A Reader staffer shares three musical obsessions, then asks someone (who asks someone else) to take a turn.
Cleric, Retrocausal When this Philly four-piece released its previous full-length, 2010’s Regressions, I was so confounded by its collage of elastic noise and hypercube math-metal that I wrote 1,200 words trying to explain it. Retrocausal came out in December, and I’ve had fun watching newer writers grapple with Cleric’s mix of bestial fury, jazzy sass, creepy ambience, and eight-dimensional convolution, which is so divorced from conventional structures that parsing it is like trying to memorize Finnegans Wake. These maniacs must’ve learned to use the evil puzzle box from Hellraiser as a musical instrument.
Guitar technique I’m drawn to acoustic guitar playing that uses the body of the instrument for percussion. Peter Collins and Fatai play like this a lot. They and Melanie Faye are my guitar-style icons right now. When I was growing up, my mom would play guitar every day, and these artists have a rhythmic, melodic style that’s really nostalgic for me.
