The Australian quintet Surprise Chef have made a batch of records that combine slinky nocturnal jazz, rubbery funk, head-nodding hip hop, echoing dub, and library music charm; on 2026’s Frogs in a Pond, they do all those things while also paying tribute to the suspenseful music of 1970’s giallo cinema from Italy. The group stitch the songs into a kind of suite that flows smoothly from beginning to end, fitting together like hands in gloves while also being separate enough to stand on their own when extracted. They exhibit all the features needed for instrumental music to survive and thrive. They melodies need to be catchy and memorable, the arrangements must be interesting enough to stand up to repeated listens, and the playing should be top notch.
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Orchestra Baobab was founded in 1970 to serve as house band at Dakar’s Baobab Club. Between 1971 and 1987 they cut numerous albums fusing Afro-Cuban rhythms, Wolof griot traditions, mbalax, Congolese rhumba, and jazz. 1982’s internationally celebrated cassette Pirates Choice offered the depth and breadth of their musical range. It has been reissued internationally several times. After splitting in the ’90s, they reunited for 2002’s Specialist in All Styles. 2017’s Tribute to Ndiouga Dieng offered homage to OB’s late original vocalist. No less than six of the band’s former members have died, leaving alto saxophonist and musical director Seydou Norou “Thierno” Koité the only survivor from the original group. On Made in Senegal, he used veteran…
More than three decades into an extraordinary career, Swedish progressive rock pioneers The Flower Kings return with HOPE, their 18th studio album and one of the most ambitious statements of their storied journey. Balancing refined musicianship with fearless creativity, the album is both a celebration of the band’s legacy and a bold leap forward, embracing the grand, cinematic scope and adventurous spirit that have made them one of progressive rock’s most beloved acts.
HOPE features a rich collection of expansive compositions, including the epic 30-minute centerpiece “The Gods of Rome.” Drawing on themes of power, conflict, human ambition, and the state of the modern world, the album reflects on an era marked by division…
Michigan space rock duo Windy & Carl initially self-released their debut album on cassette in 1994 before Ba Da Bing picked it up for a CD release in 1995, adding three lengthy, exploratory tracks. (Kranky eventually reissued Portal in 2026, including its first vinyl pressing.) The duo pretty much established their blissful, expansive sound right from the beginning, though the album noticeably sounds a bit rougher, and at times stranger, than their later recordings. “Preparation” augments its magical thrumming with trippy, vibrating keyboards, and “Sound Ignition” is unexpectedly noisy, though it feels like fog is trying to wash out the scorching distortion. “Ode to Spacemen” is an appropriately cosmic drift featuring Windy’s hushed, poetic…
William Basinski‘s 2026 work Passing the Cup of Sorrows was inspired by a spiritual hypnotherapy exercise involving an exchange of energy between two souls in the spirit world, in which one spirit comes to understand and forgive someone who hurt them in a past life. Moved by online testimonials of this practice, Basinski attempted to interpret this transformation process through music. The 38-minute piece consists of intimately recorded solo piano, with background noises audible at certain points, along with sparse electronic effects. Basinski typically plays a short melodic pattern and lets the notes decay, patiently waiting before playing again. Notes that have already been played sporadically flash back during the in-between spaces and still…
Those thus far unaware of Shovel Dance Collective’s bracing approach to folk should probably note that their third album is not much interested in breaking newcomers in gently. Everything in Readiness kicks off with a three-song suite that lasts more than 10 minutes and takes you, via a series of dramatic sonic jump-cuts, from a grinding one-note drone to a reel that seems to split the difference between trad folk fiddle-playing and the punishing squall of the Velvet Underground’s ‘Black Angel’s Death Song’. It then leaps to ‘Tally Ho! Hark Away!’, which sets a hunting song first collected in the late 1940s over a blast of what might best be described as ecstatic noise. It’s genuinely hard to work out what instruments are involved in the clattering arrhythmic chaos…
For the last decade, Caroline Rose has garnered a reputation as one of indie-rock’s most unpredictable songwriters. They’re impossible to categorise, with albums like Loner and Superstar hopping from genre to genre – as Rose has said “I’m just trying to make music diverse enough that AI can’t reproduce it”.
On the evidence of the excellently titled Gentling the Horse at the Walt Whitman Mall, Rose has certainly achieved that. This is probably their best album since 2018’s Loner, and has the same air of unrestrained chaos running through it. Rose has always been at their best when they’ve completely slipped off the leash, and there’s a giddy sense of excitement which runs through the record from the very first track.
The word “dangerous” isn’t one most bands would embrace. That especially concerns any with a handful of popular radio singles. But The Doors not only fit, but celebrated that description.
Look no further than 1967s debut album which included not only the huge hit, and controversial radio track, “Light My Fire” (in edited form) but some truly out-there covers that ranged from Kurt Weill’s 1930s era, quirky, carnival-esque “Alabama Song” to Howlin’ Wolf’s searing and lascivious approach to Willie Dixon’s “Back Door Man.” Add the experimental and unsettling, 12-minute disc-closing epic “The End” whose sheer length, dark, even threatening Oedipal theme remains a challenge to delicate sensibilities, and you’ve got an act that defined and even relished…
There are albums that sell by the truckload and albums that quietly reroute a career, and Accident Of Birth belongs firmly in the second camp.
Released in May 1997, Bruce Dickinson’s fourth solo record arrived at the lowest commercial ebb heavy metal had known in a generation, with grunge having flattened half the genre and the other half still picking itself out of the rubble. Dickinson himself was four years out of Iron Maiden, his last outing Skunkworks had confused as many fans as it converted, and the bookies would have offered long odds on him ever standing on a stage alongside Steve Harris again. Then came this: twelve tracks of unapologetic, gloriously overblown heavy metal, made with Roy Z behind the desk and Adrian Smith…
Legend’s album is produced and co-written by his longtime friend and fellow musician Pharrell Williams, marking the pair’s first collaboration together.
“The album is the first project the two have undertaken together in more than two decades of friendship — a cinematic, lush body of work that weaves together the strands of Black music, from gospel and the standards to doo-wop, classic soul, Afrobeat and hip-hop,” a description for the album reads. Legend (whose real name is John Stephens) and Williams worked on the album together in Paris at the Louis Vuitton headquarters, where Williams, 53, serves as men’s creative director. Legend noted the collaboration “felt past due.”
The pair had a certain goal…
There are few duos in modern Country music as consistently adventurous as Brothers Osborne. Bound by blood, a lifetime of playing music together and a shared working-class upbringing in Deale, Maryland, John and TJ Osborne have spent more than a decade establishing themselves as one of Nashville’s most distinctive acts.
Their music has always occupied an exciting space between Country, southern rock, blues and soul, with John’s formidable guitar playing providing the perfect counterpoint to TJ’s unmistakable, expressive vocals. On Watertown, they bring those ingredients back to the place where their story began, delivering a record that feels both like a homecoming and another step forward.
Named in reference to their…
The Nerves were an American power pop trio, formed in San Francisco in 1974 and later based in Los Angeles, featuring guitarist Jack Lee, bassist Peter Case, and drummer Paul Collins. All three members composed songs and sang.
Although The Nerves only lasted a short time they managed to self release one legendary 4 song EP in 1976 distributed by Bomp! Records that included 2 Jack Lee songs: “Hanging On The Telephone” and “Give Me Some Time,” 1 Peter Case song: “When You Find Out,” and 1 Paul Collins song: “Working Too Hard,” and play many shows up and down the west coast and to tour the US and Canada including some support slots with the Ramones.
The Nerves went on to become one of the most influential of the new wave…
“We’re recording this, so we need you as loud as fucking possible please”, says Nicky Wire before “feel-good singalong anthem of the winter” ‘Mausoleum’. “Take it a-fucking-way”. An audience of Manics devotees at London’s Roundhouse responds magnificently. The chorus to ‘Mausoleum’, after all, is a humdinger. “No Birds!” they scream as one. “No Birds!” It’s probably the biggest, most naggingly infectious, poppiest chorus on the entire album. A knock-em-dead singalong. A moment of pure release delivered over a swaggering Chuck Berry groove. “No Birds!” they yell, like an Oasis crowd doing the “sooooooo Sally can wait” bit in ‘Don’t Look Back In Anger’. It’s not that, though. “No Birds!” they sing, “No Birds! … Holy Mass … Of Dead Insects!”
“Who Do You Want Me to Be” asked singer/songwriter Joanne Shaw Taylor on her 2009 debut, White Sugar. 11 studio albums and 17 years later she takes a more direct stance with “This Is Who I Am.” That tune is the lone cover from The Trouble with Love. The ten-song set further defines who she has become as a veteran roots artist who has gradually coalesced her approach and strengths. Taylor’s blues roots have always been on display, specifically through guitar solos like she and guest Joe Bonamassa ignite on the opening title track. For the following Bad Company-styled “Hell or High Water” she sings about her career with “I’m just a soul/trying to exist/All on my own/And I’ve given it my best.”
That’s just one of the truths expressed on…
…features four never-before-heard demos alongside rare B-sides, alternate studio takes, and a previously unreleased live set recorded on the Back to Black tour in Amsterdam in 2007.
…While U.K. native Winehouse’s 2003 debut Frank made overtures to establish her as a unique new talent – her combination of vintage jazz/soul styles with raw, honest lyricism won the album an Ivor Novello Award – it was Back to Black that made her a superstar. Working with one of Frank‘s primary producers, Salaam Remi (best known at the time for producing the Fugees’ “Fu-Gee-La”), as well as Mark Ronson (a wunderkind New York DJ and stepson of Foreigner guitarist Mick Jones), Winehouse’s songs became even more confessional and grimily indebted to…
In November 2024, Michael Kiwanuka released his fourth album, Small Changes, an extremely poised and self-assured piece of work. After three gold albums, a Grammy nomination, a Mercury prize win and the ongoing success of Cold Little Heart, a 2017 single hoisted to virality and million-selling status in the US after its use in TV drama Big Little Lies, Kiwanuka – and his long-term production collaborators Danger Mouse and Inflo – evidently felt confident enough to release a beautiful but wilfully understated album. Recorded in LA, some impressive names lurked in the credits: legendary session musicians including bassist Pino Palladino and the drummer James Gadson, who played on Marvin Gaye’s ‘I Want You’ and Donald Fagen’s ‘The Nightfly’; the similarly…
Since Britpop began, there have been endless arguments about the best Britpop band, the best Britpop album, the defining Britpop image. Choices vary, but it feels inarguable that Elastica – and Elastica – remain the coolest in all the above categories. The four-piece were cemented as elegant, eternal stars on their self-titled 1995 debut album: a collection of short, sharp songs, with equally short, sharp haircuts on the cover. Like the supernatural pop ideal immortalised in 1998’s Velvet Goldmine – a film they cameoed in – Elastica came from London but also seemingly arrived fully formed from another, sexier, less effortful dimension. Untouchable louche perfection. Exacting boy-girl androgynous tension. Post punk guitars arrived encased in…
Sharing secrets with strangers is more common than many realize. Sometimes it’s just a way to test a reaction, so you’re better prepared to share the secret when it counts. This is one of singer-songwriter Mary Bragg’s subjects on her album of the same name, Secrets to Strangers. She also wrestles with uncertainty throughout the album, bringing problems into the open, often without resolving them. In that sense, we are all the receptive stranger to her conversations. Said another way, it’s her way of being relatable. We all have baggage that we need to shed.
Bragg spins stories and ruminations across her twelve songs, written with co-writers Mindy Smith, Maia Sharp, Brady Stablein, and Zach Berrman. After years of producing and engineering…