𝒸𝓇𝓎𝓅𝓉𝑜𝓅𝒽𝒶𝓈𝒾𝒶 𝒾𝓈𝓈𝓊𝑒 𝟣𝟦

Welcome back to Cryptophasia. How is it going? We’re trying out something new. This issue was written fully by Jenn. The next issue will be written by Liz. In this issue: new songs from the Casual Dots, Surya Botofasina, Ribbon Stage, Etran de L'Air, and Persona. Thanks for reading.

𝒯𝒽𝑒 𝒞𝒶𝓈𝓊𝒶𝓁 𝒟𝑜𝓉𝓈, “𝒯𝒽𝑒 𝐹𝓇𝑒𝓆𝓊𝑒𝓃𝒸𝓎 𝑜𝒻 𝐹𝑒𝒶𝓇”

Note by note, Christina Billotte embodies poised cool. After a decade in legendary Dischord bands like Autoclave and Slant 6, she formed Casual Dots in 2002 with Bikini Kill bassist Kathi Wilcox and drummer Steve Dore. Soon they released one of the all-time great indie-punk debuts, featuring inquisitive lyrics, a pointillist style, and a brilliant Etta James cover. Casual Dots seemed to have moved on completely until reuniting in 2016 for a Union Pool gig; now, twenty years after forming, they have a sophomore album, produced again by Fugazi’s Guy Picciotto. Opener “The Frequency of Fear” extends the mix of restraint, expressiveness, and sagacity that made the Casual Dots feel so timeless, an anthem of resistance to the forces—conspicuous and low-humming, external and internalized—that threaten to wipe out our voices. “Oh sure, you think you’re exempt/You follow policies and show your contempt/While they are stealing your soul,” Bilotte sings. “You have to take possession of your own mind/Or they will drive you to find/The frequency of fear.”

𝒮𝓊𝓇𝓎𝒶 𝐵𝑜𝓉𝑜𝒻𝒶𝓈𝒾𝓃𝒶, “𝒮𝓊𝓇𝓎𝒶 𝑀𝑒𝒹𝒾𝓉𝒶𝓉𝒾𝑜𝓃 (𝑅𝑒𝓅𝓇𝒾𝓈𝑒)”

From the 80s until her death, Alice Coltrane oversaw the Sai Anantam Ashram, the spiritual center she founded in Southern California and which continued on until wildfires destroyed it in 2018. The composer and keyboardist Surya Botofasina grew up on the ashram, where he sang the Hindu devotional songs known as bhajans, led by Coltrane, every morning. After her death, he became the music director of the Sai Anantam Ashram Singers, who have toured internationally honoring Coltrane and her spiritual music. His upcoming debut album Everyone’s Children synthesizes these experiences, informed by jazz and hip-hop, while marking a new beginning. Produced by Carlos Niño, the recordings feature an ensemble that includes his mother, the harpist Radha Botofasina, who press materials call “a key musical disciple” of Coltrane in her ashram years. At the center of the album, the waves and birdsong, electric piano and quaking synth drone of “Surya Meditation (Reprise)” radiate divine energy, boundlessly.

𝑅𝒾𝒷𝒷𝑜𝓃 𝒮𝓉𝒶𝑔𝑒, “𝒫𝓁𝒶𝓎𝒾𝓃𝑔 𝒫𝑜𝓈𝓈𝓊𝓂”

The raw pop of Ribbon Stage might recall C86 heroes of decades past, if the bicoastal trio’s pin-wheeling melodies and complete conviction didn’t root their tunes so firmly in the present. “Left the 45 on/Another Mo Tucker song,” sings Anni Hilator. “Sunday morning is gone.” Operating in NYC and Olympia, as Ribbon Stage do, history is inescapable. But all this evocation of the Velvets in “Playing Possum” seems to say that history is also ours for the taking (Is that Calvin Johnson opening his office’s door for Ribbon Stage in the song’s video?) whether we lovingly pay tribute to those who laid our foundations or shrug as we reinterpret the dust. Even as Ribbon Stage presents this disenchanted yet upbeat rock tune about eye-rolling at achievement and listless list-making—“I didn’t mean to succeed/But with such certainty/I’ve gotten harder to please/And liked you better when I was 16”—its existence is an act of love.

𝐸𝓉𝓇𝒶𝓃 𝒹𝑒 𝐿’𝒜𝒾𝓇, “𝒯𝒶𝓇𝒽𝒶 𝐸𝒷𝑜𝓊𝓈𝑒 𝒟𝒾𝑔𝒽𝑒 𝑀𝒶𝓃𝑒”

Regular readers of this letter will be well-versed in Sahel Sounds, the label that since 2010 has made contemporary West African desert blues evermore accessible worldwide. Back in 2011, their compilation Music for Saharan Cellphones featured one of Mdou Moctar’s early experiments in AutoTuned vocals and programmed drums. The comp’s title referenced the favored DIY music network of that region, where listeners mostly share tunes through Bluetooth, cellphone memory cards, or WhatsApp. Hence the new compilation, Music From Saharan WhatsApp, released back in June, which rounds up a series of live performances recorded on cellphones and sent to the label via the chat app during an open call in 2020. Among the highlights is this opening tune from Etran de L’Aïr, which, in its mesmerizing guitar lines and resonant hand drumming, its darkness and iridescence, seems to translate the night sky.

𝒫𝑒𝓇𝓈𝑜𝓃𝒶, “𝑀𝑜𝓂𝑒𝓃𝓉 𝑜𝒻 𝒮𝒾𝓁𝑒𝓃𝒸𝑒”

We loved Decisions: during Silent Barn’s final years, the teenaged hardcore quartet was like a house band, and their throttling Plagiarism EP was essential. The group’s drummer Rebecca is now the frontwoman of Persona—joined by members of Material Support, Namatay Sa Ingay, Firewalker, Signal, Narcotic Void, Church Clothes, 80hd, and others—and Free Your Mind, new from Iron Lung, thrashes well beyond expectations. It’s antagonizing, ripping, and righteous, feeding back in all the right ways, a total onslaught of blazing riffs, blown-out blast beats, and lyrics eviscerating capitalism, authoritarianism, and the death cult that is America. It never lets up, not even on the closer “Moment of Silence,” a rallying call to survive in a world where so many die daily from overdoses, suicide, and systemic violence: “ALL OF MY FRIENDS ARE POTENTIAL STATISTICS/ALL OF MY HEROES ARE DEAD OR IN JAIL/ALL OF MY SIBLINGS ARE LIVING IN PERIL/ALL OF MY LOVERS ARE GOING TO HELL/I CAN'T ABIDE ONE MORE MOMENT OF SILENCE/IT'S TIME WE BURNED IT ALL DOWN.” Caps Persona's.