On May 15 and 16 in 2025, the Immanuel Wilkins Quartet entered the Village Vanguard, New York City’s legendary jazz room, to record the saxophonist’s first ever live outing. It is the first of three volumes from those shows: Vol. 2 was released in April, and Vol. 3 in May. In addition to Wilkins’ alto horn, the quartet consists of pianist Micah Thomas, bassist Ryoma Takenaga, and drummer Kweku Sumbry. The entire project contains just 13 tracks: four lengthy tracks appear here. This music is wildly creative, making for intense listening as this group improvises in the moment and communicates seemingly instinctively.
The 14-minute-plus “Warriors” opens the set. Its introduction is balladic before the band follows Sumbry’s frenetic drumming and the pace…
Category: live
Hurray for the Riff Raff release Live Forever, a new live record on the exact two-year anniversary of The Past Is Still Alive-named one of the Best Albums of the 2020s So Far by Pitchfork, and one of the Best Albums of 2024 by the New York Times, Atlantic, Associated Press, NPR Music, Rolling Stone, Billboard, Out, Mojo, Uncut, and a multitude of others.
Live Forever was captured over the course of two sold-out summer nights at the Old Town School of Folk Music in bandleader Alynda Segarra’s new home of Chicago. Spanning 14 songs, Live Forever presents The Past Is Still Alive in its entirety, as well as a selection of Hurray for the Riff Raff’s show-stopping, set-defining staples: decrying ICE on the poetic “Precious Cargo”…
This release from instrumental drone trio Setting (Nathan Bowles, Jaime Fennelly and Joseph Westerlund) sees them complete a trio of live albums before they drop their second studio effort next year. at Public Records was recorded last spring when the band descended on Brooklyn to play a bill with Philadelphia band BASIC (previous Setting live albums at Eulogy and at Black Mountain College Museum were recorded in the band’s home state of North Carolina).
In a sense, this set plays out as more of a sibling piece to Eulogy than Black Mountain, with a darker and more urgent feel in places than the latter. After an edgy start, combining percussion that sounds like ghosts in the attic with eerie beeps and an insidious, undulating drone…
Asia are back and roaring in their new, exhilarating line-up! Recorded live on the first of three unforgettable nights at Trading Boundaries in Sussex, in April 2025, this release captures the band performing their iconic 1982 debut album “ASIA” in full, along with a selection of their greatest hits.
Featuring Geoff Downes (keys), Virgil Donati (drums – ex-Planet X), John Mitchell (guitars – Arena, It Bites etc.) and the astonishing Harry Whitley (on bass and vocals), this fresh incarnation of Asia brings both reverence for the classics and a thrilling new energy to the stage. The setlist includes fan favourites like “Heat Of The Moment”, “Only Time Will Tell”, “Sole Survivor”, “One Step Closer” and “Time Again”, alongside video-era…
Just weeks before unveiling their highly anticipated third studio album, Getting Killed, New York City’s Geese take the stage at The Blue Room at Third Man Records in Nashville to debut the record in full. Recorded live, direct-to-acetate, the performance captures the band’s raw intensity and the electricity of a sold-out crowd hanging on every note, bottling the urgency and excitement surrounding one of the most talked-about bands of the moment.
What makes Geese compelling live is their ability to simultaneously feel tight and sprawling. Songs move with the precision of a disciplined ensemble, yet there’s always room for chaos and spontaneity—moments that suggest the band is discovering themselves as much as the audience is discovering them. It’s a paradoxical energy…
In 1974, Phaedra redefined the landscape of electronic music. What began as an experimental session at Richard Branson’s Manor Studios in Oxfordshire became a seismic event in modern sound.
Using the Moog sequencer for the first time, Tangerine Dream – then comprised of Edgar Froese, Christopher Franke, and Peter Baumann – crafted an album brimming with innovation, mystery and discovery.
Half a century later, Tangerine Dream performed the landmark album at London’s Barbican, reimagining it for a new era.
50 Years of Phaedra: At The Barbican captures a transcendent live performance, in which the current line-up – Thorsten Quaeschning…
…’Power to the People’ features 9CD, 123 tracks (90 of which are previously unreleased) to chronicle the story of Lennon and Ono’s political activism, spanning the prolific period between 1969’s anthem “Give Peace a Chance” and 1972’s controversial live album ‘Sometime in New York City’ as well as that year’s One to One concerts at Madison Square Garden.
The most challenging of John Lennon’s post-Beatles albums, there was latterly an additional barrier to Some Time in New York City being afforded the lavish box set treatment: namely that opening track, the still contentious, ‘Woman Is the N***** of the World’.
With said song now removed, a newly remixed version of the album – retitled New York City…
What makes a great Springsteen concert is deeply subjective and often tied to what we bring to the occasion ourselves: who went with us (my future husband!); when we saw it (the day after graduation!); how long have we been looking forward to it (finally, after 11 years the E Street Band is reuniting!).
What makes for a thrilling Springsteen concert is perhaps more definable. An element of the unexpected plays a significant role, and for those who see many shows and tours, getting songs in the set that we’ve never witnessed before. Some of the thrill lies in the risk the artist takes in playing material that’s not battle-hardened; we feel rewarded by the chances they’ve taken on us.
It’s in this context of thrilling that a night like…
YODOK III is something of a catch-all outfit, part free improvisation, part post-rock, part ambient, and a few other parts. The group consists of Tomas Järmyr (drums), Kristoffer Lo (tuba), and Dirk Serries (guitar), who have been performing and recording together for over a decade. Here, they are joined by organist Petra Bjørkhaug on a 54-minute improvised set recorded live at the Nidarosdomen Cathedral in Trondheim.
The album consists of one self-titled piece that begins quiet – not just ambient but hovering at the edge of perception – and slowly builds into a crescendo of sound nearly a hour later. Nidarosdomen’s organ has 9600 pipes and this performance must have been a spectacle, with subsonic frequencies that you could feel…
Concord Music Group reissue R.E.M. at the BBC, originally released in 2018, the comprehensive broadcast collection from R.E.M.
R.E.M. grew up with the BBC, and this historic relationship is lovingly celebrated across an incredible collection that beautifully illustrates the career trajectory of one of modern music’s greatest bands. The collection—available as a super-deluxe edition 8-CD/1-DVD box set, as well as 2-CD, 2-LP and digital formats—comprises a treasure trove of rare and unreleased live and studio recordings culled from theBBC and band archives. This is a must-have collection for R.E.M. fans and an authoritative introduction for newcomers.
In-studio performances featured in the 8-CD/1-DVD box set include a John Peel Session…
In 1971 several dozen African American soul, jazz, and gospel artists embarked on a journey that would change the lives of everyone involved. They traveled from New York City to Ghana, West Africa to take part in a 13-hour concert entitled Soul to Soul. The concert was a celebration of 14 years of Ghana’s independence from British rule. For most of these artists it was their first trip to Africa. For the African American musicians, this was a journey about personal roots, the ancestral homeland, history, discovery, loss, pain and joy.
Directed by Academy AwardⓇ winner Denis Sanders and produced by Tom Mosk & Richard Bock, the concert film/documentary had a limited theatrical run in 1971. It now returns restored with the original edit reconstructing each scene…
All Duke Ellington concerts offered music of substance. Audiences listened patiently through the medleys and Tony Watkins’ vocals. Some performances, however, stood apart because they contained material that was fresh — music not yet worn thin by repetition, where both the thinking and playing could still surprise.
Ellington, Billy Strayhorn, and the orchestra toured Asia (the “Far East”) in 1963. Rather than immediately writing new compositions, they deliberately allowed the impressions of the journey to settle, preferring that the process of transformation occur naturally rather than risk producing a mere pastiche.
Ellington’s “The Far East Suite” (RCA 1966) was eventually recorded over three days, from…
The Nakibembe Embaire Group’s self-titled debut album was one of the highlights of 2023. Nyege Nyege Tapes captured the disappearing East African tradition of the embaire, a giant wooden xylophone designed to be played by as many as eight musicians at a time. The instrument can be the social center of a village, placed in a deep pit to amplify what is already a powerful sound.
On its own, the embaire ensemble generates a huge amount of energy. Repeating, overlapping figures are a kind of proto-minimalism, Steve Reich without the precise, bookish glaze.
…The result is their live collaboration with Japanese live-sound engineer Naoyuki Uchida, Phantom Keys. Six men do their thing on the embaire, while Uchida applies his live-dub…
Bring Out the Foos: Live 1996, released by Rhino Records, opens a raw and revealing window into a pivotal moment in Ween’s evolution. Drawn from previously unreleased archival recordings, the album documents Gene and Dean Ween’s 1996 summer run opening for Foo Fighters during Dave Grohl’s first major tour with his then-new band. It captures Ween at their most stripped-down and unpredictable, operating on instinct, chemistry, and sheer nerve.
Historically, this release matters because it preserves the final documented chapter of Ween performing live as a two-piece. Backed primarily by a DAT machine (with occasional live bass), the duo leans hard into the lo-fi chaos and humor that define their early years.
By 1962, Wes Montgomery had already changed the way jazz guitar sounded. A self-taught player from Indianapolis, he built his style around his thumb instead of a pick, creating a warm, rounded tone that cut through without ever sounding harsh. His use of octaves became a signature, but what really set him apart was his sense of structure; his solos felt organized, intentional, and grounded in melody. Full House, recorded live at Tsubo in Berkeley, captures Montgomery in a straight-ahead setting, backed by Johnny Griffin on sax, Wynton Kelly on piano, Paul Chambers on bass, and Jimmy Cobb on drums. It’s one of the clearest documents of his small-group strength. As part of Craft Recordings ‘ Original Jazz Classics series, Full House is being reissued on 180-gram vinyl…
Pet Shop Boys release a Blu-ray/CD of their concert film Dreamworld: The Greatest Hits Live at the Royal Arena Copenhagen. The film captures the spectacular stage show of the Pet Shop Boys tour with dazzling visuals and a bumper set list packed with classic hits, including “West End Girls,” “Suburbia,” “Opportunities (Let’s Make Lots Of Money),” “Left To My Own Devices,” “Rent,” “Domino Dancing,” “Love Comes Quickly,” “Always On My Mind,” and “It’s A Sin.”
The film was recorded at the Royal Arena in Copenhagen in July 2023 as part of Pet Shop Boys’ critically acclaimed Dreamworld: The Greatest Hits Live Tour. Directed by the renowned David Barnard, the film was captured using a 14-camera 4K shoot to ensure an immersive experience for viewers.