The Invitation is a remarkable example of an artist both rejecting and welcoming trends, creating something uniquely their own in the process.
The band’s post-punk/pre-grunge attack has barely evolved in over thirty years, but that’s been to the trio’s advantage, developing into a signature sound.
Earlier this month, Husmann released a new album Seven Years of Silence, titled after the seven year hiatus the artist took from the industry.
New York’s Knoxville Girls had quite the pedigree, including former Gun Club, Cramps and Bad Seeds guitarist Kid Congo Powers, former Honeymoon Killers and Chrome Cranks axeman Jerry Teel, original Sonic Youth drummer Bob Bert and other members of the Gotham scum/noise rock underground.
As might be surmised by the title, Pandemos, the first album by Minneapolis quartet Beebe Gallini, is made up of demos recorded right before the Covid pandemic shut everything down.
Released on June 25th, a long overdue retrospective of Arthur Brown’s Kingdom Come with an impressive five disc set
Joined by fellow jazz geniuses Linda May Han Oh on bass and Tyshawn Sorey on drums, the New York native paints vivid canvases that draw on multiple iterations of jazz without overtly paying homage to any single one.
Born and bred in Argentina and residing in Miami since 2013, singer, songwriter and producer Roxana Amed carves out a distinctive space for herself in contemporary music.
“Hovering easily between post rock, shoegaze, and dream pop, this song cycle is one of the best shoegaze records I’ve heard in years. I am amazed by the immense production values and the many-layered tapestry that colors each song. I hear different things every time I listen through, and this one has been on repeat throughout the past month.”
Like Rocky Horror, the EP is extremely camp, over the top, and a ton of fun.
For his fourth LP Occasionally, the high school music teacher and yoga instructor takes a painterly approach to his music, shifting the emphasis away from improvisation and towards composition.
One of Midwestern rock & roll’s hidden treasures, Indonesian Junk (and what about that “damn, I wish I’d thought of it first” band name?) just keeps getting better.
If Daniel Blake’s previous single, “Circle Mountain”, made a few discerning music fans take notice, Jakarta is the collection of songs where he is likely to become a talking point in all of the right places.
Due for release on May 21st, ‘When I Mean What I Say’ is an album that is a long time coming, and it has been worth the wait
In the grand tradition of albums by Keith Jarrett and Paul Bley, the ivory-tickler went into the studio with nothing prepared, casting his fate to the improvisational winds.
Who knew that the south was a hotbed of free jazz? Probably every Southern jazz fan ever, but for the rest of us, the existence of a group like the Dopolarians is a delightful surprise.
Mesmerizing singer/songwriter Toni Halliday (Curve, Chatelaine) returns with music made for sync deals, but tantalizes with her alluring vocals.
Principals Scott Dense and Little Ricky reach back to sounds made before psychedelia was even a twinkle in anyone’s eye.
Merrill Garbus mixes itchy music and restless social commentary to spark a revolution of the mind.
Sometimes you just want something old school – and that’s what alto saxophonist Jim Snidero delivers on Live at the Deer Head Inn.
Whispers From the Wicker Man may be one of the more unexpected hard rock releases of the year, but it is sure to remind fans why the group first caused a stir all those years ago.
Fans of fusioneers as diverse as Return to Forever, Scott Henderson & Tribal Tech and Dan Weiss’ Starebaby will definitely find common cause here, but to say the record sounds like any of those folks is inaccurate.
While still best known for his new wave and power pop work with the Plimsouls and the Nerves (despite neither of those bands having existed in years, if not decades), Case is at his best when he’s filtering what’s now called Americana through his own unique brain.
Although their next release promises to have more of a rock edge, the mood of Sirens Go By, especially the title track, perfectly suits the uncertain and contemplative time we are in.
After eight albums with his so-called “Zen funk” band Ronin and three with his more expansive group Mobile, Swiss pianist Nik Bartsch returns to the solo format for the first time since 2002.
With one foot in the gypsy jazz of Stephane Grapelli and another in the spontaneous intensity of Albert Ayler or latter-day John Coltrane, Nagano is as comfortable with straight post bop as with free jazz, and seems to be happiest when she blends the two.
With a light guiding hand for the musicians and his own improvisational skills at their peak, Lloyd varies the mood of each song according to its thematic landscape.
Despite seemingly constant setbacks (bandmember deaths, interpersonal squabbling, singer Mike IX Williams suffering liver failure), the New Orleans band is, if anything, stronger than ever.
Essentially, their music is a party in spite of life falling apart, thus making The Divorcees the perfect post-pandemic soundtrack.
Copyright protection produces more enticing revelations from Bob’s endless back pages.
With an album cover that could have easily been shot in the 90s, Apache Rose proudly sport clear influences of alt-rock acts like the Foo Fighters, Stone Temple Pilots, and Queens of the Stone Age.
The Reducers remind us of their unequalled brilliance on a new live set
The group is at their best replicating the Industrial and atmospheric piano ballads by Martin Gore, but they expanded what were commonly interludes on Depeche’s greatest albums from the 80s and brought them front and center.
Bobby Burg’s first Love of Everything release in a decade offers aural hugs in a year where any kind of embrace is desperately needed.
The Californian-based dynamo outfit Hayley And The Crushers return with a new set of music, a six-song set aptly titled Fun Sized.
“Unsung Procession” and “Through an Open Window” present Thumbscrew at its most prototypical, with guitar melodies that leapfrog over expected changes, non-conformist harmonies and a rhythm section that keeps the ground unsteady under the lead instrument’s feet.
The career of drummer Joe Chambers stretches back to the early sixties, when his rhythm work was a staple of many a Blue Note LP. He logged time with Bobby Hutcherson, Wayne Shorter, Freddie Hubbard, Andrew Hill, Donald Byrd and more, plus gigged with Hugh Masekala, among others.
Stark, confessional tunes plus Omnichord equal unsettling intimacy.
The San Francisco based outfit Strangers In A Strange Land release a cover of the Bee Gees “Ring My Bell” featuring a Bee Gee and Shel Talmy
Palmyra Delran returns with The Doppel Gang, and the music world is a better place.
A testimony to Rock And Roll, courtesy of the split single featuring Genya Ravan and The Shang Hi Los
Matthew Shaw delivers an album of tribute, nostalgia and advances, with the electric poetry of Nachtmusik.
Zamrock, the African nation of Zambia’s indelible contribution to the wide umbrella of rock & roll, had to start somewhere, and this is it.
Wallflower is a fantastic document of a state of mind that countless others have likely experienced in the preceding twelve months, and is definitely recommended for any fans of Lana Del Rey.
By the end of Get Big, the album is a truer descendent of Americana than the majority of slickly-produced odes to beer and women that masquerade under the title today.
A British pop great teams up with American producers to make timeless music.
Named for his children, Uma Elmo gives Bro new vistas to probe, expanding and refreshing his exploratory musical outlook.
