Windy & Carl with Optigan Conservatory

Tucker Zimmerman

The Barigozzi Group

Natalie & Brittany
 Haas

Christina Ruf

Rodney Crowell

Frith/Kreusch/
Kreusch

Hawkins, et. al.

Mary In The Junkyard

Knats

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Windy Weber and Carl Hultgren are no strangers to the Terrascope/Terrastock family, having performed at many of our festivals over the past three decades. Optigan Conservatory is another duo, Frank Rotondo (Laughing Gas) and Fred Thomas (Saturday Looks Good To Me and dozens more) who have been performing together for the past decade, although the four have been friends for nearly 30 years. Thus we are glad the stars have aligned and we have the first collaborative offering from these keystones of the Michigan independent music scene. Ambient, post-rock (mostly) instrumental music is one of my favourite genres and my shelves are sagging under the weight of previous W&C albums, alongside similar introspective navel gazers from the likes of Stars Of The Lid, Aarktica, Labradford, The Azusa Plane, Tortoise, et. al. I somewhat self-consciously coined the term "Snorecore" about 30 years ago to compartmentalise the style and help like-minded fanatics build their own collection. [Note the contact and bio info is quite out of date, but I'll still defend my alt-"post rock" descriptions.

So, on to the latest addition to the canon. 'Conductor' begins like an air-conditioner battling with Moondog (aka Louis Hardin)'s electronic evocations, a peaceful lie-down on a summer's day and a soothing introduction. 'Coast Starlight' is the perfect title for the following ambient atmospherics that lend a feeling of weightlessness and of floating in space. Eerie and a tad spooky with a sense of an impending tap on the shoulder, Eno's Music For... series is a close signpost.

Another aspect of the collaboration is a sense of timelessness - as if you were trapped on an iceberg flowing silently across the ocean encountering ... darkness...nothingness.... With six tracks traversing nearly 40 minutes, it's easy to get lost in your own internal reverie as the mind races two steps ahead and four steps back and before you know it, five minutes feels like 50. "Disorienting" is a good word for it.

A tribute to local (Detroit) abstract expressionist painter 'Alvin Loving' [1935-2005] puts some meat on the bones with Hultgren's delicately-strummed guitar lines serpentining through electronic effects - perhaps in emulation of Loving staring at a blank canvas considering his next brush stroke? I also liked the didgeridoo-styled rumble in the coda.

'Vellum Paper' is an example of what I refer to as "listening to music without knowing you're listening to music." There're sounds, harmonics, reverberations emanating from somewhere, but it takes a while to redirect your attention to the speakers in the room, as if the speakers themselves were, uh, speaking to you! And I wouldn't listen to 'Apparition On 3rd Street' alone in the dark if you don't want your mind to start playing creepy tricks on you - especially when those ghostly "voices" call out from the other end of the room!

Finally, 'Timelines', a perfect finale for such a time-distorting experience of the elasticity and simultaneity of time where someone could be sleeping in one part of the space-time continuum while at the exact same moment in another part of our universe someone is having lunch, preparing for a business presentation, recording an album, and listening to the sounds that were recorded on that album months even years ago - yet here they are now in your own individual "present."

Another triumph from the always-reliable and surprising Windy & Carl and hopefully the beginning of a beautiful relationship with Optigan Conservatory for years...and more albums to come!

(Jeff Penczak)

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Tucker Zimmerman – Dream Me A Dream (Big Potato Records)

This is a gorgeous recording. Simplistic sounding folk tunes swathed in sensitive harmonies and synth washes that layer the lyrics with warmth & humanism. Tragically Tucker and his wife (who appears generously in harmony with him) were lost in a house fire that took both their lives on January 17^th, 2026. Although holding a degree in music theory & composition as well as being a Fulbright Scholar, Tucker never let that hold him back from his love of folk music(s) and paring his lyrical content down to its most sincerely heartfelt core. Whether carving his thematic material around life in general (Rooftops of San Franciso, based on a poem he wrote at age 19), art or life-long love (Sun in Scorpio), his work was (as it is on this recording) full of wit (Cross Walk) and profoundness through simplicity. Interestingly he covers Adrienne Lenker’s (Big Thief), song Stay (I Want You to Stay), another love song and a rare deviation from a career only performing his own music. Tucker Zimmerman was a rare talent and shamefully underappreciated by the general public. A ++ recording.
 

(John Hammel)

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The Barigozzi Group - Woman's Colours
(LP/Digital on Four Flies Records)

This re-release of a long sought-after 1974 Italian Library Music gem after a 50-year absence is sure to please. Giancarlo Barigozzi, an accomplished jazz saxophonist and flautist who’d played with Gerry Mulligan, Frank Sinatra and Chet Baker, helmed this and other Library classics from his Milan base. He’s joined by keyboardist Oscar Rocchi and guitarist Sergio Farina. The three make for an immaculate trio, pros in every sense of the word. (Yes, there are drums and bass, but they’re perhaps uncredited. Such is life as a Library musician).

In keeping with the album’s title and theme, each of the album’s 14 tracks are titled with a colour and a woman’s body feature, such as “Golden Eyes,” “White Neck,” “Black Heart,” etc. The results are as sharp as anything made by other illustrious Italian Library heroes such as I Marc 4. All the pieces get in and get out, mostly in under three minutes. The tracks are alternately jazzy, funky, moody, slinky and sexy. Occasionally they rock, too, such as “Yellow Fingers,” with Rocchi’s groovy electric piano, Barigozzi’s upbeat flute runs, and Farina’s snappy riffs and distorted guitar solo.

The three musicians also pack lots of tonal variety to keep things constantly interesting. Barigozzi employs different techniques and equipment for his flute and saxophone, such as mutes and occasionally breathier flute playing. Rocchi alternates between piano, organ, electric piano and synths, while Farina can sound like a jazz fusion guitarist using a dry tone or use distortion for a rockier effect. The results make them sound like a larger ensemble, with new musicians flying in and out all the time.

The album cover daringly self-categorizes as “Pop Jazz.” Jazz, lounge, Library Music, pick yer monicker – I’d call this Library Music. The music could’ve soundtracked any number of early Seventies Euro cinema works, as the best Library Music of the day would. Barigozzi, Farina and Rocchi cooked up a beauty here, and it’s easy to see why it’s been so prized this long. Recommended.

(Mark Feingold)

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I understand why Wet Leg chose this band to open for their American tour. Very simpatico in essence. MitJ are an assured trio of performers who sound like they have honed their sound, both musically & lyrically for decades, rather than a year or two. Freeman-Taylor has a confident, strong vocal delivery whether she is serving up grittiness or displaying a more tender poignant side. Some of the lyrics are deliberately obtuse yet you always have the sense that you know exactly what they’re going on about. The lyrical concerns overall can swing between metaphorically maritime tales of disaster Mouse balancing nicely with more socially edgy vulnerable tracks. The production sound of the music is expansive, (some referring to it as cinematic), even when just whispered vocals and a precisely picked acoustic guitar as in Candelabra, & plush more overt tunes, Crash Landing, which is quite a compliment for a three-some.

(John Hammel)