiljkovic - Solo

Imagine Serbian jazz composed for the solo piano. Having trouble? Then listen to Tihomir Stojiljkovic’s album Solo. After teaching himself to play jazz piano by studying his heroes – Paco de Lucia, Keith Jarrett, and many others -, Timohir set about diligently investigating the musical traditions of his own geographical and cultural background. In this debut album he brings notes and themes inspired by Balkan music into his improvisations, so successfully that you'd think he’d been composing in this style for much, much longer.

The second track, "Dolour":