Muriel Grossmann

“Reverance”

scum stats: limited to 1000 copies.

So this year has started off great. A weird spot on my nose led to my general practitioner telling me I should have a dermatologist look at it. Dermatologist IMMEDIATELY performed a biopsy and three days later they called and told me it was a basal cell carcinoma…AKA basic-ass “if we just cut it out you should be fine” skin cancer.

Got a call from the specialist a week later, got my consultation scheduled for THAT day and a week later I power through four rounds of Mohs surgery. What initially appeared to be a dime-sized portion that needed to be removed very quickly inflated up to a quarter-sized patch of my nose being excavated.

Doc didn’t even sew me up that day, said I’d been through enough and to come back the next morning. So with the sounds of Alice Coltrane’s “Journey in Satchidananda” going on repeat, they tugged and pulled at my face for an hour to try and cover up the void. I was literally numb, couldn’t feel shit, and was just happily jawing away about god knows what.

(staff was cool and let me play music from my phone while they closed me up…and they both seemed to dig Alice, the nurse saying “with your breathing and this music, I’d assume you do yoga” and the doc saying “this reminds me of the satellite radio station Spa.”)

SO APOLOGIES IF I’M NOT GOING SUPER IN-DEPTH ON THE RECORD REVIEW TODAY I MIGHT BE A LITTLE PRE-OCCUPIED.

Anyway, the madame Grossmann put out a new album at the end of last year and it may be as stellar as her “Golden Rule” from 2018.

I LOVE that record so much that the potential to fully sink into these recordings is just the salve I need to deal with bandage replacements, suture removals, a rest of my life dedication to sunblock and that absolute pure gratefulness that all in all, I *think* I got out relatively unscathed.

Check out the bonkers rhythm to “Okan Ti Aye” buttressed by Grossman’s unencumbered countermelodies weaving effortlessly amidst the maelstrom. Like a brick shithouse wrapped in goddamned silk.

2xLP, 180-gram discs, super-glossy cover art and super-heavy tip-on jacket. Those Estonian cats at RR Gems are not fucking around. Good luck finding someone in the States selling a copy…but honestly, this sucker is worth the overseas shipping. Live a little. You never know how long you have anyway.