A Song For Friday: Molly Joyce

Unflinching and serene, a great composer and performer confronts her disability. Also: Clipse, Wet Leg, Sister., Mike Polizze, Leilehua Lanzilotti, Zeynep Toraman, Laura Cannell, and more!

Starting with her 2017 debut, Lean Back and Release, which I called “versatile and confident,” Molly Joyce has been a can’t-miss artist. That only became more true with the astonishing Breaking and Entering, one of 2020’s best albums and a signature work of the decade. While rooted in her experience of injury and disability, Breaking and Entering gave the listener leave to cut loose the bounds of earth and join Joyce as “…her clear, unwavering soprano…” soared “…over the sparkling, propulsive patterns of organs and a halo of electronics.”

In 2022, Joyce gave us Perspective, which put the voices of disabled people front and center over electronic music as they answered questions about resilience, care, and control. I noted that, in an act of true generosity, “Joyce gives these brave speakers extra dignity by setting their thoughts in these exquisite frames.” In 2023, Joyce released Left & Right, a collaboration with choreographer Jerron Herman and others, and Evolution of Perception, which intriguingly explored emotions and language through songs titled after John Koenig’s The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows.

Today brings the release of the unflinching yet often serene State Change, a riveting song cycle that uses adaptive instrument technology to create lush sound-beds over which Joyce delineates, in forensic and poetic detail, the surgical aftermath of the accident that nearly amputated her left hand. Each track is named after a significant date in this lifelong process, starting with August 6, 1999, the day she was injured.

It’s a sign of Joyce’s musical mastery that all the moving parts behind the album - the medical records and images, pioneering tools such as the MUGIC (Music/User Gesture Interface Control) sensor and the KAiKU Music Glove - have resulted in a deeply absorbing, fully unified set of songs. Producer William Brittelle and engineer Michael Hammond should also be commended for their work in realizing Joyce’s vision.

April 19, 2000 is a perfect microcosm of what Joyce has accomplished here, with a delicate sawtooth rhythm and a high-pitched drone drawing the listener in as she sings, in that airy and affectless soprano, “Supine position/The hand was prepped and draped,” telling the tale of the surgery that removed scar tissue from tendons in her hand.

Rather than seeking to transcend her physical form, Joyce is confronting it and using it, as with the gestures that created that sawtooth pattern with the KAiKU Music Glove. Would that we could all be so honest, brave, and creative with the parts of ourselves that seek to hold us back from great achievements. And State Change is surely a great achievement.

Listen to most of the songs for Friday here or below.

Other Recent Releases

Clipse - Let God Sort Em Out It’s only taken 16 years, but we finally have the imperial Clipse album we should have gotten after their second masterpiece, Hell Hath No Fury, instead of the fine but relatively lightweight Til The Casket Drops. Not that I’m complaining, considering all the heat Pusha T has dropped in between, including Daytona, one of the 100 best albums of the 2010s. Not only reuniting Pusha T (Terrence Thornton) with his brother, Malice (Gene Thornton), Let God Sort Em Out puts them back in the studio with Pharrell Williams, who produced much of Clipse’s earlier work with The Neptunes. There are a bunch of guests, too, including Kendrick Lamar (who raps the instantly classic line “Therapy showed me how to open up/It also showed me I don't give a fuck” on Whips & Chains), Tyler The Creator, Nas, and their old mixtape stalwart, Ab Liva. But rather than diluting their power, the features only add to the nearly overwhelming “you and whose army” vibe to the collection. Consider me happily flattened by this extraordinary return.

Wet Leg - moisturizer Someone in one of my Discord servers accused Wet Leg of having a gimmick. I’m still trying to figure out how writing killer songs, with hooks and wit galore, and delivering them with sexy insouciance is a gimmick. However, it is astonishing how they’ve continued to live up to the promise of Chaise Lounge, that first shot they launched across the bow in 2021. That includes this indomitable second album, which stays on brand while expanding their sound with touches from light and folky to dark and heavy. Pillow Talk is a perfect example of the latter. An ode to concupiscent longing, the first verse starts quietly over a driving beat: “Every night I hold my pillow, I wish I was holding you.” After the fourth line goes exactly where you thought it would, the guitars EXPLODE in a densely grinding riff that calls Killing Joke’s Millennium to mind. Not something I expected to hear on a Wet Leg album! Equally surprising is 11:21, an unabashed ballad that might have poets taking notes from lines like, “It's not like the moon forgets to shine when I'm not with you/But it feels like it just might/If I just hang around here, promise me you will return/Upon the setting of the sun tonight.” I can’t wait to see them in concert and sing along with the anthemic chorus of U And Me At Home (“You and me at home again”). I’m sure I won’t be alone. Get over it, haters, Wet Leg is here for the duration.

Sister. - Two Birds In Piece Of Silver, one of the highlights on this sophomore album, H. Pruz and Ceci Sturman join their voices to sing: “Just last night I dreamt I saw you pass me in a crowd/It’s timely and no different now that no one is around/Its painful like a family like an old smell like a ghost/Like the way you used to choose me like an old and precious stone/And you hide a piece of silver in the conversation.” The crushing two-chord coda that comes near the end of the song is the perfect illustration of that devastating last line and is just one example of the emotional arrows that always hit their bullseyes on Two Birds. Alongside guitarist James Chrisman and co-producer Felix Walworth, who also contributes drums and synth, Pruz and Sturman have given us ten jewel-like tracks. Spill them into your ears and listen to them glitter.

Mike Polizze - Around Sound This is a name I’ve heard over the years, mostly through his association with Philly bands Purling Hiss and Birds Of Maya - not that I recall listening to either of them. But this second solo album made an immediate impression, with its layers of acoustic guitars and just the right touches of bass, drums, percussion, Mellotron, vibes, and piano, all played by Polizze. He has a nice, relaxed voice, too, which he occasionally pushes into grit to emphasize a point in one of his searching tunes about life, love, and friendship. He has an exquisite sense of rhythmic and harmonic nuance, whether in the slightly trippy outro to the title track or the dissonant drag of Everybody I Know. I’m keyed into Polizze now and open to whatever is to come from him or his bands.

Leilehua Lanzilotti - beyond the accident of time This extraordinary release by one of the most original composers of our time features three versions of the same piece, which pays tribute to Isamu Noguchi’s unfinished Bell Tower for Hiroshima by reimagining it as a “sonic object.” The Installation Version comes first, an immersive layering of seven different recordings from four countries. Despite that, in keeping with the conception, the sounds have a sculptural feel, and it’s easy to picture someone playing an artwork as percussion, the way Lanzilotti did with pieces by Toshiko Takaezu on last year’s the sky in our hands, our hands in the sky. The other two versions were recorded live in New York and Tokyo. The first, performed at The Noguchi Museum in 2019, is sharp, insistent, and haunting, with harsh clangs almost drowning out the unintelligible voices. Made in 2022, the Japanese recording features softer and more resonant tones, making the mood reflective rather than galvanizing. As absurd amounts of ordnance are deposited onto our ailing earth yet again, works like this remind us that the ripple effects of war continue long after the dust and ash have settled.

Zeynep Toraman - a lifetime of annotations From the raptures of the string trio that gives this collection its name, exquisitely performed by Clara Levy, violin; Biliana Voutsckova, violin; and Judith Hamann, cello, to the achingly delicate Slow Poem (v.2), recorded by the violin/viola duo AndPlay in the Crypt of the Church of the Intercession - where I witnessed the world premiere - count your blessings for this wonderful introduction to Toraman’s world.

Laura Cannell - A Compendium Of Beasts Volume 3 Thanks to skimming the deeply informed (with the exception perhaps of one or two albums destined for the rubbish heap of history) mid-year list from The Quietus, I’m now a late-coming devotee of Cannell, who spins magic modern cloth from ancient threads. Take her release from earlier this year, the marvelously titled LyreLyreLyre, a captivating collection created with the 1,400-year-old Sutton Hoo Lyre. Then there’s this series, an attempt to limn in sound the spirits of prowling animals and their collisions with human society, such as A Wild Hawk in the Church, through layers of drones. Maybe she’ll write a tune for the sparrows that hopped around the feet of weary travelers the last time I was at JFK. Anything is possible with a talent as rich and free as Cannell’s.

Ava Mendoza/Gabby Fluke-Mogul/Carolina Perez - Mama Killa Mendoza never met a nasty, serrated electric guitar note she didn’t like, and she hits all of them on this thrilling debut of a new trio with violinist Fluke-Mogul and drummer Perez. While Mendoza dominates a lot of the tracks, Fluke-Mogul gives as good as she gets, while Perez thrashes away as if trying to drum her way out of a cardboard box. There are some moments of calm on the album and even a bluesy strut here or there, but the overall effect is like being hit in the face with a fistful of silver dollars. It hurts, but you want more because it adds up to riches.

Patricia Wolf - Hrafnamynd Thanks to last month’s Second by Stephen Vitiello with Brendan Canty and Hahn Rowe, I’m now a fan of the Balmat label, which released this lush, searching soundtrack to Edward Pack Davee’s documentary (translation: “raven film”). Wolf’s music, created with the UDO Super 6 synthesizer and occasional acoustic guitar, is so transporting that I’m having a Dances With Wolves moment (I’ve never seen the movie - John Barry’s score is just too good!) as I’m worried seeing the film will alter my relationship with her work. But I will see Hrafnamynd if given the opportunity. For now, I’m allowing myself to revel in the purity of Wolf’s sounds.

Qur'an Shaheed - Pulse Five years on from her debut EP, this California-based vocalist, keyboard player, and composer has created a full-length that invites you not so much to listen as to step inside. Burbling synths surround you while layered vocals swoop in from above, filling in any remaining spaces. Collaborating with producer Spencer Hartling, who also creates loops and percussion, and other musicians who contribute flute, harp, bass, sax, and more, Shaheed has created an environment where ambient sound and song blend and bounce off each other like wax in a lava lamp. It’s quite a leap from the jazzy R&B of that earlier release! Take your time with this remarkable album, which contains the first music that reminds me of the great records made by Faith Harding as Novelty Daughter from 2016 to 2018.

Sofi - Hypergloss Using Supercollider software, Latvian synthesist and composer Sofia Zaiceva builds environments that open up a variety of narratives for the receptive listener. One I’ve enjoyed pursuing starts with currrling, the jagged opening track, representing a traumatic unboxing and power-on event for a robot joining a new household. Gradually, things become more serene as the artificial human grows more accustomed to the sensory environment. Birth is always painful, but the rewards are great, as proven once again by this fascinating album.

From The Archive

Best Of 2023: Electronic
Record Roundup: Autumn Flood, Pt. 1
Record Roundup: Machine Learning