Jessica Pratt sings in a voice as gentle as unspun wool, but her stories feel deeply rooted, like they were born from a collective subconscious to reveal fundamental truths about human longing. Asher White gets at similarly heady ideas: leaving your city to seek reinvention, wondering whether your fate is predetermined. But where Pratt works primarily in the folk tradition, White’s approach is decidedly contemporary, drawing from Palberta and 100 gecs’ internet-laden glitchiness. Her music has the jangling, intentionally constructed commotion of an artist who synthesizes new sounds to understand something essential about the world she lives in.
As timeless as Pratt’s songs have always been, she’s followed a clear evolution since…
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On November 6, 2018, trumpeter Jaimie Branch was onstage in Paris, France, screeching out the blues with her quartet. The music was more somber than the jam-based jazz that marked the New York native’s impressive debut album, 2017’s Fly or Die. At the same time, voters in the United States shuttled to the polls for midterm elections. The music was a plea for them to do the right thing. “The blues we played was far from where it got to on the album,” Branch writes in the liner notes of her second record, Fly or Die II: bird dogs of paradise. “But the sentiment remained: It’s a prayer for amerikkka…” In its finished form, the 11-minute “prayer for amerikkka pt 1 & 2” — positioned near the beginning of Fly or Die II — is the album’s centerpiece; its plodding…
To Cy & Lee: Instrumentals Vol. 1 is the first full-length release by a British artist to appear on International Anthem, but even a single listen makes it clear why the Chicago-based label was drawn to it: however much these eleven pieces by Manchester-born, London-based tenor saxophonist Alabaster DePlume (real name Angus Fairbairn) might sit comfortably within a certain sub-genre of jazz, they sound like little else currently available. Much of that has to do with the generally hushed pitch of the performances but even more the fragile quiver of his saxophone.
Interestingly, while the album is cohesive, it couples instrumentals that appeared on three earlier releases — Copernicus (2012), The Jester (2013), and Peach (2015) — with two new pieces…
Egyptian-born oud player and composer Mustafa Said is one of the most illustrious names in Arabic music today. Born blind, he learned music through Braille. He’s led the Asil Ensemble since 2003, a fine band of traditional players on various sizes of oud, qanun zither, nai flute, tanbur, violin, viola, cello and various percussion. Said was awarded an Aga Khan Music Award in 2019.
This is his first album since then, although his fifth with the group. It opens with a short solo performance of sung Sufi poetry, written by Maymunah al-Asheqah, an 11th-century female poet who is said to have been able to walk on water. It’s followed by a substantial instrumental suite for the whole orchestra in ‘Maqam Segah’, gradually increasing in tempo and…
European Sun came together when musician/writer Steve Miles met U.K. indie pop stalwart Rob Pursey (of Heavenly, Tender Trap, the Catenary Wires, etc.) through a mutual musician friend. With Miles on lead vocals and guitar, and backed by Pursey and his frequent bandmates Amelia Fletcher and drummer Ian Button, they launched European Sun with an eponymous album in 2020. It showcased Miles’ anxiously observant, underdog-minded spoke-sung lyrics within a tuneful, D.I.Y indie pop setting. With the vocally kindred Elin Miles stepping in for Fletcher on backing vocals, their second album, When Britain Was Great, sees Miles let loose more as a writer, with confessional songs full of observant social commentary, pop culture references, and timidity.
Slowly coming into view over the past two years through a succession of intriguingly diverse singles that stylistically ranged from doo-wop to ’70s troubadour balladeering, Tyler Ballgame gradually revealed himself, through both his songs and videos, to be a magnetic presence with an octave-vaulting voice.
His backstory proves to be equally compelling and unusual, involving stasis, depression and subsequent epiphany. During the pandemic, close to hitting 30, Tyler Perry was stuck living in his mother’s basement in New England, his early musical promise having led him to Berklee College of Music and then to flunk his course due to marijuana indulgence and poor attendance. After a period of singing in covers bands…
With For a Moment the Sky Knew My Name, Peter Knight extends his fascination with the porous relationship between body, instrument, and environment into one of his most personal and immersive solo works. The album takes its cue from extended fieldwork and improvisations undertaken near Yeerung River on Krowathunkooloong land, where Knight spent much of his early life. Each of the album’s pieces grew organically from direct encounters with that setting — the pulse of wind against brass, the crackle of heat, the buzz of insects — forming a meditation on sound as both a reflection of and response to place. It is a work of quiet fluidity, at once structured and spontaneous, where texture and tone gradually shape entire topographies of listening.
Five years after releasing Twelve of Hearts, Daniel O’Sullivan reconvenes with Richard Youngs for another intense minimalist meditation.
On their debut collaborative album, Youngs and O’Sullivan used a single chord progression to distill various pop idioms into twelve succinct tracks. And they try something completely different on Persian Carpets, a blissful, longform experiment that’ll be more familiar to anyone who’s been keeping up with Youngs’ Black Truffle sides. Youngs plays zither here, following O’Sullivan’s trance-inducing piano repetitions that recall his collaborations with the great Charlemagne Palestine. But it’s not only repetition that drives ‘Persian Carpets I’. O’Sullivan varies his phrases by altering the dynamics as he plays, creating waves of noise…
With Live Archive Vol. 1: Going to Princeton 10/20/24, The Mountain Goats open the doors to what feels less like a conventional live album and more like a curated moment in their long-running relationship with their audience. Recorded at the McCarter Theatre Center in Princeton, the set captures John Darnielle and company in sharp, confident form—relaxed enough to let songs breathe, but focused enough to give each one its emotional weight. The sound is clear and unforced, preserving the intimacy that has always defined the band’s best live performances.
The 21-song setlist spans multiple eras, moving effortlessly from deep cuts like “Idylls of the King” and “Raja Vocative” to live staples such as “This Year,” “No Children,” and “Heretic Pride.”
Fallen Angel, The Unfaithful Servants’ second full-length release, serves up a splendid sampling of the Vancouver Island-based quartet’s distinctive take on contemporary Americana.
Call it newgrass, if you will, which necessarily entails a predominant bluegrass component augmented by lots of swing, tricky time changes, nicely woven melodic lines and the occasional hint of rock/pop in the mix.
The Canadian band’s line-up of uber-talented whippersnappers consists of mandolinist Jesse Cobb (founding member of The Infamous Stringdusters), singer-songwriter-guitarist Dylan Stone, fiddle virtuoso Quin Etheridge-Pedden and bassist Mark Johnson.
‘Endless Highway’ sets the stage for…
Prog superstar Steven Wilson has released a new album, Impossible Tightrope: Live in Madrid. It’s the first release to arrive via Wilson’s new audiophile platform, Headphone Dust.
“For some time I’ve been planning to have an online platform where I can focus on making audiophile versions of the things I work on,” says Wilson. “I love (and am still committed to) the Blu-ray format, but not everyone has the capacity to play these discs, not to mention that these releases need to be limited and tend to go out of print quickly, meaning the audio becomes unavailable. “So I’m happy to announce that a brand new Headphone Dust high-res audio resource has now launched and will provide a permanent home for my work to be downloaded in high resolution, 5.1…
This release marks the second installment of the 20th anniversary project celebrating the original studio album Rainbow (2006). It documents a live performance recorded on February 8, 2019, at U.F.O. CLUB in Higashi-Koenji, Tokyo.
Michio Kurihara is a singular guitarist who has played a central role in Japan’s psychedelic rock scene through his work with YBO2, White Heaven, THE STARS, and other key projects. Rainbow, created and released in 2006 under the name Boris with Michio Kurihara, reaches its 20th anniversary this year. Since 2007, Kurihara has also joined Boris as a support guitarist on tours and live performances, while performing on several occasions under the Boris with Michio Kurihara name in parallel.
Take Me Back Live from the Gorge, capturing the band’s performance from Saturday, August 30, 2025 when the band played Before These Crowded Streets in its entirety.
On that night, DMB played a handful of songs, beginning with Bob Dylan’s “All Along the Watchtower” and including subtle nods like “You Never Know” and “It Could Happen,” before launching into album opener “Pantala Naga Pampa.”
Béla Fleck, who had guested on the album, joined the band for “Last Stop” and “Don’t Drink the Water.” After a long-rumored and rarely played performance of album closer “Spoon,” the band called Jake Simpson onstage to play violin on fan favorites “Satellite” and “Tripping Billies.” The encore closer raised the question everyone…
It has been a while since we last heard of Greg Weeks, seven years to be exact, but the experimental folk solo artist and a founding member of Espers is back and with his latest solo effort, If the Sun Dies proves that he still has something substantial to say with his music.
Actually, that seven-year hiatus was not Weeks’ first break from music, since in the first decade of the century he was actively involved with Espers, had a number of solo records, ran a studio and a record label. Yet when the economic crisis hit in 2008, Weeks shut the studio and the record label, recorded no music, devoting his time to teaching and family. At some point, his musical inspirations revived, he decided to re-open both the studio and the record label, with this album…
Blue Note Records and Motown Gospel have joined forces for an unprecedented hybrid album, Sweet, Sweet Spirit, featuring Ron Carter’s improvisational bass lines underpinning gospel great Ricky Dillard’s famed New G Chorale. Whether this new venture will encourage jazz listeners to listen to traditional gospel remains to be seen, though Carter’s name alone will draw many to this effort. Although Carter’s bass is prominent enough in the mix, the choir’s power is overwhelmingly potent on every track. Fortunately, there are different lead vocalists throughout to provide some differentiation. The choir is clearly ‘the’ instrument, while Carter’s bass work serves as a narrator. As mentioned previously on other projects, many of these elder NEA Jazz Masters like Carter, have long-held dream…
The creative community centered in Amsterdam, Netherlands, can be seen as the modern-day equivalent of a city once known as New Amsterdam — a 17th-century Dutch settlement that would eventually become New York City.
Just as modern jazz flourished in mid-20th-century New York, some might argue that today’s hotbed of creative music resides in old Amsterdam. Evidence for this can be found in Old Adam on Turtle Island, a stunning musical creation by a multicultural quartet.
Led by American saxophonist John Dikeman, the quartet previously released Sunday at De Ruimte (2021) with Frank Rosaly on drums. In this new venture, Rosaly has been succeeded by Korean drummer Sun-Mi Hong.
Ukrainian composer Katarina Gryvul stunned us in 2022 with the indelible Tysha. This year, on the heels of an astonishing collaboration with The National Museum in Warsaw, she returns with a set that is even wilder and more intense.
SPOMYN means recollection, and the album delves into the manner in which memories are fragmented, disjointed and reassembled, a process Gryvul imitates with fragile electronics, eruptions of sonic power and layers of voice.
The artist calls each track “a flicker of something lost, distorted, or forgotten.” It’s impossible not to think of the ways in which entire cultures are under attack, their artifacts and collective memory threatened by invading forces; or the rewriting of narratives by the opposition.
Twenty-five years is a geologic age in terms of pop culture. For electronic music, it’s an eon, with whole genres, subgenres and movements living and dying faster than mayflies. For an electronic label to simply exist for a quarter century is a major accomplishment, worthy of accolades and great celebration. For an electronic label to be releasing some of their best, most exciting so far along is nothing short of miraculous.
25 Years Cocoon Recordings deserves a medal and a victory lap for that reason alone, as its 15 tracks of driving, relentless, hooky techno feels entirely of-the-moment while simultaneously serving as a weathervane, offering a hint of where electronic music may be heading in the next decade.
Even though it’s ostensibly a retrospective,…
…La-La Land Records give the expanded treatment to Hans Zimmer’s score to the 1991 hit Thelma & Louise. Directed by Ridley Scott from a screenplay by writer-director Callie Khouri (her first credit!), Thelma & Louise starred Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis as two midwestern friends whose road trip escape from their humdrum lives takes unexpected turns. The film, screened out of competition at the Cannes Film Festival, earned Oscar nods for its two leads and Scott’s direction, even winning one for the script; it also featured an early supporting role for Brad Pitt, whose smoldering turn led to his rise to the top of the Hollywood A-list.
Zimmer’s score reflected the southwestern Americana locations seen onscreen, with…
Le Vent du Nord have been at the forefront of the Quebecois progressive folk movement for more than two decades, and yet are still as joyful and dynamic as ever.
Voisinages, their 13th album, whose title translates to ‘neighbourhoods’ in English, features 12 tracks “telling the stories of the neighbourhoods that connect us and especially those that have enriched Quebec’s repertoire: Irish and Scottish Celts, American folk, songs from Acadia, and French-speaking Americans.”
Whether traditional, like the rambunctious call-and-response of opener ‘Par-dessus le pont’ or newly-minted from the five members of Le Vent du Nord themselves (Nicolas Boulerice, André Brunet, Réjean Brunet, Olivier Demers and…
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