French TV’s latest CD, The Spanish Caper, is the 16th in their long history and their 2nd for Cuneiform.
Disc One is new songs recorded in Spain featuring charter member bassist/composer Mike Sary, guitarist Kasumi Yoneda (also from the Japanese band TEE), long-time drummer Jeff Gard, plus members of the French band Mentat Routage (who also make up French TV’s line-up when touring Europe).
The second disc is a collection of somewhat-obscure rock covers from the late 60s-early 70s. Songs featured include deep tracks from Iron Butterfly, Kinks, Mountain, Spirit, Procol Harum, Traffic, Steppenwolf, The Guess Who, James Gang and more The line-up…
Latest Entries »
Michael: Songs from the Motion Picture is the official companion album to the brand-new biopic, Michael. This album highlights 13 songs showcased in the film, spanning from The Jackson 5 to The Jacksons to Michael’s chart-topping solo success with “Off the Wall” and “Thriller.”
…Filling the superstar’s shoes is his nephew (and son of brother Jermaine) Jaafar Jackson, who reportedly will do some of his own singing in the film. Despite that, the soundtrack features only Michael’s original vocals. The movie’s screenplay has been penned by Academy Award nominee and Tony winner John Logan (Gladiator, The Aviator on film; Red, Moulin Rouge! on stage) and also stars Colman Domingo as Joe Jackson, Nia Long as Katherine Jackson, Kendrick Sampson…
L8 Antique have been winning converts on the Johannesburg circuit since the mid-2000s.
Usually performing with just four people on stage, the group’s rhythm section wove such tight polyrhythms that it gave the feel of a larger ensemble. This sound blended well with the soulful approach of former lead singer Phumla Siyobi, who was an iconic presence. With the emergence of a new lead vocalist, Itumeleng ‘Manyanga’ Mothomoholo, the band has reorientated itself. Manyanga’s style is elemental, drawing from Balobedu cosmology, with lyrics subsumed by melodies and chants that sound channelled. While the group’s original cross-rhythms remain, in this, the group’s debut, they sit within a more dramatic sound, featuring brass choruses,…
-1 outside / 24 inside documents collaborations between Zhao Cong and Kevin Corcoran when the two were in Beijing to perform at a series run by Aloe Records. After the show, the two spent an evening recording outside in an underpass below a major bridge on the northeastern stretch of Beijing’s 3rd Ring Road. Then later, they spent an afternoon recording in a studio often used to present shows. Both of these musicians focus on the materiality of sound and the processes of sound creation, delving in to the tiniest detailed textures and timbres of objects they utilize. Zhao is credited with “rotating mobile phone stand, karaoke light, tape recorder, etc.” and Corcoran with “snare drum, objects, and feedback.” But both Zhao and Corcoran are also keenly interested in…
On her latest album, Delphine Dora is concerned with temporality, its pace and pressures it produces. L’ineluctable pulsation du temps finds the French pianist, composer and improviser summoning a gentle collection of piano cycles with drone undertows. The record took shape during a time of intense touring, while Dora was simultaneously busy engaging with writings on acceleration and alienation by Hartmut Rosa, a “sociologist of speed”.
According to Rosa, capitalist societies are programmed for constant economic growth, which forces us into a rat race, approaching the world instrumentally and as a competition. It may sound too esoteric for a German sociologist, but Rosa proposes a different mode of…
The release of Mitski’s concert film The Land and its accompanying live album last autumn consolidated her status as a kind of art-school Taylor Swift: glancingly elusive but still capable of grand emotional spectacle.
Recorded with her live band, Nothing’s About to Happen to Me showcases Mitski’s gift for cutting vintage musical theatre stylings and half-lit Americana with acerbic art-pop, the jaunty list-song ‘Rules’ or the chaotic evil ‘Where’s My Phone?’ almost sharing a theatrical moment with current-day David Byrne.
‘That White Cat’ simmers with jarring anger at parasitic forces who seek to commodify and consume while ‘Dead Women’s disturbing Lana Del Cohen transmission features the lyric…
A project established by two veterans of the Stockholm indie scene to delve into (circa) 1980s inspirations like post-punk, new wave, jangle pop, and indie pop, Salt Lake Alley combined these styles while favoring post-punk on their 2020 full-length debut. While they leaned more heavily into jangle and indie pop with the follow-up, their third album, Always Out of Time, finds them expanding their lineup to four and committing almost fully to a giddy, bittersweet indie pop veiled in shimmer and echo. Members Gustav Tranback, Mikael Carlsson, and later personnel Fredrik Jalker and Thomas Aherne hail from like-minded and not-quite-as-like-minded Swedish acts such as the Honeydrips, the Garlands, and Paper Hearts, among several others.
Until recently, Riya Mahesh’s biography nailed nearly every beat of all-American academic achievement, following a familiar arc from early piano lessons to being crowned prom queen, like Olivia Rodrigo’s well-adjusted Wario. But after hitting a snag and failing to get into Juilliard (happens…), the musician regrouped during the pandemic with a SoundCloud account, a trial run of Logic, and nothing to lose.
As Quiet Light, the Texas-born, Boston-based producer has gone on to release multiple albums of increasingly accomplished art pop, along the way nabbing opening spots for Nilüfer Yanya, Chanel Beads, Ana Roxanne, and Hovvdy. Naturally, she’s managed all this while also powering through medical school.
Having honed his live chops over many years not only as a solo artist, but also with the celebrated groups The Frames and The Swell Season, Glen Hansard is rightly regarded as a masterful live performer. Recorded over two nights last year in Berlin’s Funkhaus – an historic former radio facility – Don’t Settle (Vol 1, Transmissions East) draws from all stages of the singer’s storied career, making for a powerful and spellbinding listen.
The record kicks off with the title track, which builds from atmospheric ballad to stirring rocker, with a notably streak of defiance: “When they pin you to the corner / Pay no need to their dronin’ on”.
Filled with apocalyptic imagery, ‘Down On Our Knees’ is a driving, intense number with echoes of Joy Division, while the haunting…
With their breakthrough hit ‘Into The Valley’ in 1979, Dunfermline, Scotland’s premier export Skids quickly rose to become one of the most respected and popular bands to emerge from the UK punk and new wave era. Founding members Richard Jobson (vocals) and Stuart Adamson (guitars) were a dynamic combination up front (Adamson went on to even greater commercial success when he later founded Big Country) while the band’s tight, taut sound was grounded by William Simpson on bass and first Tom Kellichan and later Mike Baillie on drums.
Always considered up there with the greatest among their peers – The Jam, Siouxsie And The Banshees, and The Stranglers, for example – both singles and albums showcased…
At the Jazz Showcase: Live in Chicago is the first ever release of piano legend Ahmad Jamal’s trio captured live at Joe Segal’s Jazz Showcase in Chicago on March 20-21, 1976.
In many ways Jamal entered the scene at the height of bebop with an approach unlike almost any of his contemporaries – rooted in spacing, tension and release, with an uncanny ability to perform lines most would call “busy” while making every note choice sound smooth, logical and inevitable. His influence on pianists from Bill Evans and McCoy Tyner to Herbie Hancock and Fred Hersch, and his enduring admiration from Miles Davis, speak to the singular place he occupies in the music.
Here Jamal leads a remarkable trio with bassist John Heard and longtime drummer…
Michael Stephen Brown’s bona fides as a classical pianist were well-accounted for by his 2021 release Noctuelles and its Medtner and Ravel content. The NYC-based Brown (b. 1987) now demonstrates his prowess as a composer with this debut collection of all-original works. The seven presented speak to the versatility and imagination of their creator in featuring solo piano pieces, chamber works, and art songs. Whereas the piano setting Four Lakes for Children (2024) nods in the direction of Impressionism, the vocal-and-piano work Love’s Lives Lost (2023) flirts with the theatricality of a flamboyant Broadway score. There is variety aplenty in the material, and variety too in the arrangements, with the composer appearing as a solo pianist and accompanist to soprano…
Is there more than mere semantics to the difference between remodeled and remixed? A remix takes the components of an original track, breaks them down and puts them back in a different order. A remodel may also include new components. AGATE is a set of “material refined through repeated performance.” The more Meitei performed pieces from his Kofū trilogy, the more he refined their sound, a process akin to the formation of agate. Three pieces survive the transition from Kofū; one crosses over from Kofū II; and two are remodeled from Kofū III, only six out of thirty-four tracks, plus a new piece that launches the set. The final product extends the discussion on whether there is ever a definitive version of a track; for Meitei, the music evolves with the performer.
Joseph Branciforte & Jozef Dumoulin are kindred spirits, with their musical inclinations leaning towards improvisation, experimentation, and the testing of the limits of musical forms.
Branciforte, based in New York, constructs and produces process-based music – often implementing electronic keyboards – through his prolific label greyfade. Dumoulin, from Belgium, is recognized for his role in redefining the Fender Rhodes electric piano as a 21st-century instrument through extensive electronic manipulation. A chance meeting more than a decade ago led to the two of them recording what would become ITERAE, a record that brings together their passion for imbuing the Rhodes with electronics and processing.
Bruce Springsteen is currently on his ‘Land of Hope and Dreams’ US tour with Rage Against the Machine’s Tom Morello, a trek inspired by the Boss’ ongoing fury at the Trump regime, and in particular the killing of two Minneapolis citizens by ICE agents earlier this year.
Bruce and the E Street Band perform a 27-song set on night two at the Kia Forum in Inglewood.
Tour premieres of “Two Hearts” and “American Land” (last performed in 2017). “War”, “Clampdown” (written by Strummer/Jones, recorded by The Clash), “Streets of Minneapolis,” “House of a Thousand Guitars” (performed solo acoustic), and the show-closing cover of Bob Dylan’s “Chimes of Freedom” all appear; “Land of Hope and Dreams” is the main-set closer.
The most important inventions of the 8th century are often considered to be agricultural (horse shoes and collars, the heavy plough) or military (certain types of Viking sword and Native American arrowhead). While some of these things may have been revolutionary in their own way, this narrative plays down the advances that were being made in the social sphere, the arts, and, in particular, the realm of music. Depictions found on Pictish decorated stones suggest that thirteen hundred years ago, people in what is now Scotland were playing a harp-like instrument. That instrument became known as the clàrsach.
The striking thing about the clàrsach – other than its long history – is its potency as a political symbol. Both the Irish and Scottish forms of…
Triumvirate, pianist Billy Childs‘ fourth Mack Avenue outing, marks his first trio recording since the mid-’90s. He’s accompanied here by bassist Matt Penman (James Farm, SFJazz Collective) and drummer Ari Hoenig (Chris Potter Underground, Kurt Rosenwinkle Group). Childs has played with this rhythm section while backing others live, but this is his first ever recording with them. The program chosen for this eight-track set includes revisitations of tunes the pianist cut for Windham Hill during the ’80s, and one for Metropolitan Records during the late ’90s. There is one new composition and tunes by Thelonious Monk, Benny Golson, Miles Davis/Bill Evans, and John La Touche and Jerry Moss.
Opener “One Fleeting Instant” originally…
Clearly Dave Douglas is feeling it in 2026. The trumpeter/composer has already released the remarkable Four Freedoms this year, and now he’s lined up album #2. Transcend reunites the band with whom he recorded the exceptional Gifts: saxophonist James Brandon Lewis, guitarist Rafiq Bhatia, and drummer Ian Chang, adding the extraordinary Tomeka Reid on cello. While Gifts paid tribute to Duke Ellington’s co-composer Billy Strayhorn, Transcend salutes the man himself, with a similar blend of challenging originals and Ellington classics.
As on Gifts, Douglas takes advantage of his players’ unique skills. As members of experimental rock band Son Lux, Chang and Bhatia know how to casually kick holes in musical…
Alan Bishop’s latest album seems at first like a showcase of his music at its most rocking. But it’s also steeped in psych, folk, and desert blues, making good on Sun City Girls’ exploratory rep.
The long career of Arizona’s trio Sun City Girls went in every direction you could imagine, and many you probably couldn’t. Starting with a blast of hardcore-adjacent DIY cassettes, the band expanded its palette quickly, planting big, muddy footprints all over tons of styles and genres, some inherited and some invented. Mixing cross-cultural influences, sharp instrumental chops, and pranksterish jokes, Sun City Girls’ music (and insanely prolific release schedule) could make you wonder not only how they did it, but what exactly “it” was—and whether even they knew.
…Alongside an acoustic rendition of album standout “Surviving You,” ‘Nested in Tangles (Deluxe)’ features an extended dance mix of “A Body, A Map,” Mary Lattimore on the newly expanded “Beholden to the Birds Murmuring Above,” as well as a voice and trombone rework of its title track.
Following her critically acclaimed 2024 album Keeper of the Shepherd, composer, vocalist, guitarist, and poet Hannah Frances returns with Nested in Tangles.
…In her winding constructions and gleefully lush arrangements, once again assembled with close collaborator Kevin Copeland, the Vermont-based singer-songwriter evokes many generations of proggy, jazzy indie rock far too sophisticated…