On Repeat: Muller, He Can Jog, Meredith

I try to at least quickly note some of my favorite listening from the week prior — things I’ll later regret having not written about in more depth, so better to share here briefly than not at all.

▰ Michael Muller has an album due out from Deutsche Grammophon that is all collaborations, among them: Danny Paul Grody, Chuck Johnson, Vestals, Ilyas Ahmed, Jonathan Sielaff, Douglas McCombs, Rama Parwata, Jefre Cantu-Ledesma, Hania Rani, Jon Porras, and Clarice Jensen. The first single, with Jensen, is all Rhodes pads courtesy of Muller and striated cello lines from Jensen. If the repeated-phrasing-with-slight-variations of Nils Frahm’s post-classical work is up your alley, then this is way up your alley. It is certainly up mine. More to come. The album is Mirror Music, due out March 1, and this track is “Mirror 10.”

▰ The Audiobulb record label has put out a large-scale compilation of music with interrelated parts based on shared resources, and that also serves a depiction of the community that has flowered as a result of the label. The release comes as a pair of sets titled Audiobulb Plays He Can Jog – Vol. 1 and Vol. 2, He Can Jog being the musician Erik Schoster who organized it. A highlight is by the Audiobulb label’s founder himself, David Newman, who records as Austici. It’s fascinating exploration of folk and orchestral tonalities, with field recordings and light processing rendering a rich, fully formed atmospheric environment. More details at Schoster’s website.

https://ab-hecanjog.bandcamp.com/track/aeroelastic-autistici

▰ The End We Start From is the latest film score from Scottish composer Anna Meredith, and if you’re in for lush, dense orchestration (“Make a Wish”), pulsing minimalism (“Little World”), and industrial backdrops (“Taking It All In,” “Birth”), it’s all here. Meredith previously score Living with Yourself and Eighth Grade. It’s on the major streaming services. This is the rising swell of “Waterfall”: