The King struts his stuff on big stages and goes small behind the scenes.
Tyler Mitchell may be a longstanding member of the Sun Ra Arkestra, but the bassist also leads his own bands, often with his Arkestra boss Marshall Allen in tow.
Part of the new generation of ECM players taking the label tradition down new trails, Mette Henriette presents her second album.
The production on the album was aided by Tony Maimone of Per Ubu, and the songs truly benefit from a bombastic, larger-than-life sound. Lord Sonny the Unifier truly outdid himself here.
At 79, piano great Kenny Barron has been around long enough to let over forty years pass since the last time he did an unaccompanied solo album.
Most notably the bassist in the reformed lineup of Psychic TV from 2003-2020, Hoboken, NJ-raised Alice Genese now shares lead vocals in this Asbury Park-based outfit with Pretoria, South Africa pianist/artist Shaune Pony Heath.
London psychedelic pop artist Black Market Karma announces their upcoming tour with The Black Angels as they gear up for the band’s eleventh full-length album Friends In Noise, an international collaboration rooted in friendship and spontaneity, to be released via London boutique label Flower Power Records.
Old Town Crier (aka Jim Lough) quietly put out the “You” EP last summer. Over the Christmas break I listened in enthusiastically and asked him to tell us all about it, and what’s next in 2023.
It’s insane to record something with a scale this large, but What Strange Beasts executes their vision with skill and ingenuity that is truly awe-inspiringly impressive.
College rock / power trio ON have released their self-titled ON album, via Indiestructable Records, which ON guitarist Steve Fall says is “a document of friendship navigating explores in pain, and hope. Looking at the world with a collaborative effort to document what we see, witness and feel through songwriting and chemistry as a band.”
What better way to announce the new year than with a letter? South Carolina -based alternative pop duo The Yets are doing just that with their new video for “Letter To A Boy”. This is the latest offering from their self-titled EP, a six-track debut offering indie pop sensation and sonic temptation with a fresh but seemingly familiar adult alternative vibe.
Singer/keyboardist Joe Darone, once the teen drummer of Totowa, NJ’s The Fiendz and later for New York City’s The Rosenbergs, follows up 2020’s fifth LP Hide and Seek with this spirited two-song digital single.
On the heels of brawny-voiced Atlanta singer/guitarist Adam McIntyre’s three 2020 solo LPs and his foursome The Pinx’s Electric! EP the same year comes that group’s fifth LP, following 2019’s Sisters and Brothers.
American indie rocker Rob Munk presents his latest album Phased Out which comes 20 years after initially leaving the music scene. Alas, music takes on its own life, pushing Rob back into its realm with better and more personal songs than ever before. During the pandemic, Munk recorded this album with actor-writer-artist Daniel London (Old Joy, Minority Report, Manhattan) and Tinsel drummer Joe Ventura.
Following 2021’s red herring electronic/ambient sixth LP XI: It’s the Future, Kansas City, MO’s Suneaters return to their familiar hard-rocking ways on this seventh.
Art rock collective The Pull of Autumn presents their fourth album Beautiful Broken World, an ambitious 15-track undertaking that began in early 2020.
This record involves many iconic artists, including Philip Parfitt of The Perfect Disaster, Stuart Moxham of Rough Trade post-punk band Young Marble Giants, Luke Skyscraper James of I.R.S. recording artist FASHION and John Neff, who has contributed to multiple David Lynch films and is also a member of David Lynch’s Blubob.
Spanish native and Austin, Texas transplant Diego “Bull” Avello and band offer riff-driven blues-based rock and positivity.
UK artist Black Market Karma and Ruari Meehan (Belakiss, Tess Parks & Anton Newcombe) present “Aping Flair”, the second single from the band’s eleventh full-length album Friends In Noise. An international collaboration rooted in friendship and spontaneity, the record will be released in mid-January via London boutique label Flower Power Records.
“We never really went away, but it really feels like the Wayside is back,” says singer John J. Thompson. The Wayside brings its blend of roots-rock, alt-country and Americana to two new singles.
Finnish indie outfit Pennies By The Pound are back with their new invigorating single “The End Times”, the second single from their upcoming concept album Nothingside, which is anticipated for release in early 2023 via the Lilith label.
NYC-based indie-pop / folk artist Jessie Kilguss presents a gentle and sanguine acoustic rendition of “Wuthering Heights”, first made famous by Kate Bush. Engineered, produced, mixed and mastered by Charlie Nieland (Debbie Harry, Rufus Wainwright, Blondie, Scissor Sisters) at Saturation Point Studios in Brooklyn, this stripped-down features only guitar, vocals, harmonium and glockenspiel.
Scotland’s Modern Studies just released its latest 8-track EP “Cassandra”. Armed with vintage instruments, the band has further mapped a wonderfully fresh and somewhat uncharted niche of arty chamber folk pop.
“There are many bands, each one sounds completely different…” – admits Jerry A, talking about various projects of his. Despite the glory of being a founding member of Poison Idea, the vocalist has made successful career as a member of various projects and active collaborator.
While Leibson naturally carries most of the melodic load, Yang interjects her own low-thrumming harmonic ideas, and Cleaver makes his presence felt outside of mere beat-keeping.
His harmonic sophistication and distinctive chord voices take responsibility for the shape and feel of each tune, with his bandmates following his standard.
Not surprisingly, the “chilling mood-pop, as strangely still as David Bowie’s Low and Heroes, side twos” of Seattle outfit Blue Grass’s 2021 third LP Jardin des Étoiles is present on this similarly “jardin”-titled fourth.
Chicago-based alternative post-punk outfit The Bellwether Syndicate presents “Beacons”, the second single from the band’s Vestige & Vigil album, scheduled for release in April 2023 via Nexilis Records / Schubert Music Europe and Sett Records in North America. The single debuted at #4 in the DAC/German Alternative Charts.
If there’s a jazz saxophonist more prolific than Ivo Perelman, it’s unclear who that might be.
Baker entered a prolific creative period in the old world, including an ongoing collaboration with German vibraphonist Wolfgang Lackerschmid.
When musicians from disparate genres come together, you never know what you might get.
Two albums in, The Shop Window has dived into the warm sound of jangle pop with outstanding results. The Kent, UK band’s ”A 4 Letter Word” has just been released on limited edition vinyl and is a record I can’t stop playing.
Barbeau lets it all hang out here, both musically and emotionally, and it leads to Stranger being one of his very best records.
There are lots of multi-instrumentalists out there in Musicland – that’s no surprise. But how many of them are experts in a pair of instruments as disparate as the guitar and the trumpet?
Tired of the usual Christmas tunes played the normal way? Bad Mary has the answer and A Very Bad Christmas takes a collection of seasonal sounds, turns them on their head, weaponises them and breathes new life into the holiday sound. Not for the faint-hearted.
Guitarist/singer/songwriter Richard Dawson is part of a long line of British eccentrics.
In a way the West Coast counterpart to Boston’s Rum Bar Records, Burbank’s Big Stir also pledges its troth to gimmick-free guitar pop and rock & roll, with an emphasis on the former.
One listen to this mesmerizing fourth album was all it took to become hooked on Dallas instrumental guitar virtuoso Hewitt’s dexterous and highly melodious style of flamenco playing.
While that pressing has sold out, a 2nd vinyl pressing (with a beautiful 11×17 poster) as well as a cassette and CD version have now been released, making it easier for fans who want a physical copy of this release to get one.
The pair hit it off when working together as part of drummer Tim Horner’s group, and their chemistry, both with each other and with Cuenca, is evident in this relaxed set of songs.
Working with producer Alicia Vanden Heuvel, Janko and her band make a record that sounds utterly out of time, with a simple, stripped-down arrangement style that eschews production slickness for soul.
The term “chamber jazz” has fairly wide-ranging connotations – just check out the catalog of ECM Records. But Chamber Made, the latest album from clarinetist Darryl Harper, takes the sobriquet literally.
LA-based alt-pop songstress Faith Marie presents her new single “Rock Bottom”, the lead single from her forthcoming EP, titled More Than I Am, which is slated for release in early 2023. Her two-year hibernation is over following a series of lockdowns and other setbacks, this 3-track release taking a year to complete from beginning to end.
British alternative artist SICKY presents his thickly layered sophomore album Garbage Town, a 12-track collection that follows three singles – the title track “Garbage Town”, “The Bridge”, and the latest “A Bite Without A Mark”. SICKY is the solo project of Mick Butler, his brand of melodic Britpop-infused indie rock spells good news for fans of Beck, Supergrass and early Blur. Originally from the Black Country region of England, he is now based in Shropshire.
Though he’s not invoked as much as he used to be, it’s worth remembering that Ahmad Jamal is a major jazz figure, both in terms of popularity and cultural impact.
The Los Angeles singer/songwriter/guitarist has made it to album #14 without causing much of a ripple on the surface of popular acclaim, and given the high quality of his work, that’s both a shame and a mystery.
Though not as focused as the Sonar records or as risky as the string quartet album, in some ways Thelen’s Fractal Guitar series represents his aesthetic at its most pure.
Alternative music legend Chris Connelly presents his new album Eulogy to Christa: A Tribute to the Music & Mystique of Nico, a colossal 24-track offering released by Shipwrecked Industries in the USA and Easy Action in the UK, paying tribute to Nico – the iconic muse of The Velvet Underground and one of the most unique, tragic and misunderstood female artists in the history of music.
As both men favor melodic construction over unrestricted blowing, together they create a program that, while technically impressive, is more purely musical than anything else.
Scotland’s Trashcan Sinatras released “Lay of the Land” over the summer as a digital-only release. A new physical-format EP (12” orange vinyl or CD) with three bonus b-sides is fresh off the press.
