Even when just casually seeking out cultural criticism, you will likely read pieces on what a creation supposedly means for “our current moment.” This approach is oftentimes used as a conduit to lazily discuss hot-button issues — Trump, Brexit, Game of Thrones, you name it. It’s a fixation on the modern landscape that leads to a kind of regression, one that yields to what has been previously stated or taken for granted. In short, honing in on Twitter topics gives your analysis an expiration date, one that hardly warrants coming back to.

More about: Flying Lotus

How are ya’ll doing today? “Well,” I hope. Good, good. Thank ya’ll for showing up, I appreciate your audience. Here are some thoughts about why we’re all here. This kind of noise, these sounds that Matthew Sullivan has shared with us, has never “slapped,” as they say, just because it’s cerebral; contrarily, we all know, it rarely is. Legends like Graham Lambkin aren’t storytellers, they’re documentarians. We just imbue it all with our baggage. And how beautiful is that? Like how Taku Unami made me unexpectedly beam by simply recording dribbling basketballs.

More about: Matthew Sullivan

Palina’tufa opens with sounds that make me want to laugh out loud. “A,” or, eliciting the feeling of a few drafts gleefully torn up straight away. A poke at a giggle and haunting mumbles: a wiggle. Coo to yawn and tricks of some proverbial tongue, like saxophonist Seymour Wright’s. Words like floozy and knobbly. Loose comedy. Hunches bent all the way back, like the blithe boomery of percussionist Paul Abbott. Outcroppings sent forth from the depths of moving bodies and weird, previously unheard of stresses gurgling up from within.

More about: Paul Abbott, Seymour Wright, XT