U.S. jazz-funksters Lettuce are firmly rooted in the late-sixties/seventies when artists such as James Brown/Maceo Parker and Tower of Power held sway. With the popularity of disco in the late-seventies many erudite funksters crossed over, so we had the likes of Earth, Wind & Fire regularly raiding the charts.
As previously, this band are also close in spirit to The Meters who were pioneers of nascent funk/R&B, characterised by their 1969 hit ‘Cissy Strut’.
The interjection of a sharp twin-horn/brass section (Ryan ‘Zoid’ Zoidis, Eric ‘Benny’ Bloom) is a highlight as on opener ‘Grewt Up’ which reminds a little of the swing of Hugh Masekela’s ‘Grazing In The Grass’, although with suitably…
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Live God is the new live album from Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds. It’s a stunning testament to the transcendent Wild God Tour, which wowed audiences across the UK, Europe and North America, and which travels to Australia and New Zealand in 2026.
The tracklist includes performances of songs from the acclaimed 2024 studio album Wild God, as well as mind-blowing versions of catalogue favourites, such as ‘From Her to Eternity’, ‘Papa Won’t Leave You, Henry’ and ‘Into My Arms’.
…Cave described the shows as “an antidote to despair”, with longtime drummer and percussionist Jim Sclavunos agreeing that “this tour seemed distinctly more embracing of a love of life”.
“‘Transcendental’ is too pretentious a word,…
It’s likely that Elliot Cox didn’t consciously write these songs as celebrations. They aren’t anthems that would fill a stadium with people singing along. Instead, they are heartfelt celebrations of innocence, the exhilaration of change, the courage of youth and the optimism of love, as well as the changing seasons of both nature and the heart.
Cox was born in Gloucestershire, England, raised in Brisbane, Australia, and now splits his time between the latter and London. After receiving his degree in Music Technology, he took his songs on the road, or more accurately, to the streets as he busked across the UK and Europe. The intimacy of singing to small groups of strangers may explain why Cox’s songs are so personal. They seem to come directly from his experiences as he…
Rachel Bobbitt arrived in Toronto from the hinterlands a few years ago, meeting up with similarly rural-born but city-loving musicians like Justice Der (her bandmate in dream-pop-into-hip-hop Call More).Her work in Swimming Towards Sand, then, elevates the drone and dirge of alt-folk into soaring multi-vocal pop, shimmering with the clarion tunefulness of Sharon van Etten and Jenny O.
Consider, for instance, the opener, “Don’t Cry,” which germinates from a buzzing, groaning long-tone, an archaically folky sound. Yet, it soon expands into euphoric pop, kicking into gear half a minute in with a burst of drumming and a swell of choral vocals. In anthemic mode, Bobbitt’s voice is remarkably pure, relentlessly…
During the pandemic, Mike Hollon headed to Irving Park with a guitar, a notebook, and a bottle of wine. It was a period that inspired his debut album, and one he still remembers, saying, “I can take myself back there and it calms me.” Calm and confident are two words that best describe the eleven tracks on Irving Park, despite its initial recording being disrupted by Hurricane Helene, which destroyed the bar Hollon was working in at the time. A vintage baritone ukulele bought in Madrid adds atmosphere to the bright and breezy ‘Love’ and ‘Movin’ Along’. But it’s not all sunny skies and smiles; there’s some serious substance here. The opening ‘1000 Days’ is a post-breakup song where Hollon reflects on “a thousand days spent looking back.” While the blues-influenced ‘Fool No More’…
“Introducing Self Portrait, the latest chapter from the endlessly inventive one-man force Ryan Adams — a brand-new, 24-track album that brings together fresh, unheard originals alongside spellbinding reinterpretations of classics by R.E.M., New Order and more.
Capturing restless creativity and emotional depth across the two dozen songs, this bold collection once again proves why Ryan Adams is one of the most distinctive voices in modern music. Self Portrait shows Adams at his finest – poignant, unpredictable and sonically rich. For long-time fans, it’s another essential chapter in a prolific career, for newcomers, it is the perfect entry point into the world of Ryan Adams.
This project isn’t just another album from…
The compositional scene of South Africa remains little-known to listeners outside that country, and it is notable that this collection of South African string quartets does not overlap in the least, not even by composer, with the most famous foreign investigation, the Kronos Quartet’s Pieces of Africa album of 1992.
A Dark Flaring covers music written over a span of more than 70 years, from Priaulx Rainier (1903- 1986) to Robert Fokkens (b. 1975); a poem written by the latter, accompanying his three-movement Glimpses of a half-forgotten future (2012), gives the album its title. They are quite a varied group, ranging from a unique virtuoso Impressionist language in Rainier’s quartet to angry rock inflections in Matthijs van Dijk’s…
There have been many iconic film director-and-composer pairings, among them Rota and Fellini, Morricone and Leone, Hisaishi and Miyazaki, and Williams and Spielberg, but none is greater than the one involving Alfred Hitchcock and Bernard Herrmann. To this day, the music he created for Psycho, Vertigo, and North By Northwest is the gold standard, even if the composer contributed to a great many more of the director’s projects than those three. In fashioning an album-length portrait of Hitchcock, it would have been easy for pianist Matteo Monico to assemble a programme featuring Herrmann exclusively, yet the pianist did something more interesting by including other composers too. To that end, the portrait not only includes selections from the aforementioned…
The broadside, as a form of communication, has a long and relatively complex history on both sides of the Atlantic, straddling the boundaries between politics and musical entertainment. As a composer, sound artist and folk musician with an interest in social commentary, Weston Olencki is highly aware of that history. In 2023, they embarked on a grand tour of the southern United States, beginning in their home state of South Carolina, with the initially loose objective of recording the sounds and songs of the region.
Broadsides is the crystallisation of that journey, the sound diary of a road trip. It begins with a scene-setting prelude based on the sounds collected from a railway station (the immediately striking thing about this: the timelessness…
The Brooklyn-based RVNG label has been putting out installments of their FRKWYS series since 2009, pairing artists across generations and letting creative sparks fly. It was barely more than happenstance that led to Arnold Dreyblatt working with an avant-rock quartet from Baltimore, but the result couldn’t be more natural. It fits neatly into the discographies of both Horse Lords and Dreyblatt, yet neither one would’ve produced anything quite like this on their own.
Horse Lords have reached a sizable audience by taking arcane elements – ’60s minimalism and just intonation – and transmuting them into something that, if not danceable, will get your foot tapping. While they take their tuning system seriously–altoist Andrew Bernstein has gone…
Based in the Ecuadorian Andes, ‘neotraditional’ Jatun Mama, AKA producer Jesús Atzil Bonilla, reshapes the music of his native land in modernised settings, often employing electronic backing. Both ‘Jatun Chica’ and ‘Chificha Pugru’ are prime examples of his idiosyncratic and playful approach, adding pulsing electronic beats to ritual kichwa singing and Andean instrumentation.
What makes it work is the obvious reverence shown to the original source material, which is placed centre stage rather than treated as an adjunct to the beats, studio trickery and instrumental backing. Much of ‘Gulacpamba’ features raw and unadorned Andean singing and traditional instrumentation before being given subtle ambient backing. ‘Chiri Paramo’ takes the rhythms of…
Best known for his vocal, kora and balafon work with the glorious Afro Celt Sound System, N’Faly Kouyaté now shows that he has all the makings of a solo star.
He is, after all, an impressive musician; he comes from a distinguished griot family in Guinea and studied at the Royal Conservatory of Belgium. On this self-described “Pan-African Sonic Manifesto” he shows off his skills as a thoughtful singer-songwriter on a set dominated by electronica, percussion and stirring and tuneful ballads.
Kora and balafon solos are also included, of course, but what is most impressive here is the range and intensity of his vocal work, as he switches from intimate and direct songs like ‘Departure’ to the commanding ‘Mökhöya’ or…
Ah, Ghana Special: Modern Highlife, Afro Sounds & Ghanaian Blues 1968-81 — a classic compilation. Released in 2009 by Soundway Records, it’s an epic five-LP set held in the highest esteem by those among us whose attention was caught by the fiery sounds of old West African music. Sixteen years later, the label is giving the album a second life by whittling it down into a lean 10-song suite titled Ghana Special: Highlife. Dedicated fans of retro Ghanaian sounds might be disappointed by the lack of fresh catches here (Soundway did actually release a direct sequel last year), but that doesn’t diminish the fact that every song is a killer example of how great this music could be. And given the shorter running time when compared to its lengthy forefather, it’s easy to envision…
In 2022, the San Diego punk-rock supergroup of Pinback’s Rob Crow, Rocket from the Crypt’s John Reis and Atom Willard, and Mrs. Magician’s Jordan Clark released a debut album as Plosivs. By that time, the band had already started work on its follow-up, albeit in less than ideal circumstances. Already hemmed in at a Winnipeg studio due to COVID-19 lockdowns, the band was stranded by a massive Arctic storm and forced to work by candlelight in below freezing conditions. (To quote the label copy, “Imagine a band trying making a record in John Carpenter’s The Thing.”) But record the group did, eventually overcoming the dark period of the album’s creation to complete the claustrophobic recordings and release them, as Yell at Cloud, on Reis’ stalwart label Swami.
Tulpa may have been formed by members of U.K. post-punk acts like Mush and Drahla, but here, led by the bright, crystal-clear vocals of singer/bassist Josie Kirk, they apply their skills to tuneful indie pop. But that’s not to say that their sound doesn’t let in bits of darkness, strangeness, and dissonance through the cracks. The endeavor won them some plum opening slots (Throwing Muses, Pale Blue Eyes, Bug Club) and a record deal with Skep Wax before they even released any music. The band, named for a mythical being conjured by intense concentration, do just that on their debut album, Monster of the Week.
After a sauntering “Theme” showcases their dual guitar approach, first song “Transfixed Gaze” establishes a warm, just slightly off-balance…
…Intrada has prepped one of the most notable as-yet unreleased scores by composer James Newton Howard: his 1990 work for the sci-fi drama Flatliners. It’s a score that has deserved a release for the past 35 years and one of the last major Howard scores to have never been released in any format. It’s a massive work, composed for large orchestra and chorus. Befitting the hyperreal style of the film, the composer tackles big ideas like spirituality and religion head on, with a score as grand as the themes suggest. As Howard recalls, “Some memories I have were having a 90-piece orchestra for the first time to do whatever I wanted and bringing in all kinds of different electronics and sampled stuff, including a specific ‘monkey chant’ from Bali. The main idea for…
35th Anniversary reissue of Oscar-winning composer Maurice Jarre’s original motion picture score to the 1990 thriller ‘Jacob’s Ladder’.
…Jacob’s Ladder was an exercise in surreal, psychological horror – a tale of a Vietnam veteran haunted by dark, unexplained visions. Legendary composer Maurice Jarre provided a fitting score packed with unusual flourishes, from unique instruments to haunting electronic work by Michael Boddicker, a notable synth player on works by Michael Jackson, Lionel Richie and others.
Tim Robbins, Elizabeth Peña, Danny Aiello and Macaulay Culkin (whose career was about to go supernova within weeks of this film’s release thanks to Home Alone) starred, and Jarre’s fusion of electronics and orchestral ideas was…
Bassist Jakob Dryer searched for a new sound for his third album as a leader. He has, for his previous two releases, expressed his art via the standard quartet — sax, bass, drums and piano. For Roots and things, the piano is replaced by Sasha Berliner’s vibraphone, joining the leader’s other new- to-the-fold sidemen, saxophonist Tivon Pennicott and drummer Kenneth Salters.
A vibraphone in the group is an inspired choice. The instrument is seeing a 2024/2025 resurgence. Blue Note Records, in particular, brings the instrument into the mix on albums by like Gerald Clayton’s Ones& Twos (2025), Johnathan Blake’s, Homeward Bounds (2024) and Joel Ross’ Nublues (2024). The luminous sustain of the instrument’s sound lends a sheen of…
Kenny Barron’s offering Songbook is a deeply personal milestone in the pianist’s career. Long regarded as one of the most lyrical voices in modern jazz, Barron fulfills a long-held dream by revisiting thirteen of his original compositions, now reimagined with words by lyricist Janice Jarrett and performed by a talented cast of vocalists spanning different generations.
Joined by his longtime trio with bassist Kiyoshi Kitagawa and drummer Johnathan Blake, Barron creates an album that effortlessly blends instrumental mastery with vocal expression.
The album opens with Jeannie Taylore enriching “Beyond This Place” with her soulful presence, delivering a gospel-infused performance that captures the spiritual essence of classic…
“You can’t tell a book by looking at its cover,” as Bo Diddley so memorably reminded us. And that cliché applies to the art adorning Americana/blues rocker Randy Lee Riviere’s Farmland Blues.
What appears on the outside like a comfy folk album due to the tranquil painting of a farmhand carrying a sack and a few horses in a field, doesn’t prepare you for the raw, frequently riveting, guitar-based rocking dominating the generous 15 track, hour-long disc.
The singer/songwriter splits time between two professions and locales. He has residences in Montana where he’s a wildlife biologist (some songs reference environmental issues) and Nashville for when he’s in singer/songwriting mode. Also essential to Riviere’s success…