With a string of well received singles already doing the rounds, a UK tour to support the new album and anything up to a six-piece band bringing it to life, Reuben’s Daughter’s Mami Wata is finally out and getting a cool vinyl run to. Time to tune in to the new sound of pop.

A beloved icon at home, South African jazz pianist Nduduzo Makhathini made a big splash outside of his country last year with Modes of Communication: Letters From the Underworlds. He follows it up with the even stronger In the Spirit of Ntu, a record that’s one of the best blends of jazz and African music this side of Randy Weston.

Rumbling out of Albuquerque, New Mexico, stoner rockers Blue Heron makes a strong impression on their debut LP Ephemeral.

Following the release of their debut album in 2019 and a series of singles and videos that started in the summer of 2020 with “Kids of Summer” and “Buy Yourself A Dream, Monotronic have secured a place in the “one to watch” category and every release has further solidified Ramsey Elkholy’s reputation as a writer and artist with some serious creative chops.

The songs on Nuna encompass a State of the Piano recital.

For his fourth album #CubanAmerican, Miami pianist Martin Bejerano continues his quest to infuse his father’s Cuban heritage with North American jazz.

Cinematic rock duo The Caughtery (a duo of long-time Austin music veterans Lisa Tingle and David Gayler) has released their debut single ‘Fragile’, a stunning preview of their debut eponymous EP.

Dublin electronic artist Circuit3 has signed with Manchester’s AnalogueTrash label for the new album Technology For The Youth ahead of which comes the upbeat lead single ‘Future Radio’, along with two B-side tracks, including a remix by Ricardo Autobahn (AKA John Matthews), best known as one half of Spray.

For his latest album Bluesthetic, trombonist/composer Steve Davis recruits a gang of old friends, many of whom he’s been playing with for decades.

Ahead of his new album Bigger ThanIn Between, Sam Robbins releases a stylishly simple take on early rock and roll meets modern indie-folk in the guise of “Reverence”. A sonic treatise to recognising the simple pleasures of life.

Afton Wolfe is Mississippi. Born in McComb, and growing up in Meridian, Hattiesburg, and Greenville, Mississippi, the roots of American music are in his DNA. Mississippi is the birthplace of at least three American art forms: country music, blues music, and rock and roll, all of which run through his songs. He is back with a new single “Late Nite Radio,” and is sounding better than ever.

The fiery METZ frontman edges out of his comfort zone.

In the jazz world, it’s not unusual for players of a certain caliber and renown to assemble for supersessions. Minus the hype it would bring in the rock and pop worlds, these kinds of sessions can often be relaxed affairs featuring old and new friends, united by love of the music and mutual respect.

Roxy Music’s groundbreaking first two albums would be hard to follow up by anyone, let alone the band that created them.

Outside of some fusion groups, there aren’t that many jazz artists that use the studio and its gear as an instrument. On Assembly, his seventh album, trombonist Jacob Garchik and his band of trusty sidekicks aim to change that.

The lesser-known back pages of a Phil Spector star.

A veteran of ensembles led by trombonist Steve Davis, trumpeter Jeremy Pelt and saxophonists Julieta Eugenio and JD Allen, drummer Jonathan Barber also leads his own band, Vision Ahead.

Born in Tel Aviv, reborn through the sonic mantra of Indian ragas, and born again in New York City, saxophonist Oded Tzur explores the cosmopolitan nature of spiritual jazz on his fourth album Isabela.

Armed with eight players, a widescreen compositional vision and a propensity toward musical freedom, Toronto ensemble Eucalyptus gets busy the moment “Infinity Bananas,” the first track on the band’s sixth album Moves, begins its spin.

Drummer and composer Chase Elodia spent the pandemic reading books on media theory, which lead to his debut album Portrait Imperfect.

All covers albums should be this good.

Church made Darling Please alone in his basement following the death of his beloved brother and bandmate Mike, a terrible occurrence that drenches the songs in bruised emotion, whether or not they directly address the situation.

Joined by guitarist/producer Lee Meadvin, bassist Nick Dunston, pianist Paul Cornish and drummer Connor Parks, Vandever unfolds her pieces at a deliberate pace, never jumping straight in, but never letting lanquidity take over.

Though he’s been recording albums under his own name since 1978 (and as a sideman since 1974), guitarist John Scofield, astonishingly, has never recorded an album of unaccompanied guitar.

The loosely linked quintet of songs explore space, as indicated by the title, but it’s not just the cosmic variety.

Continuing their quest to re-imagine and re-brand classic pop-punk for a new generation, Bluedive drop the latest single “Kario Mart” which perfectly keeps the musical momentum flowing.

Something Here Inside is a warm love letter to the Great American Songbook.

January 22 has all of the theatrics of a U2 with more grit, and for an album self-recorded (at least partly on the artist’s sailboat), it is a stunningly ambitious achievement.

Ron and Russell Mael’s overlooked 21st-century gems.

Opus Three, the second single taken from the recently-released _Memory Box’_album by London’s Rodney Cromwell gets an enhanced version with a new 5-track maxi-single, released on April 20 via Happy Robots Records.

Faced with only the loosest of structures, the musicians used their improvisatory skills and deep understanding of their partnership to create songs that ebb and flow like water over the ocean bed, seemingly shifting at random, but in reality following an internal logic.

Oakland*-based duo *Othered present their hard-hitting debut album Othered Vol, 1 on limited edition vinyl and digitally, following up the single “Journey To The Edge”, a heavy rock / metal anthem replete with signs of our times.

One of the many journeyman supergroups populating the arena rock circuit in the 1970s, Detective never quite found the success it deserved.

Presented in Resonance’s usual sterling packages, with extensively researched booklets in each, both Morning Glory and Inner Spirit are musts for any Bill Evans fan.

What the artists attempt to achieve on Sacred Spiral is a lot, but listen to any of the songs and it’s clear they come extremely close to the sublime.

Irish indie alt-rock band Friendmaker presents “Weird”, the second single from their forthcoming debut album. Musically, this deliberately repetitive ear worm subtly changes on each refrain, reflecting the abstractions of dreamlike repetition. With audio samples of psychoanalyst Carl Jung’s dream theory bookending the piece, this is three minutes of rhythmic indie rock with hooky melodies and pounding choruses.

Cellist Erik Friedlander has been out front of the vanguard of his instrument’s potential for decades.

Overall, the album leaves the listener with a sensation that can only be described as awestruck.

The five-piece band puts their own spin on the Red Dirt country genre with a Heartland sensibility that focuses on honest vignettes of individual lives to which their audience can immediately relate.

Texan electronic and ambient composer Paris Music Corp. a.k.a. John Andrew Paris a full-length self-titled album. With 14 tracks on offer, this is his first record in half a decade, the previous release being the Rewind LP in 2017.

Pianist Eri Yamamoto, bassist William Parker, drummer Steve Hirsh and woodwindist Chad Fowler congregated to cut loose and see what happened, and what happened was remarkable.

Kaapstaad presents a chill and immersive debut single, titled “Night”, bringing distinct lo-fi chamber beats from the Baltic and beyond, influenced by such notable artists as Neils Frahm, Olafur Arnalds, Ludovico Enaudi, BVG, Agnes Obel and Grouper.

Named in tribute to late trumpeter Kenny Wheeler (after a Wheeler tune from the album Angel Song), Kind Folk has grown into a formidable force.

Following on from the critically well recieved Doomsday Noises, LA quartet, Sons of Silver are back with a new blistering five song EP Ordinary Sex Appeal. Remember when rock and roll rulled the roost? Sons of Silver certaily does!

The final salvo from the recently released and much applauded Telefís album a hAon is the “Archbishop Beardmouth At The ChemOlympics” EP, which finds band members Garret ‘Jacknife’ Lee (U2, REM, Modest Mouse, The Wombats) and Cathal Coughlan (Microdisney, Fatima Mansions) collaborating with revered electro-pop pioneer Thomas Leer, in addition to creating different versions of four key album tracks.

Unsurprisingly, Riches to Rags sounds a lot like mid-eighties Replacements, with melodic songs, bar band energy, Leonard’s whiskey-toned rasp and Stinson’s distinctive hard pop flash guitar.

NYC post-punk collective have released two electrifying singles to pave the way for their latest album Bright Black.

We can’t say for sure how multi-instrumentalist, composer and bandleader Michael Leonhardt felt when his fifteen-year-old dachshund Normyn passed away. But on his latest album The Normyn Suites, he’s trying to tell us.

Parabola West is back with new music with the album Stars Will Light the Way to be released on April 29. Ahead of this, she shares the lead track “Hannah”, an ethereal tale of the thin veil between the physical and spiritual worlds, heightened by the use of the medieval hurdy-gurdy and the haunting Swedish folk instrument Nyckelharpa. ·