the politics of being – Joel Noct Brinson (2026) – Album Review

Album: the politics of being

Artist: Joel Noct Brinson

Release Date: May 29, 2026

Label: el manto

Walking through Northeast Portland on a 65 degree June day, that still somehow carries a brisk little blade in the air, just reminds me how small my world can get when I let it. It’s my own fault really. It’s one of the reasons I listen to ambient music. Ambient music is like sunlight to a flower … or even to a goblin. There’s a vicious little myth that goblins hate the sun – fucking slander. We love it. But sometimes we need a reason to go out into it to bask. Today the reason was walking to a little blue post fortress up the street to mail a postcard to a friend of mine who’s going through some health problems, and listening to Joel Noct‘s new album while the melancholy runs amok. Wait, is it my brain running amok? Looking around me while listening to track 2 (a thousand now), I see dozens of children stacked next to each other in the park chirping and chopping like a school of brim during feeding time at the docks. There’s that small world mentality again.

So, back to the sun. I heard a version of this album in live set format at a show last September on Denver Ave at Speck’s Records & Tapes – great record shop. Joel is a very intensely goofy person. Fuck, that sounds like an insult but if you met him you’d know what I mean. Joel takes artistic expression seriously in the way people should take it seriously. He commits to his work and lets the sound unfold to land where it may in one’s mind for better or for worse. All that while remaining funny, strange, and completely human around it. Life is full of actual problems. Expressing himself does not seem to be one of Joel’s. Anyway, the expression permeates throughout his work – and every interaction I’ve had with him at shows has been positive.

While listening to the long slopes of sound that rumble my headphones and murky reverbed velvet static, I’m reminded of how lucky I am to be around so many artists, so many musicians that are accessible. Hell, anyone going to shows regularly in Portland, Oregon is lucky. I think people need to understand that, for some of us, art is rooted in direct accessibility. One of the reasons Micro Genre Music exists is because it functions as a kind of equalizer of music. If it’s shaped by the conditions of social relations it can be shared, heard, and remembered by those of who know the artists. In that sense, accessibility becomes part of its meaning. Am I going to care more about music of the people I see at shows regularly and have a rapport with than millionaires who put out music once every decade? The answer is yes.

the politics of being is fantastic. It’s quite naked and the production feels intentionally raw. What’s the word I’m looking for here … it’s exposed. This album is being released on the tape label el manto – which is wild to me, because tape can be a dangerous little vessel for music like this. For an album built on lush tones, injecting it into a cassette is a gutsy decision. Joel acknowledges how abrasive the edges are and speaks of its delicacy and pressure. What I hear most clearly, though, is a soul. I cannot say with certainty what lives inside that soul, or what private weather shaped it, but I can hear it moving through the music. And to even have a soul in this day in age (on full display no less) is no small feat.

Time to break out the cassette player. Definitely give it a listen.