Harriet Tubman is a vanguard electric jazz-funk trio composed of guitarist Brandon Ross, bassist Melvin Gibbs, and drummer J.T. Lewis. Together since 1997, Electrical Field of Love is only their sixth album and debut for Pi Recordings. It’s their second co-billed collaborative outing (their first was 2017’s Araminta with Wadada Leo Smith), this time with keyboardist, composer, and singer Georgia Anne Muldrow. She encountered them decades ago as a jazz studies major at New York’s New School; they were performing at a now-defunct arts space. She claims: “It was like the juke joint of my dreams. I heard everything in that music. And I was never the same after that.” Since then, Muldrow has released more than 20 albums. Harriet Tubman has always explored Black…
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…the reissue features 20 tracks, including a bonus 7″ with the previously unreleased song “House” and a new remix of “Playboy of the Western World” by Dirick Cummins. The tracks were newly restored from original 1/4” tape reels and mastered by Josh Bonati.
Third Man Records is re-issuing Connie Converse’s only known collection of songs on vinyl and CD so that a new generation can learn her story and sounds. How Sad, How Lovely is an atmospheric collection of folk songs that contain a lingering sense of what could have been.
Her backstory is fascinating as she began recording these intimate songs in 1949 on reel-to-reel, pre-dating the NYC folk scene with inward-looking tunes that struggle against…
Only a year on from the release of their self-titled debut album, supergroup Butler, Blake & Grant have released the follow up, Murmurs, via 355 Recordings. The record sees the trio – Bernard Butler (Suede, McAlmont & Butler), Norman Blake (Teenage Fanclub) and James Grant (Love and Money) – reimagining songs from their respective back catalogues.
Butler, Blake & Grant formed when Scottish musician, Douglas MacIntyre, who promotes FRETS Concerts, invited them to perform a low-key concert in South Lanarkshire, Scotland, guessing that they would work well together. The trio then performed all over the UK and recorded a critically-acclaimed 2024 album of original material at Blake’s home on the banks of the River Clyde.
Paula Kelley emerges from her orchestral pop cocoon with her immaculately realized third album, 2026’s Blinking as the Starlight Burns Out. Her first solo album since 2003’s The Trouble with Success or How You Fit Into the World, it sees the Boston-bred/Los Angeles-based singer, songwriter, and arranger once again underscoring her reputation as an indie rock auteur, merging her shoegaze roots with her love for cozy, ’60s- and ’70s-style AM pop. As on her past recordings, here Kelley not only sings, but plays most of the instruments. She also writes all of the orchestral arrangements, a skill that kept her busy with film work and away from pop music for most of the 2010s. That said, she did reunite with her former Drop Nineteens-bandmates for an unexpected 2023…
The breathless opener ‘How to Exist’ takes off at a breakneck pace, as if lyricist James McGregor is banging his head off the wall. The lyrics replicate pacing the floor, this stream of consciousness implying a pent-up frustration. The rapid fire start to The Clockworks second album The Entertainment ends abruptly with: “I’m looking for something to believe in”. It lays the groundwork for the rest of the album. Experience has provided The Clockworks with a shift in perspective, inevitable after all as these young men admit their debut album 2023’s Exit Strategy came as a result of four lads making a noise in a room. The world keeps turning and experience creates change which in turn seeps into their creativity. Rather than the micro-observations on the debut,…
Lou Gramm revisits his past with a compelling archival release that offers fans a ten-track glimpse into a formative creative period. Drawing from recordings made in the late ’80s—now remastered and, in some cases, newly completed—the collection feels less like a set of leftovers and more like a missing chapter in his solo career.
Much of the material appears to originate from the period between his first two solo albums, Ready Or Not and Long Hard Look, with at least one track tracing back to the underrated Shadowking project. The opening track, featuring Vivian Campbell on guitar, immediately sets a high standard. “Young Love” stands out as a quintessential Lou Gramm performance—strong, melodic, and instantly memorable—raising questions about…
Adult. have tracked the existential dread of late-stage capitalism, since Anxiety Always, but they’ve rarely done it with as much righteous anger as on Kissing Luck Goodbye. Following the more personal perspectives of Becoming Undone, Adam Lee Miller and Nicola Kuperus look outwards once again, decrying consumption, corruption, and creeping fascism as only they can. To meet the occasion, they pare down and sharpen up their music. Working with producer Nolan Gray and a new library of sounds, the duo offer some of their most cleanly recorded music with Kissing Luck Goodbye. The results, however, are far from commercial. Much like the forces they’re fighting, Adult.’s intent is disruption. “The chaos is what they want,” Kuperus growls on “R U 4 $ALE,”…
Fountain sees Emika delivering one of the most personal and emotionally resonant records of her career. Following a successful crowdfunding campaign to build a new immersive recording studio, the Berlin-based artist fulfills her promise to supporters with an album that feels both intimate and fully realized.
Over the years, Emika’s work has moved fluidly between classical composition and electronic pop, often leaning more heavily toward one side or the other. On Fountain, however, she brings these worlds together with striking clarity, revealing herself at her core as a songwriter. The result is a cohesive and deeply human record that captures her artistic identity more completely than ever before.
Some bands respond better to spontaneity than others, and more than four decades after their first album, the Young Fresh Fellows have been learning a lot about making things up as they go. The genesis of 2020’s Toxic Youth came when their longtime production ally Conrad Uno announced he was closing his studio in Seattle, and the YFF booked the room’s last three days and came up with 17 songs, mostly invented on the spot. 2026’s Loft pushes this concept even further; during a rare 2024 tour of the Midwest and East Coast, the YFF were invited to spend a day at the Loft, Wilco’s studio and rehearsal space in Chicago, and they took full advantage of the opportunity. Though they had only a few fragments of songs ready for the occasion, they cut enough…
Hopes and Dreams is the title of the brand new compilation series from Tramp Records. This new series draws on the music selection of ‘Praise Poems’, not only in terms of obscurity, but also in terms of genius. Similar, but anything but a poor copy, the focus is on rare grooves from the 1970s. The album contains genuine rarities that definitely deserve more attention. Take, for example, the opener by Guamanian Frankie & the Karter’s Peanut Organization. The protagonist comes from Guam, a tiny island in the western Pacific, a good 5000km north of Australia. The previously unreleased ‘Back In Time’ comes from an acetate pressing. As far as we know, it is the only existing copy. Easy and Carrie Chaplin & Mark Perron delight us with light folk soul, and fans of Terry Callier will…
At 75, Suzi Quatro is still shaking her ass – and, crucially, there is no silence. There is instead the same devil-gate drive that propelled 14-year-old Susan Kay Quatro to join all-female garage rock band the Pleasure Seekers with her sister before most of us had worked out how to tune a transistor radio. Precursor to The Runaways, to Pat Benatar, to Courtney Love. Bass slung low, chin set high. Suzi didn’t so much kick down the door of rock’s boys’ club as remove the hinges and pawn them for (17 bottles of) Schlitz.
Freedom, her third album in collaboration with her son LR Tuckey, knows all this. How could it not? This is a record about identity, legacy, survival. About Suzi being Suzi. ‘I remember walking along, dreams in my pockets/Singing my songs…
Since its inception in 2002, independent label Soundway Records has unearthed coveted musical gems from far-flung corners of the world, with foundations that are rooted in meticulously sourced reissues. A collection of fourteen digital reggae, deep roots and dub rarities from the Nigerian underground, spotlighting a time when Jamaican reggae entwined with Nigerian styles, politics and consciousness, creating a bridge between Lagos and Kingston. Fight the Fire is a companion piece to Soundway’s seminal “Doing it in Lagos” and “Nigeria Special” compilations, celebrating the innovation and musical experimentation of Nigeria in the 80s. Features rare tracks from key figures of the time including Oby Onyioha (with a crucial Burning Spear cover) and Orits Williki.
In 1974, Merle Haggard released Merle Haggard Presents His 30th Album. Having released thirty albums is in itself a remarkable accomplishment, but it was all the more impressive that Haggard cut those LPs in just nine years. It’s a shame Haggard never talked to Billy Childish about productivity; In 1991, Childish brought out a compilation, I Am the Billy Childish, that included one track each from the fifty long-players he’d put out between 1977 and 1991. Of course, Hag had the resources of Capitol Records behind him as he cranked out his recordings, while Childish cut his music for tiny indie labels, mostly on his own dime, and was also making lots of non-LP singles, publishing poetry, and creating various sorts of visual art at the same time.
Dr. John – Live at Rockpalast 1999 is a powerful live document capturing one of New Orleans’ most iconic musical voices in full command of his craft. Recorded on July 9, 1999, at the legendary Loreley open-air stage in Germany.
Known worldwide as The Nighttripper, Dr. John—born Malcolm “Mac” John Rebennack Jr.—was far more than a performer. He was a musical high priest of New Orleans culture, blending blues, funk, R&B, Creole traditions, and voodoo mysticism into a sound that was entirely his own. A six-time Grammy Award winner and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member, his influence reaches far beyond genre boundaries.
Dr. John’s recording career began in 1968 with the haunting debut album Gris-Gris, a spellbinding…
…featuring a new mix of the album by engineers and longtime archival overseers Justin Shirley-Smith, Joshua J. McRae and Kris Frederiksen plus two discs of mostly unreleased studio material (including session takes, B-sides and backing tracks) along with two discs of live cuts sourced from previous archival releases.
…Queen II, again made by the band and returning producer Roy Thomas Baker (with a new co-producer, Robin Geoffrey Cable, in the mix for several tracks), expanded on the progressive metal style of its predecessor, adding sharper focus to guitarist Brian May’s dense, distinctive tone; the rhythm section of bassist John Deacon and drummer Roger Taylor and the vocal harmonies of lead singer Freddie Mercury…
In this most challenging of times, we need music to lift our spirits and relieve the gloom. Step forward, in all their retro-chic, cabaret-burlesque splendour The Puppini Sisters, with their perfect harmonies and songs that cheer and distract.
Their style, and sometimes the songs themselves, are drawn from the dark days of the 1940s, when The Andrews Sisters filled the crackling airwaves with songs such as “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy”, their style heavily influenced by an earlier close-harmony sister act, The Boswell Sisters, who came out of the Jazz Age and enlivened the years of the Great Depression.
The Puppinis aren’t in fact sisters and there have been changes of line-up during their 20-year career, but for The Birthday Party,…
Just over two decades ago, Holy Fuck were forged on the musical fringes — and there, ever since, they’ve stayed.
If the inherently inaccessible name wasn’t enough, the closest they came to mainstream recognition for years was the “Tom Tom” needle-drop in Amazon’s Invincible (up until “Lost Cool” appeared in 2024’s The Substance, that is).
As such, the experimental Toronto quartet have never had to fret about how many streams they’re accumulating, or how many TikTok followers they have to engage with. This band of fearless freaks are in it for the love of the game — and their comeback LP, Event Beat, ensures said love is as strong as ever.
Within moments of pressing play, the six…
…Original album recorded by Steve Albini at Electrical Audio in 2000 and remastered by Bob Weston in 2025 and never-before-released live studio album, ‘True Live Tapes’, recorded by Greg Norman in 2000 and mastered by Bob Weston in 2025.
Before, listening to Don Caballero felt similar to being beaten over the head with a huge baseball bat of pure audible genius: often too overwhelming and complicated for your average music listener to listen to for very long, much less understand. With American Don, it seems that the baseball bat has been traded in for a pillow, and instead of beating they are slowly smothering. Much of the aggressive bite of the music has been simmered out: distortion is much more rare, time…
The “post-tour musings” album should be a privilege to make. It typically arrives a few years and releases into an artist’s career — that is, if they’ve been fortunate enough to be able to go out on the road. This is the very moment we find the Chicago-based trio, Stuck, in now. Off the back of 2023’s Freak Frequency, the band ventured overseas to perform their frenetic entanglement of janky post-punk guitar riffs across Europe and the UK, a prospect that’s becoming increasingly challenging for the majority of artists today. It seemed as though Stuck’s stock was rising. Therefore, it might come across as odd that within the first five minutes of their contagious new record Optimizer, we hear frontman Greg Obis exclaim, “My life was in decline!”
Opening the album emphatically, ‘Flowers in the Water’ is a refreshing return from The Boxer Rebellion. Brimming with optimism and positivity, lyrics such as: ‘Don’t obsess, be an optimist/ The glass half full is bottomless’ feel like an ode to overcoming adversity and living in hope rather than submitting to despair. Their first album in six years, The Second I’m Asleep is “10 songs mapping the emotional landscapes of life – moments of clarity in chaos, letting go of old ghosts and the art of understanding ourselves in a rapidly changing world”, as the band put it themselves in the album’s press release.
Known for their cinematic sound having featured in television and film soundtracks, the album’s lofty soundsacpe layered with guitar really…