Amelia Courthouse - Ruby Glass (SPINSTER, 2019)

The SPINSTER Sounds label is doing magical things.  We were first introduced to them via the wonderful Quilt of the Universe compilation, and they’ve returned with another mighty undertaking, this time courtesy of Leah Toth who some might know from her work with Wooden Wand.  For this release, Toth is going by the name Amelia Courthouse, and Ruby Glass – as it’s called – is a quiet masterpiece.  The album is awash in delicate melodies that glisten with phosphorescent tracers as they weave about.  Each piece is the product of deft hands.  These hands are composed of fingers and nerve endings that are steeped in their craft.

We take flight alongside Amelia Courthouse beginning with “No Chimbo”.  A softly panned flute-like pad provides a base for a spindly melody to be plucked out overtop.  These elements are joined by a wafting guitar line that just might be the ghostly twin of the opening guitar solo from King Crimson’s “Starless”.  The title track juxtaposes a melancholy piano melody against bells and chimes, of which one seems to become enmeshed with an analog version of itself.  This analog ringing calls out with an uncanny sadness that is melted away by the higher pitched chimes.

“Hugh Kenner” takes its name from a Canadian literary critic (Courthouse is an assistant professor in modern literature) and is decidedly haunting.  Its morose piano line is swept up in a haze of wafting pads and chords that only heighten the sense of foreboding.  “Becker” just might also be named after a literary critic.  Could it be that Courthouse is channeling May Lamberton Becker?  This piece begins rather simply but quickly sprouts multiple adornments that are quite gorgeous.  There’s an unusually compelling distortion effect at play that adds drama to the mellifluous piano melodies.

Listening to the 17-minute-long “Murphie 1” is like trying to take in the entire night sky with one glance.  The delicate pinpoints of starlight, the shooting streaks of meteors, and the slow tracking of satellites coalesce into a fine needlepoint pattern imprinted on our eyelids.  Courthouse’s wordless vocals add an angelic touch to the proceedings.  This is a mighty fine way to close out such an already wonderful release.

It is highly, highly recommended that you obtain a copy of this entrancing release.  There are some left over at the SPINSTER Bandcamp so run over there pronto and seize yourself a copy.

Various - Quilt of the Universe (SPINSTER, 2019)

The three proprietors of the SPINSTER imprint began the endeavor in the Winter of 2018 in an effort to support a diverse range of musicians who move in orbits both traditional and radical.  Steeped in music, folklore, and art, the founding mothers of SPINSTER – Sarah Henson, Emily Hilliard, and Sally Anne Morgan – have created something magical: a place for adventurous sounds to call home.

Quilt of the Universe aims to evoke the earthly and the extraterrestrial.  Key touchpoints are NASA’s Voyager Golden Record and a “Solar System Quilt” stitched in rural Iowa by science teacher Ellen Harding Baker in the 1800s.  This juxtaposition of the heavenly and the terrestrial is immediately apparent in the evocative throbs emanating from Baltimore musician Ami Dang’s “Unstruck Sound (Santu Man Pavnai Sukh Baniaa)”.  The singer’s mellifluous vocal stands out amidst a constellation of percussion and clouds of synth.  The multiple layers of Emmalee Hunnicutt’s plucked and bowed cello similarly rise and sway skyward in wafting clouds of tone.  Guitarist Ilyas Ahmed offers a skeletal acoustic guitar piece that is as nimble as it is inwardly focused.

There are also some raucous and quite experimental tracks featured on Quilt of the Universe.  The spaced-out version of 90s club grinder “Return of the Mack” features vocals that are almost percussive in their rapid-fire delivery, laid down over a wash of synth.  The noisy poetry reading “I Saw God” sounds like it was lifted from Glands of External Secretions’ Reverse Atheism.  The track is supplied by Michelle Dove and Brian Howe, who describe their work as “an electropoetic séance”, which is an apt description for this uncanny piece.  Fitness Womxn’s “Creatures” is a new wave raver, while Slut Pill’s “Catcall” features a Dinosaur Jr.-esque guitar intro and a message that damns (rightfully so) moronic displays of toxic masculinity.

Each of the fifteen tracks on offer is threaded into the overarching theme of Quilt of the Universe, and the intersectional feminist ethos of the SPINSTER label itself.  The cassette is part of a larger in-house crowdfunding campaign by the imprint, with a trio of original t-shirts also on offer with designs by Durham artist Julienne Alexander (Elizabeth Cotten), D.C. illustrator Elizabeth Graeber (Pauline Oliveros), and the Portland-based Ilyas Ahmed (Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou).  Head over to the SPINSTER Bandcamp and snatch up some of their wares.