In Italy, Chris Daly bought a fur that looked like just like the wildebeest.
While we still have a good month and a half left in 2017, that should in no way stop you from looking forward to some of the great music planned for 2018. Of the numerous projects to put on your “Keep an Ear Out For” list, make sure to add Anenon’s Tongue, due out Feb. 9 on the venerable Friends of Friends label (incidentally, a scant few days past my birthday, for those of you keeping track to make sure you get your gifts to me in the mail on time). The L.A. native also known as Brian Allen Simon returns with his latest foray into laid back, jazz tinged electronic music.
As with the numerical majority of his fellow Americans, Anenon was a bit unnerved by last year’s presidential elections. Whereas some of us bitched and moaned while others marched and knitted pink pussy hats, Anenon set up a makeshift recording studio in the attic of a 16th century Tuscan villa to purge his demons musically. Tomato, tomato, right? The results are fascinating: part jazz, more than a touch electronic, ample ambient and a healthy dose of modern classical, all wrapped up as an agnostic spiritual exploration.
In anticipation of the upcoming album, Anenon has shared “Verso,” a five-minute mediation built on a repetitive piano chord before faster fingering, strings and a synthesizer enter the scene. What begins in an almost paranoid vein ultimately becomes cathartic. And with that, we have something else to celebrate in February.
