Daily Drops · Vol.064每日唱片 · Vol.064
What a quarter-century on a major buys you, apparently, is the freedom to leave it 三支美國老兵今天集體不聽話，另一頭是日本的工匠氣與一張地中海巴洛克
Modest Mouse — An Eraser and a Maze
The headline writes itself, and it is a good one: thirty years after their debut, Modest Mouse have left the major they spent most of their adult lives on and put this record out on Isaac Brock's own little imprint, Glacial Pace. It is their eighth, the first since the death of drummer Jeremiah Green in 2022, and it sounds like a band recalibrating in public — poppier in places than the diehards would like, gnarled and good in others. Under the Radar called it dense, difficult, and worth the difficulty, which is about right. Fifteen tracks, forty-nine minutes, Janet Weiss guesting on the drums. Mostly it is the gesture that lingers: a veteran act choosing, deliberately, to get smaller. 標題幾乎自己寫好：出道滿三十年，Modest Mouse 離開了他們大半輩子都待著的大廠，把這第八張專輯放到 Isaac Brock 自己的小廠牌 Glacial Pace 發行。這也是 2022 年鼓手 Jeremiah Green 過世後的第一張，新陣容上陣，先行單曲請來前 Sleater-Kinney 的 Janet Weiss 打鼓。十五首、四十九分鐘，有些段落比死忠樂迷期待的更「流行」，也有些地方還是那個彆扭又好聽的 Modest Mouse。Under the Radar 給了 85 分，評語是密、難、但值得。可真正讓我回味的，是那個動作本身——一支什麼都不必再證明的老兵，主動選擇把自己縮回獨立體量。
Deer Tick — Coin-O-Matic
Twenty-some years in, Deer Tick have produced themselves for the first time, and the ninth album they made alone in their own studio points its flashlight at the strangest corner of home. The title comes from a cigarette-vending company that once fronted for Raymond Patriarca, the man who ran the New England mob; the songs sift the working-class histories of Rhode Island, where the everyday and the criminal kept brushing up against each other. John McCauley has always been a barroom writer with a reader's instincts, and the local-history angle suits him. Nothing here lunges for your attention. It rewards the second pass, the way these records tend to. 成軍二十多年，他們第一次自己製作。這張在自家工作室錄的第九張，題材卻往外挖：專輯名 Coin-O-Matic 來自一家香菸販賣機公司——當年新英格蘭黑幫頭目 Raymond Patriarca 用它作據點。歌裡翻的是羅德島工人階級與黑幫交疊的隱秘地方史。John McCauley 一向是那種把酒館搖滾唱得有文學心的人，這次把鏡頭對準故鄉的陰影，正合適。它不搶耳，但這類專輯的好，往往要到第二遍才浮上來。
The Red Clay Strays — Grateful
The Alabama six-piece keep getting filed under country, and they keep declining the label. Their third album, again produced by Dave Cobb, leans hard toward rock and roll — Rolling Stone's verdict was that they are not Nashville's next great group so much as a genuine band, full stop. There is a frankness to the singing and a heft to the dynamics that holds its own against anything heavier. If the lacquered gloss of contemporary country has started to grate on you, Grateful is the corrective, pointed firmly the other way. 第三張，又一次交給製作人 Dave Cobb。這支阿拉巴馬六人組老被歸進鄉村，他們自己不認。Rolling Stone 的評語很直接：這不是「下一支偉大鄉村組合」，而是一支貨真價實的搖滾樂團。《Grateful》的勁頭確實更靠搖滾那一側——嗓子硬，動態足，頂得上當下任何一支硬樂團。如果你對當代鄉村越來越精緻的那層包漿開始膩了，這張是反方向的解藥。
DJ Seinfeld — If This Is It
Armand Jakobsson built his name on lo-fi house made in a bedroom; his third album, his first for Ninja Tune, opens the windows. Nostalgic house, UK garage and a streak of millennial trance run through twelve tracks padded with guests — SG Lewis, Confidence Man, Moyka, others — and he says he started writing it the week his 2021 record Mirrors came out, working long-held anxieties slowly toward acceptance. You can hear the negotiation: the floor is still there, the BPMs intact, but the album keeps reaching past the club toward something more forgiving. A producer growing up without leaving the party. 從臥室 lo-fi house 起家的 Armand Jakobsson，第三張轉投 Ninja Tune，像是把窗戶打開了。懷舊 house、UK garage、千禧 trance 揉在一起，客串名單一長串：SG Lewis、Confidence Man、Moyka……他說這張從 2021 年《Mirrors》發行那一週就開始寫，「把長期的焦慮慢慢轉成接受」。你能聽見這種拉扯：舞池還在，BPM 也在，但專輯一直往派對之外伸手，伸向更鬆弛、更寬容的東西。一個製作人在不離開派對的情況下長大。
T-SQUARE — VOYAGE
It is their fifty-second original album, a number that stops being a statistic and becomes a kind of argument. Japan's most durable fusion outfit, here in the second outing of its latest lineup, bookend the record with their old Formula One theme, "Moon Over the Castle," and ship the vinyl all the way to Abbey Road for mastering — a fastidiousness that borders on stubbornness. This music will never trouble a year-end list, and that is rather the point. Fifty years of the same craft, applied without irony, is its own quiet achievement. 第 52 張原創專輯——是的，五十二。日本 fusion 的常青樹，「新生 T-SQUARE」陣容的第二彈，依舊把 F1 主題 "MOON OVER THE CASTLE" 包進首尾。黑膠版專程送到倫敦 Abbey Road 做母帶，認真到有點固執。這種音樂永遠不會進 Pitchfork 年榜，而那恰恰是它的意思：五十年如一日打磨同一門手藝，不帶半點反諷，本身就是一種了不起。
V/A — J Jazz Vol.5: Deep Modern Jazz From Japan 1970–1988
Seven years after they started digging, Tony Higgins and Mike Peden close out their J Jazz series with a fifth and final volume, and it is the best kind of farewell — fourteen tracks, most reissued for the first time, pulled from private pressings so rare they barely circulated. There is scalding fusion from Toshiyuki Honda, hallucinatory tribal jazz from Masahiko Satoh, Yasuhiro Kohno dismantling "My Favorite Things" alone at a piano. Nearly seven thousand words of notes, three slabs of 180-gram vinyl, mastering by Frank Merritt. A deep dive into two golden decades, and a fitting last cast of the net. Tony Higgins 與 Mike Peden 挖了七年的 J Jazz 系列，到第五彈收官。14 首裡大多是頭一回再版，來源全是當年極罕見的私壓與獨立小廠——Toshiyuki Honda 滾燙的 fusion、Masahiko Satoh 迷幻的部族爵士、Yasuhiro Kohno 拆解版的 "My Favorite Things"。近 7000 字內頁，Carvery Studio 母帶，三張 180 克黑膠裝進對開封套。
Cristina Prats Costa — Spiritillo Mediterraneo
For her solo debut, the Spanish violinist Cristina Prats Costa borrows a metaphor from Andrea Falconieri: the spiritillo, a mischievous little sprite, standing in for the animating spark of Baroque imagination. The Mediterranean here is a crossroads where Italian virtuosity, Spanish rhythm and French poise keep brushing against one another, in music that runs from Falconieri, Matteis and Sanz out to Vivaldi, all of it played on period instruments. After a day this loud with guitars, it arrives like sunlight — quick, bright, weightless, and not the least bit solemn. 西班牙小提琴家 Cristina Prats Costa 的獨奏首專。她借 Falconieri 筆下那個調皮的小精靈 spiritillo 當線索，把 17、18 世紀的地中海當成一個十字路口：義大利的炫技、西班牙的節奏、法國的優雅在這裡相撞。曲目從 Falconieri、Matteis、Sanz 一路排到 Vivaldi，全部用古樂器演奏。今天這堆吵鬧的吉他裡，我想留一個明亮、輕巧的位置給它——它不沉，反而像曬到太陽。
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