Given the ECM label’s long tradition of solo bass recordings, it’s surprising that it’s taken this long for Marc Johnson to release one.
While a long-respected and cherished sideperson in many different contexts, drummer Andrew Cyrille has been enjoying a renaissance as a leader. The News, his third album for ECM and second with his Quartet, may be his best for the label yet.
As with the Flesh Eaters’ comeback LP, the intriguingly titled Hot Rise of an Ice Cream Phoenix is a blend of covers, new songs, and updated older material.
Eberhard – dedicated to German bassist/composer Eberhard Weber, with whom Mays worked on Metheny’s pre-Group LP Watercolors – is both a tribute to an old friend and a good example of what Mays brought to the table in his various musical endeavors.
The young Yorkshirewoman has as much affinity for funk, soul and psychedelic rock as the spiritual jazz that shimmers through everything on her debut album.
Drummer Tom Cohen has played nearly every kind of music imaginable as a session musician. But when given his druthers, the Philadelphia sticksman is partial to jazz. My Take features him in an organ trio setting, joined primarily by B-3 master Joey DeFrancesco and either Tim Warfield or Ralph Bowen on saxophone.
Regardless of whether or not TJF enjoyed the success that was rightfully theirs, the Welsh combo hasn’t slowed down, releasing its fifth LP Into the Blue.
Unsurprisingly reflecting the difficult times in which it was made and lived, Deep States continues the Melbourne quartet’s mission of deconstruction, tearing down two guitars/bass/drums rock music in order to build it back up.
Plenty of artists return from extended hiatuses and sputter out with one new album, but not these unique noir rock balladeers. If anything, Stray Gods is stronger than the comeback LP.
Home All Day, Home All Night might emerge as one of the more profound artistic statements of the COVID precisely because the band doesn’t date themselves to the era and the album will hold up long after this pandemic is behind us.
It’s interesting to ponder how these songs would have been received if they had been released in the 90s, but it is undeniable that Hey Mountain Hey is absolutely perfect for this moment.
The great country of Sweden has no shortage of stoner rock bands, so it can be hard to get excited about yet another one. But there’s something about Moon Coven that makes the group stand out.
The Alchemysts may not have existed in two decades, but, thanks to Tee Pee, their music not only lives on – it holds up nicely.
Four decades after the first attempt, Sorrows release their masterpiece.
Evolving out of L.A.’s much-beloved Chicano punk trio the Plugz, the Cruzados never got their due in their eighties existence – the curse, perhaps, of being a straightforward, punk-pedigreed rock & roll band on a major label (Arista) looking for both the next Bruce Springsteen and the next Poison.
Since his compadre Brad Marino released another solo album this year, naturally fellow Connection singer/songwriter/guitarist Geoff Palmer follows suit.
The music of Ann Arbor’s Fourth World Quartet lasted less than a year (the titular 1975) and all of two gigs. So what makes this document of fully-realized demos so important?
Country cousins take a snort of disco and funk. Get out on the floor!
Born in the small town of Kirkland Lake, south of Toronto, singer/guitarist Dany Laj writes the kind of tunes full of yearning: for love, for commitment, for purpose, for getting the hell out of town.
Rarely is a first release as ambitious as Mettle, and fortunately for the artist and the listener, the finished product more than lives up to that promise in bold and highly original ways.
Boston duo Damon Krukowski and Naomi Yang have had a long relationship with legendary Japanese psych guitarist extraordinaire Michio Kurihara (Ghost, Boris, the Stars, White Heaven), but haven’t been able to record with him in a decade.
Both veterans of the Boston rock & roll underground, singers/songwriters/guitarists Sal Baglio (the Stompers, the Amplifier Heads) and Dan Kopko (Watts, the Shang Hi-Los) combine forces to form the Peppermint Kicks.
For its second EP, Orlando trio Odd Circus is eager to prove that free improvisation isn’t just the province of jazz musicians.
Having passed the twenty year mark, The Lords of Altamont now stand as veterans of L.A.’s always-thriving garage rock scene.
Killed by The Architects doesn’t try to reinvent indie rock or post-punk, but it will easily charm and melt the frozen hearts of even the pickiest of gatekeeping fans.
One look at the personnel on the debut album by East Axis makes it hard to resist: pianist Matthew Shipp, drummer Gerald Cleaver, saxophonist Allen Lowe and bassist Kevin Ray make up a free improvisation dream team.
The debut solo single by Swagger frontman Lee Michael Stevens is the first step in a promising journey.
Dame Shirley Collins returns with the power of nature in and all it’s beauty
A Los Angeles institution crafts affectionate covers of hometown faves.
Rather than fill nooks and crannies with ear candy, Harrison lets the songs breathe, the air around each lick and vocal framing the tunes as much as backwards guitars and tape splices did in the Kontiki days.
Rather than padded with filler, the immense album is proving to be made with meticulous care and attention.
A joint effort from two musicians equally comfortable with organic and synthetic sources of sound, Aufbruch feels like the perfect soundtrack for the Pandemic Years.
For Coda – Orchestral Suites, the Austrian musician reworks pieces from past works via a horn-and-string laden chamber orchestra, vibraphone, electric guitar and his own probing horn.
Shun leader Matt Whitehead used to lead South Carolina’s Throttlerod, and while his new group Shun fields some of the former band’s ragged-but-right stoner metal, there’s a lot more going on here.
Cover albums are normally predictable and unimaginative affairs, but not in the hands of Renee Stahl and Jeremy Toback. “Whole Lotta Love” is a gorgeous reimagining of some of the best known songs of the modern age and clever renders them into whispering, ambient folk songs whilst still retaining that special quality which made them so popular in the first place.
With jazz’s long history of saxophone/drums duo albums, it was only a matter of time before some musicians decided to double up.
Night Shadows isn’t above referencing pop culture or the long history of popular music, and by beautifully and effortlessly synthesizing both the high and the low the band is elevated to a living individual work of art.
Documenting a 1970 performance recorded by the Left Bank Jazz Society at Baltimore’s Famous Ballroom, the two-disk Understanding resurrects a magnificent Brooks gig from the vaults.
Beth Rettig and Where We Sleep release their debut long-player, and it is explosive and enchanting
Besides his piano, Evans wields the band as his instruments, knowing when to keep them in support and when to let them loose.
Inspired by and dedicated to nineteenth century American artist Robert Henri, The Art Spirit is clearly committed to Art For Art’s Sake.
Rock music’s premier all-female band get a long overdue retrospective.
A worthy follow-up to last year’s self-titled introductory EP, the Idolizers rip it up again on new EP ConCretins.
There’s a lot of L.A. rock history in this band’s DNA.
CCR legend Doug ‘Cosmo’ Clifford releases an extraordinary piece of work on August 27th, a collaboration with the late Steve Wright from the Greg Kihn Band
Forever trumpeted within these virtual and physical pages as one of the greatest bands not enough people know about, The Black Watch celebrates the tenth anniversary of one of its best: Led Zeppelin Five.
Led by acclaimed saxophonist Dayna Stephens and drummer Anthony Fung, Pluto Juice explores two concepts on its self-titled debut: space travel and the EWI, or electronic wind instrument.
Led by singer and bassist Che Beret, Arizona’s French Girls dig their guitars loud, their melodies sweet, and their rhythms pumpin’.
In which our intrepid co-leaders of the dB’s revisit their back catalog in more stripped-down and intimate takes than the louder versions on record by the band.
As time and aging are common themes throughout the album, it is fascinating to listen to an artist with a new perspective sing these songs written by his younger self.
