When composing and recording this album, Ayami Suzuki was meditating on the way that loss – specifically, to begin with, the loss of her father – is less an event and more a continuing process that affects but is also shaped by everything else surrounding it. It’s a theme that’s hard to express in words, but as it turns out embodying rather than trying to explain it makes for a deeply moving musical experience, even if the emotions Remnants evokes are no more straightforward than the process of loss itself.
Suzuki’s partly improvised ambient soundscapes, usually incorporating some aspect of the human voice — though not always recognizable as such — and sometimes including some equally abstract folk elements, are always subtle and…
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All-star jazz quintet 
Clay is the debut full-length collaboration between 
“My Ice Queen” immediately makes its case. A mid-to-low tempo chugging rhythm underpins choppy guitar, a contemplative, distant vocal and a general air of disassociation. Brief sections of the song feature – albeit muted – guitar mangling and feedback. The lyrics tell of a “heartbreak machine, coolest girl you’ve ever seen.” Icy? Absolutely. Then take the similarly restrained “Life Goes on,” so hazy a rumination it seems to have materialised from the mists enveloping Venus.
There is something subtly captivating about Panacea. It’s an album that’s presence isn’t marked by booming choruses and dramatic highs. Instead, Dutch artist Celine Cairo built its impact through a sense of patience. The more time you spend with it – really listening – the more its subtleties begin to surface. It’s fueled by the kind of connection that lingers long after it ends.
If there were prizes for song titles, 
After almost a decade away from releasing new albums, Tift Merritt returns with a collection of songs that feels both intimate and expansive. What has remained is Merrit’s timeless approach to music: her work feels like it could have been released in any of the last six decades; songs are cleverly crafted with instrumentation used to help frame Merrit’s voice, which remains full of beauty, clarity and power. Thematically, Sugar looks for meaning in the quieter places of life: conversations, acts of care, domestic labour, memory, kindness and the difficulty of remaining open-hearted in a world that often rewards the opposite. Across eleven songs, Merritt repeatedly returns to the idea that what sustains us is rarely what attracts the most attention.
Thanks to steady gigging around his adopted hometown of Chicago, paired with a beautiful, hypnotic voice, Andrew Sa has been dubbed Chicago’s premier queer country crooner. His debut, American Rough, may just make that title national. With a voice that seems to channel Roy Orbison, you can also hear traces of everyone from Chris Isaak to the late Raul Malo in Sa’s swooning vocals. American Rough is a romantic’s record, delivering songs about falling in love and all of the emotions tied to it, vacillating from euphoria to sadness, all set against a beautiful folk-country soundscape.
Canadian composer 
In 2018, violist and composer 
South African pianist and composer Nduduzo Makhathini returns with The Myths We Choose, an album whose music advocates for a better world and greater responsibility toward the future. Working with his South African trio at the core, Makhathini invites a number of relevant guests for a program comprising thirteen original compositions (three of them with reprises). Here, he explores new sounds and genres, with several tracks signaling a shift in mindset while retaining the rooted spirituality that has become his trademark signature.
…’Steal Your Face’ has been newly remastered by David Glasser and sourced from the master tapes which were restored and speed-corrected using Plangent Processes.
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