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Adrian Younge always has several projects on deck. In 2026 alone he produced and played on three releases from his and Ali Shaheed Muhammad’s Jazz Is Dead label, with one more coming. Further, his Linear Labs studio and label have issued three 2026 outings: the completely solo outing Younge, the EP Afro-Disco Makossa, and the forthcoming Proud of Me in collaboration with British singer/songwriter ALA.NI.
That’s a lot of work for one man, but Younge’s organic process makes it all possible. What’s more, he makes it look easy.
Afro-Disco Makossa was born from a single question: “What would a Ghanaian producer in ’76 have made if he set out to create an American disco record for his hometown?”…

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In Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s 2021 film Memoria, Tilda Swinton’s protagonist awakens in the middle of the night to a loud, startling sound with no clear source. The sound seems to follow her around in the days after, repeating at random intervals, but only she can hear it — a mystery that sends her on a journey deep into the Colombian jungle for answers. What she hears, a single note, is jarring and strangely physical, a sort of sonorous thud. It’s also a little musical, like industrial equipment accidentally clanking out a chord, shaking everything around it at a resonant frequency that’s more intriguing than terrifying. Similarly disruptive bass notes are all over Carmen Villain’s latest album, also called Memoria, which takes the bright, fourth-world…

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The record starts with a kick drum, before a looped bass enters, slowly lulling the listener into serenity before BANG! Guitars explode all across the microphone, electrical debris falling beneath the weight of towering riffs. Opening number “Loungeside” exposes a rock band as they mean to go on: without mercy, without manners, without restraint. Some of the guitar arpeggios resurrect the spirits of shoegazers Ride for a hurrah stuffed with reverb-oriented gusto.
The Fierce and the Dead have traditionally pivoted between stoner and psychedelic hooks, suffused with sultry grooves undulating beneath the murky words. “The 1234” maintains the momentum, battering drums angrily pulverising across the speakers, recalling Tony McCarroll’s…

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More than 25 years after the start of collaboration with Acid Mothers Temple mastermind Makoto Kawabata (including the INUI series and the classic Kawabata/Youngs release) comes the first proper VHF LP by the prolific quintet. One of an occasional series of “minimalism” inspired LPs by the group, “In a Not C” is a not a barely changing drone, but a wild ride with the band in full flight, rushing along in a glorious swirl of psychedelic madness. Like the band’s well-known 2001 version of Terry Riley’s “In C,” the group uses a small cell of repeating sound as a jumping off point and then gradually revs up to maximum velocity.
The current Acid Mothers Temple lineup has produced a series of fun and unique variants on the band’s longstanding signatures, with…

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Since 2012, Sam Sodomsky has quietly released lyrically elegant, musically sophisticated albums under the moniker The Bird Calls. His Bandcamp page has nearly three dozen releases, including singles, EPs, and full-length albums. If his latest record, Take Leave, is any indication, he’s not slowing down and is making his best music yet. Performed by Sodomsky and longtime collaborator Ryan Weiner, the songs on Take Leave are not only a culmination of this duo’s musical bona fides; they’re also all written by Sodomsky and take the listener on a journey informed by his vast musical tastes. In addition to his prolific recorded output, Sodomsky is also a veteran music journalist, and his songs (as well as the eclectic arrangements) carry the well-worn veneer of…

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The hermetic boxes that tend to get erected around traditional music can become suffocating for the people inside, and at least since Bob Dylan’s “Judas!” moment, that friction has yielded a lot of gold. Angela Autumn, the singer/songwriter nicknamed “the Rose of Appalachia,” broke into music with a bluegrass outfit called the Shelf Life String Band, and her first solo album, 2021’s Frontiers Woman, was deeply rooted in local trad styles. In 2023, Autumn started prodding at the boundaries of her folk milieu with the Willi Carlisle-featuring EP Cowboy Jack Clementine. Then came the surprise viral success of “Electric Lizard,” a vibey bit of indie psychedelia with a subtle dark streak. That song obliterated that stifling box once and for all. Autumn was free.

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Lucy Liyou’s work has always been almost painfully exposed, her preferred form being foggy collages seemingly because it’s the closest method to actually being in her brain, the affectations of traditional songcraft merely a barrier to getting into the real mulch of herself.
MR COBRA takes the form of what is essentially a radio play, though admittedly one fractured and shredded until it’s a long way from anything you’d get on Radio 4. But Liyou’s self-excavation is still present. In her own words, the record is “a revisionist retelling of a time back in high school when I fell in love with a predator.” She’s at her probing, terrifying best here.
Despite the confines of narrative, Liyou’s pieces still exist in constant motion, always a stream…

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Rush is the third outing from Lucian Ban & Elevation, and their first in a decade. The Romanian pianist assembled the group in 2006 with tenor saxophonist Abraham Burton, bassist John Hébert, and drummer Eric McPherson. Mystery, the group’s raw live debut, was recorded on-stage in 2010 and released in 2013 and included all original compositions by the band’s members. 2018’s Songs from Afar included several traditional works arranged by Ban and Hébert alongside originals; the lineup included two guests: violist Mat Maneri and Romanian vocalist/folklorist Gavril Tarmure. Ban composed eight of the nine pieces on Rush; the only exception, “Golden Oriole,” is a traditional Romanian song with vocals by Tarmure.
Opener “Dark Blue” is dedicated to Abdullah…

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…includes the recently-shared “World’s Always Burning” featuring Mannequin Pussy along with previously unreleased songs “I’ve Said Too Much” featuring Dazy, “3 AM,” and “Thought You Were Waving [Anthony’s Version],” which is a cover by Anthony Green (Circa Survive, L.S. Dunes, Saosin).
“I want to make pop rock music for people who are fucked up,” Militarie Gun frontman Ian Shelton said in a recent interview for the band’s new album, God Save the Gun. Shelton comes from hardcore punk, a world where fucked-up-ness is transmitted through vein-popping screamed vocals and antagonistic riffs. But with Militarie Gun, he’s always been more interested in spinning catharsis and confrontation into the biggest songs he possibly can. He spits and snarls, for sure, but then comes…

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Guitarist/composer Gyan Riley and guitarist/ producer Noah Georgeson were childhood friends in Nevada City, California, where they bonded over their love of classical guitar years before each carved his own successful, genre-diverse music career. (Riley has worked with the likes of John Zorn, Arooj Aftab, and his father, Terry Riley; Georgeson has collaborated with Fred Frith, Alvin Curran, and Joanna Newsom, to name a few.) Georgeson also went on to play with and produce multiple albums for freak folk artist and fellow guitar afficionado Devendra Banhart.
HUG is the trio of Riley, Georgeson, and Banhart, who got together at Sita Studio in Los Angeles without much of a plan in mind except to record some music together. The resulting…

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When you’ve got the goods like Buddy Miller, you can disappear for 15 years and return in such fine shape that one wonders if you ever left.
Think back to all those fine albums on Hightone and New West with Julie Miller’s great songwriting, the tremolo-soaked guitar solos, those earthy vocals, the careful selection of guest artists, the McCrary Sisters, the knack of unearthing memorable cover tunes, and the overriding soul that covered every song. It’s as if Buddy Miller had that checklist. All those elements and more are present on his eponymous album, a gem that reminds us why we fell in love with Buddy Miller’s music in the first place.
In the intervening years, Miller produced numerous albums, so it is not surprising to see…

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…completely remastered by acclaimed audio engineer Leon Zervos at Studio 301 and features three early recordings that originally appeared on the band’s rare, self-titled Australian ”JBT’ EP.
Three opens with the distinctive fingerpicked, slide-driven guitar that becomes the canvas for the remainder of the record. Joined by Rory Quirk on bass and Jason McGann on drums, the trio delivers an emotionally charged romp through ten tracks of earthy, bluesy jam band intonations.
Paying homage to his Australian roots, the inclusion of the didgeridoo in the backdrop of several tracks plays nicely against his six-string grooves. The most accessible and shortest song on the record, “Pickapart,” shows off Butler’s picking prowess on an amplified 12-string…

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In his 20s, when Nate Amos was uploading his every musical impulse to Bandcamp, he released a particularly out-there tranche of songs focused on “technology corrupting nature,” he told the Guardian recently. He soon came to understand this noisy spell as a symptom of anxiety and depression: “The beauty was in the unknown, because I was having such a hard time with the known.” The newer work that’s made his name as This Is Lorelei is tellingly lucid by contrast, the work of someone who can now look discomfort dead on and make it beautiful.
It doesn’t take a leap to connect that to Amos’ recent sobriety. His official debut album, 2024’s Box for Buddy, Box for Star — a crystalline pop record that stealthily acquired…

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Since discovering John Coltrane as a teenager, saxophonist Andy Sheppard has forged a remarkable career, earning multiple British Jazz Awards, international acclaim and even a place in the UK pop charts. His musical range is equally impressive: alongside jazz giants George Russell, Gil Evans and Carla Bley, he has worked with artists as diverse as Baaba Maal, Runrig and John Martyn.
Equally at home in a big band, solo setting or small group, Sheppard now turns his attention to a new trio with Italian pianist Rita Marcotulli and French bassist Michel Benita. The drummer-less format echoes his acclaimed work with Carla Bley and Steve Swallow, while giving this new partnership its own distinctive space.
The trio may be new, but Marcotulli and Benita…

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Chopping Mountain is the sixth long player from Ibibio Sound Machine. It was recorded in South London at their Vanguard studio and produced by synthesist/saxophonist Max Grunhard. It’s the first time ISM has eschewed an outside producer since 2019’s Doko Mien. Their subjects across these ten tracks are love, social and political resistance, unity, and healing, both societal and individual. While these aren’t unfamiliar topics, they are presented with a seamless maturity and an unwillingness to compromise. The songs were rehearsed, performed, and recorded collectively; they’re chock-full of classic West African highlife, mutant post-punk, Afrobeat, electronic sounds, and breathtaking 21st century soul.
Opener “Burning in Lagos” is introduced by…

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Remastered by Atsushi Izumi.
Regis‘ early music will always loom large in techno. His searing records on Downwards, the label he started with Female, helped define what became known as the Birmingham Sound. As a member of Sandwell District, he’s partly responsible for the sleek and spacey style that prevailed in techno clubs in the ’00s.
Influential as those sounds were, though, his music from the last decade feels closer to his personal essence as an artist. Manbait, a collection of remixes from 2010 to 2015, teased out the lifelong love of post-punk and industrial that had always set him apart. Hidden in This Is the Light That You Missed carries on along the same path, delivering nine cuts of elegantly reduced…

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The expanded edition features the original 9 tracks alongside 4 brand-new songs recorded with producer John Congleton and 2 raw demos.
In the process of burgeoning Chicago duo Friko (singer/songwriter/guitarist Niko Kapetan and drummer Bailey Minzenberger) playing out in support of their electric debut LP — including a 2025 tour with the Flaming Lips and Modest Mouse — they added guitarist Korgan Robb and bassist David Fuller to their official lineup. This four-piece version of Friko then headed to Los Angeles to record their sophomore album with Grammy-winning producer John Congleton (St. Vincent, Sleater-Kinney, Mogwai). While the band had been very hands-on in all aspects of preparing their debut, including co-producing,…

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…The album has been newly remastered and cut directly from the analog master tapes.
It starts with a crackle of feedback shooting from speaker to speaker and a voice intoning, “Mother Earth is pregnant for the third time, for y’all have knocked her up” and talking about rising “above it all or drown in my own sh*t.” This could only have been utterly bizarre back in 1971 and it’s no less so decades later; though the Mothership was well on its way already, Maggot Brain really helped it take off. The instrumental title track is the key reason to listen, specifically for Eddie Hazel’s lengthy, mind-melting solo. George Clinton famously told Hazel to play “like your momma had just died,” and the resulting evocation of melancholy and sorrow doesn’t merely rival…

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