Lauren Newton

Three albums featuring an extraordinary vocalist

L-R: Joëlle Léandre, Lauren Newton (photo: Koho Mori)

First things first: My latest Stereogum column is up. I interviewed Joshua Redman about being a jazz elder (he’s 56 now, and yes, that means that you, like me, are also old), and reviewed new albums by Mary Halvorson, Brandee Younger, Sinsuke Fujieda (thanks to Sid Schwarz of

Jazz and Coffee

for the tip), GoGo Penguin, Joe Armon-Jones, Ben LaMar Gay, Ivo Perelman and the Matthew Shipp String Trio, Theon Cross, Isaiah J. Thompson, and Theo Croker.

Also: Nate Chinen wrote a very nice blurb about the Ava Mendoza/gabby fluke-mogul/Carolina Pérez album Mama Killa, which comes out in two weeks, at The Gig. He says the album “puts everyone on equal footing, with not just molten intensity but also a vital looseness. ‘Amazing Graces,’ one of two lead singles from the album, even has some swing in its strut.” Listen above and pre-order your copy now. CDs are already shipping to customers!

And now, our main subject!

I’m not much of a songs guy. I listen to a lot of music with vocals, but I am often dismayed by the low quality of lyric writing, and even when I’m not, consciously crafty/clever lyricists who insist that the listener pay attention to the words (Bob Dylan, Elvis Costello, Bruce Springsteen, etc.) annoy me even more. David Byrne famously said, “Singing is a trick to get people to listen to music for longer than they would ordinarily,” and while I kinda agree with that where other people are concerned, I take the opposite view and tend to view lyrics as something to be endured.

In order of preference, I like:

• instrumental music

• music with indecipherable lyrics (death metal)

• music in languages I don’t speak (Spanish, Yoruba, Japanese)

• music with English-language lyrics, clearly enunciated and foregrounded

All that said, a compelling vocal performance can absolutely hold my attention, and lately I have found myself fascinated by the work of vocalist Lauren Newton. Born in Oregon, she’s based in Germany, where she’s been working as a vocal performer for 50 years. She spent more than a decade as part of the Vienna Art Orchestra, making more than 20 albums with them, and has worked in all sorts of other contexts as well, with instrumentalists from across the spectrum of jazz and improvised music.

On her website, she writes, “The voice has its beginnings in sound and my music evolves from there. My style of singing utilizes the many facets of the human voice from vocalise to noise, occasionally employing words for their musical content. [Emphasis mine.] Essential to me is how music materializes through the freedom of improvisation.”

This approach — using the human voice as a source of sound, rather than a tool of “communication” — is intensely appealing to me. It’s what I like about Mike Patton’s work with Fantômas, which is in turn related to Eye Yamantaka’s work with Boredoms (and John Zorn’s Naked City) and John Tardy’s work on the first Obituary album, 1989’s Slowly We Rot. But there’s a machismo to each of those examples that’s absent in Newton’s work. She’s a melodic, at times almost operatic vocalist, whose complement of scat-like growls, doo-wop-ish syllables, sudden whoops and shrieks, yelps and beautiful, crystal-clear notes, not to mention her precise and exciting sense of rhythm, makes her sound like absolutely no one else.

Newton made three albums in collaboration with bassist Joëlle Léandre for Leo Records in the late 1990s and early 2000s. In an interview with drummer and writer Bill Elgart, she says, “Working with Joëlle is always fun as well as intense! She is an extremely dedicated musician, composer, and foremost, a contrabass player. In our concerts, her sense of humor can surface at any point which opens up a whole new range of material to improvise with. Or she might suddenly begin mumbling a nonsensical story while playing or start singing with me! I’ve never experienced a dull moment with Joëlle.”

18 Colors, their first recorded encounter, was tracked direct to DAT in February 1996 and released in 1998. Each piece has a vivid, fanciful name that sounds like a color someone just invented, or like a snippet from a poem by John Ashbery. Newton coos, moans, and lets notes rise and fall at length. Sometimes the sounds she makes can only be described as tuned exhalations. Léandre’s bass zings, rumbles, scrapes and squalls, matching Newton’s vocal leaps with an astonishing imitative capability, or harmonizing in a way that’s both unexpected and exactly right. I’ve never heard a record like this, and neither have you, probably.

Out Of Sound is actually a trio release; Newton and Léandre were joined by saxophonist Urs Leimgruber in a German studio in March 2001. She sings a little more conventionally on this disc, but that’s to provide a contrast with the other two, who are operating in zones of extreme abstraction at all times. Leimgruber is making kissy noises, clapping his valves, and squealing like a teakettle, but rarely emitting any sound conventionally identified with a saxophone, and Léandre is often bowing the bass in its upper register, creating an ominous scraping sound. This allows Newton to get operatic, but remain wordless.

Face It!, the final Newton/Léandre release on Leo, documents a 2005 concert in Le Mans. The tracks are simply called “Face It” 1 through 10, and they’re much more aggressive and less reserved than the material on either studio release. These are high-energy, theatrical improvisations; some of the most powerful remind me of extreme vocal performers like Diamanda Galás and Tanya Tagaq. When I listen, I picture Newton stalking the stage like Medea, microphone in hand, occasionally glancing at her scene partner as Léandre plucks and bows out thunderous waves of sound. (Note: “Face It 6” is a reworking of “Alizerin Madder Purple” from 18 Colors.)

All three of these albums are extraordinary demonstrations of fierce improvisatory energy and a breathtaking conceptual and technical confidence. These two women (and their saxophonist friend) execute on a level that makes 99% of “avant-garde improv” feel as low-stakes as indie rock. Buy them all; you’ll be sorry if you don’t.

If you’re a free subscriber, that’s it for this week. Behind the paywall, though, paying subscribers will find essays on Harry Crews; the 1960s NYC film underground; Bill Burr; and the sex lives of young people. And next week is the Half-Year Roundup, my list of the 50 (or so) best albums of January-June 2025! Get excited!