Dear Posterity

If too much talk about genres and categories and who’s on what side of various imaginary geographies is leaving your ear longing for actual notes, you might take a spin through The Nitrate Hymnal. The multimedia opera, penned by Bob Massey and David Wilson, muddies up the water between avant-classical and post-punk with a mix of sound drawn out of the Anti-Social Music kids and the Gena Rowlands Band. They all got together to stage the video-with-live-score show three years ago in D.C. and then recorded it over three caffeine-fueled days in Brooklyn in 2005. Though cut into “songs” to make a manageable album, the tracks are best served as a cohesive whole. You could uncomfortably file this record in a lot of different bins in your favorite record store, but it will probably fit a little neater in your house once you’ve heard it for yourself. I’ll be keeping my copy right next to Hood, but for all I know you could be filing yours next to Slow Six.

—MS