Daily Drops · Vol.118每日唱片 · Vol.118
Oliver Wood and three friends sat in a circle, rolled a four-track, and stopped when the tape ran out. 阿萊西家的男人都叫約瑟夫——這回小號手把弟弟那把長號帶進了 ECM。
橋本絵莉子（Eriko Hashimoto） — OVER LIFE（Pick）
For twenty years Eriko Hashimoto has written the words first. As the singer and guitarist of Chatmonchy, one of the defining Japanese indie bands of the 2000s, and across two solo albums since, the lyric always came before the tune. OVER LIFE, her third record on her own, is the first time she has reversed the order and let the music lead. She has said that after finishing 2024's Machi yo Machi yo she half-expected to stop writing songs altogether; instead she changed how she writes them, and the difference is audible in the way these eleven tracks move. Melodies seem to arrive before they have decided what they are about; phrasing wanders where her older songs would have marched to the meter of a line. It is a quietly radical thing for a songwriter this established to try, and the record wears the experiment lightly, as a set of unusually supple pop songs rather than a manifesto. チャットモンチー的主唱兼吉他手，個人第三張。做完前作《街よ街よ》(2024)，她本來想不再寫歌了；沒想到再開口，是把寫了整整二十年的順序整個倒過來——過去一律詞先，這回先寫曲，再填詞。差別聽得出來：旋律像是還沒想清楚要講什麼就先來了，樂句也不再乖乖跟著一句歌詞的節拍走正步，鬆、飄、留白多。對一個生涯早就穩了的創作歌手來說，這是很安靜、卻很大膽的一次翻面。整張沒有把「實驗」掛在臉上，反而像十一首格外柔軟的流行歌。今日 Pick。
山內総一郎（Soichiro Yamauchi） — A
On the same Wednesday, Soichiro Yamauchi put out a solo album of his own, titled simply A. Yamauchi took over as the face of Fujifabric after founder Masahiko Shimura's death in 2009, and where that band traffics in bright, tightly built rock, his solo record uses the extra room to drift sideways, into new wave and a hazier psychedelia. It is the sound of a bandleader trying on chords he does not usually get to reach for. 同一天單飛的還有山內総一郎——2009 年志村正彥離世後，接下 Fujifabric 門面的那個人。樂團向來把歌收得很緊、很亮；到了個人作，他趁著鬆綁往旁邊探，探進 new wave，探進更朦一層的迷幻。十一首，是一個平常得替全團守著形狀的人，難得放手去試那些平常進不去的房間。
Ralph Alessi — A Sun That Never Sets
Ralph Alessi's fifth album for ECM expands his long-running quartet (Matt Mitchell on piano, John Hébert on bass, Ches Smith on drums and vibraphone) into a quintet by adding his younger brother Joseph, principal trombonist of the New York Philharmonic. The Alessis come by the brass honestly: their Sicilian grandfather and their father, both named Joseph, held the principal trumpet chair at the Metropolitan Opera. Manfred Eicher produced, and the record has the burnished ECM cool you would expect, though the writing is knottier than that surface suggests. Alessi composes with an almost architectural precision, and the pleasure is watching the rhythm section push against the blueprint until it flexes. Some have found it admirable more than warm, and that is fair; the melodies rarely lodge. But the trumpet-and-trombone conversation at its center, two brothers finishing each other's phrases, is worth the price of entry. 阿萊西家的男人都叫約瑟夫：西西里裔的祖父、父親，都當過大都會歌劇院的首席小號。小號手 Ralph 這是第五度替 ECM 錄音，把長年的四重奏（鋼琴 Matt Mitchell、貝斯 John Hébert、鼓與顫音琴 Ches Smith）擴成五重奏，請進的正是弟弟 Joseph——紐約愛樂的首席長號。Manfred Eicher 監製，那股 ECM 的冷光還在，但寫得比表面更繞、更硬。Alessi 作曲近乎建築式的精密，好聽的地方就在律動組不停頂著藍圖推，直到它讓步。有人嫌它工整多過溫暖，這話公道——旋律很少賴著不走。但兄弟倆一小號一長號、你接我一句的對話，光這個就值回票價。
Ran Blake & Dominique Eade — Roots & Byways
九十多歲的第三潮流宗師 Ran Blake，和歌手 Dominique Eade，在新英格蘭音樂院同事了幾十年，這是他們第三張鋼琴-人聲二重奏。最好看的是選曲：十六首從八竿子打不著的抽屜裡各抽一首，並排擺著——艾靈頓的〈Mood Indigo〉隔幾軌就是 Hank Williams 的〈Lost Highway〉，孟克的〈Pannonica〉對門是民謠老調〈On Top of Old Smokey〉。Blake 一輩子都能在一首標準曲裡聽出黑色電影，Eade 跟著他走進陰影，卻從不飆嗓。一張由兩個讀了一輩子美國歌本的人，親手畫的怪地圖。
Slow Accordion — Slow Accordion
Slow Accordion is Oliver Wood of the Wood Brothers and three Nashville friends (Matt Glassmeyer on Wurlitzer and percussion, Ted Pecchio on bass, Mark Raudabaugh on drums) who had played only a handful of shows before they sat down in a circle at Glassmeyer's home studio and recorded live to a four-track reel-to-reel. Everything you hear was improvised in the room across three sessions, with no plan beyond seeing what would happen; the closing track simply stops when the tape runs out. There are, for the record, no accordions. What there is instead is a loose, analog warmth that most modern records sand away: the avant-country funk of "'71," the drifting space-jam of "Castle," four players pushing and pulling at a pulse nobody wrote down. A small, generous document of people trusting each other. Oliver Wood（The Wood Brothers）帶三個納許維爾老友（Matt Glassmeyer 的 Wurlitzer 與打擊、Ted Pecchio 的貝斯、Mark Raudabaugh 的鼓），錄音前只合演過幾場，就圍成一圈，把整張現場收進一臺四軌盤帶。全程即興、全類比，沒有預設；收尾那首乾脆錄到一半，磁帶跑完就停。順帶一提，樂團叫 Slow Accordion，裡頭一臺手風琴也沒有。留下來的，是現代錄音多半會磨掉的那種鬆散暖意：〈'71〉是 avant-country funk，〈Castle〉是漫遊的太空 jam，四個人推來拉去，跟著一個誰也沒寫下來的脈搏。
Man Mountain — Threads of Another Life
The Detroit quartet Man Mountain make instrumental post-rock, and Threads of Another Life is their first full-length since 2018's Infinity Mirror. Seven wordless movements carry what the band describes as five years of isolation and grief pressed into shape, the music moving from a hushed ambient haze toward passages that drive with an almost EBM insistence, the loud stretches earned rather than announced. Post-rock lives or dies on whether its crescendos feel inevitable, and these mostly do. Instrumental records about loss can curdle into the merely pretty; this one keeps enough grit to stay honest about what it is carrying. 底特律的後搖四人組，睽違 2018 年《Infinity Mirror》七年，才交出這張全長。七段無詞的樂章，把樂團口中「五年的孤立與哀傷」壓成形狀，從幽微的氛圍一路推到近乎 EBM 的驅動，大聲的段落是掙來的，不是喊出來的。後搖能不能立得住，全看它的高潮聽起來夠不夠必然，這幾段大致都夠。器樂寫失落最容易滑進「只剩漂亮」，這張留了夠多粗糲，撐得住它扛的東西。
Sarah MacDonald / Choir of Selwyn College, Cambridge — Sing, My Soul, His Wondrous Love
Sarah MacDonald is a Canadian organist and choral director who runs the music at Selwyn College, Cambridge, and directs the girl choristers at Ely Cathedral. Sing, My Soul, His Wondrous Love gathers her own sacred compositions: a Magnificat and Nunc dimittis, the Missa brevis Sancta Cecilia, the carol sequence The Manger is Empty, the Selwyn grace, sung by the college choir she conducts and recorded at Ely. Nothing here is avant-garde. This is the living, working end of the English cathedral tradition, written by someone inside it for the voices she hears every week. Unfashionable, and quietly assured. Sarah MacDonald 是加拿大裔的管風琴家與合唱指揮，掌 Selwyn 學院的音樂，也帶 Ely 座堂的女童聲。這張收的全是她自己寫的聖樂：一組 Magnificat 與 Nunc dimittis、一首《Missa brevis Sancta Cecilia》、一組卡羅《The Manger is Empty》，還有 Selwyn 的謝飯經，由她自己帶的合唱團唱、在 Ely 座堂錄。管風琴 Adam Field。它一點也不前衛，是英國座堂傳統活著、還在日常運轉的那一端，由一個身在其中的人，替她每週都聽見的那些聲音而寫。不趕時髦，卻篤定。
明くる夜の羊（Akuru Yo no Hitsuji） — cradle（EP）
The third Japanese record of the day, and the youngest in spirit. cradle is the major-label debut EP from Akuru Yo no Hitsuji, five tracks of bright, aching emo built around the usual adolescent weather: routine, friction, the ache of being young. It collects a few already-released singles and does not overstay. Promising. 今天第三張日本唱片，也最少年。這是他們的大廠牌出道 EP，五首發亮又發疼的 emo，繞著日常、彆扭和青春打轉，收了「ありふれた日常」「春夜風」「グッドラック」幾首先行曲。不長，不拖，收得乾脆。
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