At the opening of Beautiful Dreamer, Bill Frisell’s biographer, Philip Watson, recounts a formative dream Bill Frisell once had—an experience the guitarist has said permanently altered the way he thinks about sound, color, and the nature of “real music.” In the dream, Frisell enters a dark building, climbs into a vast library, and encounters hooded, monklike figures gathered around a table. “We want to show you what things really are,” they tell him. First, they reveal “what colors really look like,” and then they offer to let him hear “what real music sounds like.” Frisell has often said that this dream reshaped his musical imagination, and he still carries it with him.
His Blue Note Records album, In My Dreams, points directly to that vision. The title is not…
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His first major studio album in six years, Pat Metheny’s Side-Eye III+, is the latest evolution of a concept he first introduced in 2021. The ongoing project is designed to focus on collaborations with younger musicians the contemporary jazz icon admires, allowing him to reimagine his past work and devote the collective talents to new original music as well.
In that sense, the concert release from four years ago, Side-Eye NYC (V1.IV), is a microcosm of the initiative, while Side-Eye III+, comprising eight new compositions, is the natural extension of the idea. From the very first strains of the opening cut, “In On It,” the music is vintage Metheny. That is to say, bright fluid guitar abounds, underpinned by limber rhythm work full of flourishes…
For the best part of a quarter of a century North Carolina singer-songwriter Sam Beam has steadily released albums of depth and substance under his Iron & Wine guise, playing a form of indie-folk before that term was invented. Strictly speaking, Hen’s Teeth is the eighth Iron & Wine album but Beam’s collaborations with the likes of Calexico, Jesca Hoop and Ben Bridwell of Band of Horses comfortably takes him into double figures.
It sees him carry on from 2024’s Light Verse album with the songs broadly from the same period of writing and occupying similar territory. ‘Roses’ opens the album, progressing from modest origins into something spacious and technicolour via low-key psychedelia. It does a good job of representing both ends of the sonic spectrum…
5CD set featuring two solo albums from The Byrds/Flying Burrito Brothers member, plus solo live recordings spanning his career and a live album from the Gene Parsons Band, along with unreleased studio demos.
Recorded between multi-instrumentalist Gene Parsons’ membership of The Byrds and The Flying Burrito Brothers, his 1973 debut solo album ‘Kindling’ is a country rock and bluegrass classic that also features his friend and fellow ex-Byrd Clarence White on several tracks. Parsons demonstrates his versatility by contributing guitar, banjo, pedal steel, harmonica, bass and drums.
Acclaimed author of Are You Ready for the Country, Peter Doggett has written the notes for this box and describes ‘Kindling’ as “a joyous…
This Philadelphia band’s quickened in the pores & bones with jangly guitars, narrative lyrics, & juiced by some psychedelic spice. Nice contrasts. The new album was produced by Brian McTear (electric guitar/bgv) & Amy Morrissey (bgv) at Minor Street Recordings in Philly. Ten songs hang beside the Mirror In The Hallway with the band’s collective effort of original music & Drew Harris’ lyrics (lead vocals/electric & acoustic guitars/harmonica).
This second full-length indie album took 3 years to complete because they wanted it to be ambitious & perfect. Aside from the many topics that are touched upon, it’s basically about self-examination through a fine mix of roots rock, shimmering notes & rhythm, some folksiness, a fluid blend of nostalgia & new beginnings.
New 2026 Edition of 600% Dynamite, part of Soul Jazz Records classic compilation series of Jamaican music, featuring killer reggae in all styles – ska, soul, rocksteady, dancehall, funk and dub. Originally released in 2003 this album has been out of print for nearly 20 years making it one of the most-collectible of Soul Jazz Records’ Dynamite! Series.
Newly remastered and relicensed for 2026, the album is packed with dancefloor classics and non-stop reggae anthems such as Tenor Saw’s ‘Golden Hen’, Johnny Osbourne’s ‘Buddy Bye’, Dennis Brown’s ‘Wolf & Shepard’ and Sister Nancy’s ’Transport Connection’ alongside hard-to-find cuts by Tall T and the Touchers, The Interns, Tetrack and others, making the album a superlative…
Ceremony returns with their thrilling new live album, Live at the Hollywood Palladium. Relapse Records drops the live album on February 24th, 2026 – marking the 2 year anniversary of the band’s hallmark performance to the very day with this special release.
The album sees the seminal punk/hardcore band headlining at The Palladium in Los Angeles. The sold-out show celebrated the anniversary of 2010’s critically acclaimed, and sought-after Rohnert Park LP. Live at the Hollywood Palladium captures the sheer intensity of Ceremony’s presence through a full set list and encore of Hardcore, Punk ragers that span the band’s years as revolutionary force in the scene.
Featuring Rohnert Park played live, and choice…
By 1961, pianist Bill Evans had been rolling with his classic trio for a couple of years; this short-lived group, featuring drummer Paul Motian and bassist Scott LaFaro, was the same trio that recorded his much-celebrated Sunday at the Village Vanguard set, which continues to be cited as a highlight of Evans’ career and live jazz records as a whole. This trio would be cut short, however, with the death of LaFaro just ten days after the Village Vanguard set was recorded, subsequently causing Evans to cease performing for several months in mourning. Persuaded to return to music by Riverside record producer Orrin Keepnews, Evans appeared on vocalist Mark Murphy’s 1961 album Rah, as well as a short solo piano session, and Evans’ work in music continued long after that.
…Sourced from the original master tapes, Mobile Fidelity’s numbered-edition hybrid SACD presents the 1978 effort on what is the definitive-sounding digital version of the Rock & Roll Hall of Famers’ biggest-selling record.
With Tom Johnston gone from the lineup because of health problems, this is where the “new” Doobie Brothers really make their debut, with a richly soulful sound throughout and emphasis on horns and Michael McDonald’s piano more than on Patrick Simmons’ or Jeff Baxter’s guitars. Not that they were absent entirely, or weren’t sometimes right up front in the mix, as the rocking, slashing “Don’t Stop to Watch the Wheels” and the bluegrass-influenced “Steamer Lane Breakdown” demonstrate. But given the keyboards,…
Hedera are a band of five tightly knit friends – violinist Lulu Austin, violin/viola player Maisie Brett, violinist/double bassist Beth Roberts, accordionist/ harpist Tamsin Elliott, and clarinettist Isis Wolf-Light – named after the Latin botanical term for ivy. The group’s debut album combines influences from Bulgaria to Bali, Ireland to Georgia, and establishes its mood of knotted, hypnotic locked groove from its opening track, ‘Sterretjie’ (named after an Afrikaans word for the coastal tern bird, which also means “little stars”). Brett’s violin passes the track’s melody to Wolf-Light’s clarinet and Elliott’s accordion with a bright, sparkling swiftness.
Many other moments of joy, lithe and spring-like, lift these 12 tracks. Roberts’ waltz about a Cornish meadow, Mayflies in June, travels…
Drueling is a first for each of its participants, and quite possibly the world. It is a sequence of improvised duets between two shahi baaja players, Turner Williams Jr. and Derek Monypeny. Neither had jammed with a like-equipped player before, and if there’s another record of one, it’s flying below the radar of readily available search engines. So, let’s just say that this LP is the first, and if a genre is to ensue, it’s off to a good start.
Monypeny is based in California, where he’s carved out a solo career playing desert-kissed electric music on guitar and shahi baaja following early involvement with the groups Alto and Oaxacan, as well as membership in Sir Richard Bishop’s Freak of Araby band. Williams is an Alabama-born visual and musical artist who has played…
1905 gave the world the concert premiere of Claude Debussy’s La Mer. 1905 was also the date of an Austrian ethnographic expedition to Papua New Guinea that brought back sound recordings from the island.
120 years later, London-based DJ Nkisi (Melika Ngombe Kolongo) used those recordings as part of the fuel for her latest outing, Anomaly Index: 40 minutes of acoustic imperfections, club beats, and traces of the music that a few pre-1910 expeditions attempted to document. Suffice it to say, this sounds nothing like La Mer.
Nkisi is known for throwing wildly disparate influences into the pot. She has roots in Central Africa and has drawn on ethnographic material before. Performing in clubs, the beats…
The long-awaited return of Norwegian saxophonist and composer Marius Neset arrives in an expansive big band setting, a format that underscores both his ambition and his growing confidence as a large-scale orchestrator. Known for music of formidable complexity, Neset here introduces a more openly festive dimension, without sacrificing the structural rigor that has long defined his work.
Few could have predicted such an outcome when Neset was five years old. At that age, the future saxophonist was handed a drum kit, an early encounter with rhythm that would quietly shape his musical thinking. That grounding remains audible today. Whether writing for a jazz quintet, a symphony orchestra, or, as here, a big band that often sounds closer to a full…
The album title Circadia reflects themes of renewal and change rooted in the cyclical patterns of life. For the English trio Mammal Hands, change is the keyword: this sixth release marks a significant step in their evolution. Their move to the ACT Music label represents a notable shift, one that may broaden their visibility while giving fresh impetus to their musical independence.
Equally significant is the arrival of new drummer, Rob Turner, formerly of GoGo Penguin, who joined the band following the departure of Jesse Barrett in 2024. Turner brings heavier beats to the band’s signature blend of hypnotic jazz, post-rock and folk, pioneered by the two constants in the lineup, brothers Nick Smart on piano and Jordan Smart on saxophone.
Vadim Neselovskyi is a Brooklyn-based composer who teaches jazz piano at Boston’s Berklee, yet as Perseverantia shows, the ties to his native Ukraine remain strong (now 48, Neselovskyi left Ukraine at the age of 17). To that end, the recording, issued on John Zorn’s Tzadik label, coincides with the fourth anniversary of the Russian invasion of his home country on February 24, 2022. Clocking in at 71 minutes, the work is an 11-movement suite of stylistically expansive character scored for piano and string trio. Neselovskyi himself performs on piano alongside the Netherlands-based Ysaÿe String Trio (Rada Ovcharova, violin; Emlyn Stam, viola; Willem Stam, cello). In honouring the ongoing struggles of the Ukrainian people, Perseverantia is a fitting follow-up to 2022’s…
The genocide in Gaza continues despite the ceasefire. In January 2024, braving the heart of the horrifying conflict, Mai Mai Mai sojourned to Bethlehem and Ramallah to record with Palestinian musicians and capture the raw emotions of the region. Karakoz is the heart-rending result.
One need not speak the language to hear the sorrow in “Grief.” Maya Al Khaldi begins in a whisper as Mai Mai Mai builds a warm ambient glow around her voice. As she begins to sing, the ambience turns to drone and the sun seems to recede. The percussion imitates a heartbeat, soon joined by dark electronic tones. The gobbling monster is already here, has already passed through, has turned around for another strike.
While glimpses of brightness will appear in…
There are artists who treat solo albums as side notes, and there are those who seize the chance to excavate new terrain. With Taproots, Robin Richards, principal composer of Manchester’s idiosyncratic art-pop band Dutch Uncles, delivers a record that feels less like a digression and more like a statement of intent. If Dutch Uncles built their reputation on angular pop exuberance, Richards’ debut long-player re-roots him in a more contemplative, exploratory soil: part electronic meditation, part modern classical suite, part intimate diary.
Richards is no stranger to ambitious projects. With Dutch Uncles, he helped shape six albums that earned comparisons to Talking Heads for their wiry rhythms and brainy exuberance.
Phantasmagoria: A bizarre or fantastic combination; a constantly shifting, complex succession of things seen or imagined. These definitions wholly encapsulate the circumstances that shaped the narrative structure and exquisite tonal palette coursing through Ani Glass’s thrilling second LP. Its long-awaited arrival ends a five-year gap since the Welsh-Cornish artist released her critically acclaimed solo debut, Mirores, a momentous milestone in her career that was unfortunately usurped by a benign brain tumour diagnosis. Glass’s latest material, on which her production style demonstrates great growth, is a sumptuous synth-pop meditation on processing that traumatic period whilst untangling the experiences and emotions that steered her to…
Justin Hicks‘ vast body of work as a vocalist, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and sound artist extends beyond recording studios to galleries, museums, theaters, and other spaces. A keen collaborator with connections to myriad artists across disciplines, Hicks earned a Drama Desk Award nomination with his music for the Lynn Nottage play Mlima’s Tale, and he is an integral part of Meshell Ndegeocello’s band. He’s all over The Omnichord Real Book and No More Water: The Gospel of James Baldwin, winners of the first two Grammys for Best Alternative Jazz Album. One standout from the latter is “Love,” featuring co-writer Hicks in harmony with the voices of wife Kenita Miller-Hicks, drummer Abe Rounds, and bassist/leader Ndegeocello,…
This latest salvo from the PDX cosmic outfit is a continuous rush, its multi-guitar onslaught striving towards anthemic, psychedelic motion, its giant drum (a marching band’s bass drum turned onto its side) pounding in ritual, magic exultation. You can still experience the spreading, unbound serenity of past releases — “Walker’s Dead Birds” is, at its center, full of stillness and awe — but, in general, these cuts move. “New Imposition of Light,” is a stirring vortex of 1960s gnostic rock.
…So yes, exciting, excessive, over-the-top and wildly entertaining , all that applies to Abronia’s latest album. There are, as before, nods to the Americana tradition, most particularly in the pedal steel that opens “Mirrored Ends of Light.” However, this music is way more…