02.07.2026
Good Morning,
This is Beach Sloth. Below are this week’s albums:
· Editor’s Note – Moving forward, anything that is abnormally loud and noisy beyond what a ‘reasonable person**’ would subject themselves to will be prefaced with a *Volume Warning*. Thank you.
Neti-Neti – Impermanence
Do you need to be on drugs to enjoy Neti-Neti’s Impermanence? I mean, it couldn’t hurt. Listen to the first few seconds and decide for yourself. I leave it up to you; you’re an adult and can make your own decision in accordance with local, state, and federal law.
So this is what Free Jazz has become? People moaning into microphones, their vocals reverberating into the vast space that is Fort Biscoe, Brooklyn. I’m here for it. This is mystical, weird, and rather physical. I appreciate vocal studies in general, and while this is not as technically precise as Madalyn Merkey’s work or as groundbreaking as Meredith Monk’s breathwork, it is still remarkably visceral. A handful of effects are used powerfully to deliver this woozy, tripped-out assault on the senses. Rhythms are busted, broken up before they even have a chance. Much of the arrangement has a ritualistic cadence as it seeks whatever center it is aiming for.
The abstract nature of the recording works in its favor. For how completely unclassifiable it is, there is something viscerally compelling. Soundscape is an adaptive descriptor because it uses the space’s literal sides. Moments of it, too, approach unusual beauty, and it is a strangely lovely recording. What exactly they are in love with remains unclear; perhaps an exploration of sound itself? Amirtha Kidambi’s vocals highlight a sense of femininity within the proceedings, with her mournful echoes outright captivating. I like the howls. These, when put alongside the inconsistent, off-kilter drumming of Matt Evans, add to the disorientation. If you were looking for music to play during an exorcism, this would be it. The level of confusion that demon would have listening to this, forget about it, you could exorcise the demon yourself and cut out the Catholic middleman.
Experimentation extends to both of their other projects. Amirtha Kidambi works in the protest group Elder Ones. How protest are they? On From Untruth, they have a track called Eat the Rich that is the opening track. Interestingly, for an album with an opening track titled Eat the Rich, the vinyl is sold out. Guess eating the rich is economically viable, according to the way markets work, figure we should probably just eat them then, if it is so profitable? Pretty on the noise with that one, though I must admit, the time of being subtle is really reaching the end. We can do better. We can, and should, be more vocal about our discontent. When we live on a planet as resource-rich as this one, yet have the underserved and undeserved suffering so constant, something is inherently wrong. I am not here to offer a solution; I am just pointing out a problem. Thankfully, Amirtha understands this and helps to highlight it with her work. She curated the Silent Barn, one of my all-time favorite DIY venues, which closed in 2018. I read multiple times there and appreciated the vibes. Maybe I’ll return to read there now that it has been turned into a Walgreens or whatever nightmarish conglomerate outlet store resides there now. I’ll send an invite; it’ll be on Zoom.
Matt Evans is the drummer who gives it structure. He, too, is a fixture of the greater NYC experimental community. Some of his groups, I’ll be honest, not as familiar with. What I am familiar with – my beloved Deerhoof! Deerhoof is such a joy of a band, protest-centric, fun, noise, chaotic, and really embodies everything I want within a band. I have seen Deerhoof and Black Dice perform more times than any other band. Yes, I did live in Brooklyn in the 2010s. He really runs through the drum kit too, as it almost feels like Autechre trying to conjure up the ghosts of dead ancestors. It is a hypnotic experience, and the lack of a specific, rigid focus gives the looser, free-jazz aspects some room to roam.
The duo describes the album as a mourning ritual, which comes across. Yet, they do not focus entirely on the negative of death. Death can be a positive. When my grandma died, I got to eat at Red Lobster, so good things can come from death. Some of the album could be seen as a celebration, because, with death, you lose all that anxiety. Nothing matters, and there is liberation in that. Of course, in life, nothing matters either, but you’re convinced that it does. Marketing budgets balloon to convince you otherwise, that everything matters. Fortunately, we have the duo of Neti-Neti here to show you what matters and how you can potentially escape. They do it with sincerity, too, no lies detected. I am thankful to the good folks at Dinzu Artifacts for releasing this wild, wild release into the world. Even wilder, there’s a single edit for That Which Remains, for when the music world is ready for a single of this intensity. If that happens, hey, I’ll welcome it. Maybe it’ll be this one.
Root Boy Slim & The Sex Change Band With The Rootettes - Root Boy Slim & The Sex Change Band With The Rootettes
I cannot imagine living a life filled with such chaos as that lived by the good sir Foster MacKenzie III. Perhaps the least original thing about Foster is the fact that he is the third, but after that, he’s strikingly original. Everything about his life screamed utter, unbelievable insanity. This was a person who was shockingly clever, well-spoken, satirical, with a fondness for funk, and had serious connections. What kind of connections? He went to Yale and, in his fraternity, was a year younger than future President George W. Bush. Do I think that he drank and did drugs excessively with George W. Bush? I would be shocked if this were not the case. Sadly, George W. Bush, even back then, did not get with the Root Boy Slim style, banning him after Forster returned from graduation to essentially fuck with the graduation ceremony. Oh well.
Nor is this his only brush with the White House. In his song I Used To Be A Radical he mentions climbing the White House fence on LSD. For a lesser person, this would be hyperbole. Foster lived that life, and the song does not even capture the full strangeness – he did a heroic amount of LSD while driving an ice cream truck before telling officers (because I guess climbing the White House Fence high on LSD is a crime, good to know) that he was looking for the center of the universe. Did he find it? Well, nobody knows; the crummy officers never let him discover the center of the universe. He might have very well been onto something, yet the officers diagnosed him with schizophrenia instead, for which he was medicated for the rest of his life. Many of his other songs feature this sort of playful satire, something that honestly feels ripped straight from the early pages of Saturday Night Live, right down to his band playing a light funk that even works better. Foster’s voice has that throaty, bluesy, barely sober coherence of Captain Beefheart at his best, and he lets this work wonders.
Speaking of Saturday Night Live, Root Boy over here met multiple members from Saturday Night Live as he played Boogie ‘Til You Puke in Mr. Mike’s Mondo Video in 1979. Root Boy also landed a $250,000 Warner Brothers Record deal for this song, and it’s pretty good. I have some inkling he knew the Saturday Night Live people with a mixture of his love of satire and the general self-destructive nature that he engaged in. I imagine that he and Michael O’Donoghue would have had many interests in common. Besides, the idea that this LSD addled schizophrenic climbed the White House gates would have endeared him to the likes of Dan Aykroyd and Bill Murray. I doubt that Chevy Chase would have ever respected a man of Foster’s greatness. I wish someone would send Chevy Chase a dildo so he could properly go fuck himself.
Foster released multiple albums, somehow. Again, the ‘70s and ‘80s were a wild time, where people gave the oddballs a chance. We don’t live in that time anymore, but it is heartwarming to know that Foster wrote a song called “Rich White Republican” that predicted George H.W. Bush would make it to the White House. The Bushes really must have a bone to pick with this guy, because Foster seems downright charming and wicked smart.
Having the alternative rock/blues/funk combo allows the stinging barbs he slings just a little bit of gentleness. When he spreads things out a little bit, he goes into unexpected territory, with a reggae-inspired track that feels like Van Dyke Parks if he utterly lost his mind. The arrangements are rather unique, and honestly, I can see why Warner Brothers would give this guy a quarter million dollars in the late ‘70s. I mean, who could say no to a face like that? When he passed, Roots fans flew to see him, to bid adieu to the Lenny Bruce of the Blues.
A wild album that captures the larger-than-life essence of a dude who lived a life so completely by his own rules that he might as well be a character out of a Pynchon novel, right down to the nonsensical moniker he adorned himself with. Sleep well, fair child, you were too beautiful for this world, and I hope in Heaven your satirical efforts are fully acknowledged.
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Throne
Throne | Beach Sloth | My Wishlist
**Your idea of a reasonable person, music-wise, I’m sure, differs from mine. **Still, if you’re already here, you’re already unreasonable by sheer virtue of your attendance, and I thank you for that. **
Last.fm
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