American Dre

Shiroishi Patrick: I Was Too Young To Hear... [Vinyl LP]

Forgetting is Violent is the most powerful release to date from Los Angeles saxophonist and composer Patrick Shiroishi (The Armed, Wild Up), with timely suites that meditate on racism and addiction. The music developed in part through extensive solo touring opening for Emma Ruth Rundle, in which Shiroishi brought effects pedals to the forefront. For the first time on a solo LP, Shiroishi has brought in collaborators: a who's who of heavy music, including Aaron Turner (SUMAC), Gemma Thompson (Savages), and Mat Ball (BIG|BRAVE). With liner notes by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Hua Hsu, Forgetting is Violent is Shiroishi's latest masterwork. We recommend snapping this one up while you can, because we expect copies will fly.

Columbia Deluxe imbues Fuubutsushi's music with the electricity of playing for a crowd. Borne of the lockdown of the COVID-19 pandemic, the group prepared countless releases remotely from around the country. Columbia Deluxe expands compositions collected from across the band's body of work, from their earliest releases to their 2024 LP Meridians, translating their careful arrangements into live performance. Strands of heavy music, classical music, folk, jazz intersect. Patrick Shiroishi (The Armed) plays saxophone, Chris Jusell (Nathaniel Rateliff and the Night Sweats, Lizzo, Rosalía) violin, Chaz Prymek (Lake Mary) guitar and bass, and Matthew Sage piano/synth. The results are intimate, affecting, and shot through with the thrill of creative risk-taking.

Alex Zhang Hungtai's new double album Orion/Mother, a brave, gigantic burst of life, creativity, and abstract balladry, alchemizes the past and the present, sampling home recordings he made with some of New York's finest improvisers while spontaneously composing on top of them with trumpet and other instruments. Zhang's trumpet is the "grounding force" and conceptual narrator of Orion/Mother, allowing Zhang to decontextualize, process, and reconcile with the past through abstract lyricism in the present. It's the sound of an artist addressing unresolved fragments from his past, integrating them into the present, and building a new path.

"We tend to do the free jazz sessions right at the end of long tours," Baldi says, "or after making other records, so it's a nice break from the more regimented song forms that the other bands have, or from playing the same songs every night on tour." For Baldi & Gerycz, free jazz is a release - something to break apart stretches of familiar songwriting - and because of that, there's a lot of joy in these recordings - see the raucous album closer "The Holy Retrievers (In Transit)." Admittedly After Commodore Perry Service Plaza is a bittersweet collection, though - compiled from the final session Baldi & Gerycz recorded in person. As such, it's a cherished memory - it's also kindling for creation - those original feelings inspire the duo to find novel ways to collaborate, even perform.