The world may not have ended, yet, but if the events of the last few years have fueled the inspiration of bands like Vannon, then at least we can be thankful for a work of art this powerful.
It’s difficult to feel left wanting a little more, but what Aura Blaze has given us here is breathtaking in its scope and truly impressive in its beautifully lush production.
In 2020, Rich Jacques had a health scare and decided to move out of Los Angeles. His friends Renee and Paul invited him to come and live with them and their family allowing him time to created a lot of new habits and get back to health. It was a life changing experiencer him and their generosity, support, and friendship was truly humbling. “Montecito” is a love letter to those people and that place.
Capturing a 2018 performance opening for Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds at the titular fest, Live at Montreux Jazz Festival presents Anna von Hausswolff at her most enthralling.
Ellis is a fantastically hypnotic collection of songs, and a giant step forward for 1st Base Runner’s sound.
As with all of Matthews’ other work, Ever Since Ever Since, the trio’s second LP, swims confidently in the 70s end of the power pop pool, happily indulging in the sweet melodies/tough attack modus operandi .
For Hex, Madrid instrumental rock quartet Toundra decided to go big, rather than go home.
Collect Call is the solo project of Brighton-based multi-instrumentalist and producer Joseph Thorpe. Creating electronic dream pop that ranges from soft and sensitive to loud and bombastic, his delicate textural synthesisers, energetic drums and rhythm interlace with a balanced sense of space and sincere introspective lyrics.
British-Spanish indie-folk duo Shrinari present their new long-player ‘Hold On To The Hope, Though’, a collection of deep, inspirational tracks recorded over the past few years, bringing the listener with them on a surrealistic journey on a path of discovery. You could call this music Genre Fluid, Sacred Funk or Spirit Soul. You could call it High-Frequency Music or World Folk Pop. This beautifully-crafted collection is an inspiration and full of love, light and positivity.
With a keen sense of melody and ambition to write about subjects beyond cars, girls and rock & roll, Santander, Spain’s Pulsebeats are on their way to that milestone.
A fascinating and captivating twist on grunge and alt-rock that strips the genres back to their bare essentials and injects a heavy dose of psychedelic oddness for good measure.
Brooklyn-based underground music veterans Jarvis Earnshaw and Trevor Dunn have released Hypnagogia, their first collaborative album as the Travis Duo. Together these established artists mesh and warp jazz into a novel and unique experimental sitar-laden creature.
Breath By Breath, his latest, is inspired by two things: his personal meditation practice and his emergence from lockdown.
NYC-based alternative rock outfit Black Rose Burning has released ‘The Wheel’, their second full-length album, following the band’s debut album ‘The Year of the Scorpion’, released in 2020. Running at about 50 minutes, this collection of 12 galactic offerings was inspired by love lost, love won and outer space. This sophomore album takes the band’s sound to a completely new level in terms of songwriting and composition.
It’s an ambitiously dramatic and highly theatrical album that never loses focus, and the band never forgets to have a blast in the process, making the whole thing a rollercoaster of high octane fun.
Dublin postpunk / nugaze / electro artist Revolution Above Disorder presents the single “Scream Quietly”, paying tribute to the groundbreaking band Television Personalities and the songwriting genius of Dan Treacy.
It has glimpses of the 70s, 80s, 90s, even the future, and ultimately nothing today sounds quite like what Sluka are making.
After four EPs, it clearly seems like Seneko is building his music to something big, and a full-length album will undoubtedly deliver on the promise in this collection of his best songs yet.
It might be some time and many repeated listens before the totality of SEL Fellow’s mysteries and beauty truly reveal themselves to this listener, but Tawni Bias is clearly a name that holds a ton of promise for the future.
Each Morning and the Morning Thereafter leaves the listener with the feeling that they have heard a collection that sounds a little like a million different references and yet also something entirely brand new and fresh.
A collaboration between freefloating funk ensemble Scary Pockets and keyboardist Larry Goldings, Scary Goldings lays the groove down hard on the combo’s fourth collaboration in four years.
The German saxophonist, singer and composer has been best known for her jazz work up until now, but here the notion of a singular style of music gets obliterated.
Once the wünderkind of organ trio jazz, multi-instrumentalist Joey DeFrancesco is now a veteran of more than three decades on the scene.
It’s difficult these days for bands to craft this kind of heaviosity, of which there are oceans, with any real distinction. But Blue Heron does it on the first try.
In only four deceptively simple songs they have crafted an immersive experience that envelopes and hooks you with each listen.
Trombonist Phil Ranelin isn’t a name that springs to the lips when talking about classic horn players, despite a career going back to the early seventies, playing with everyone from Freddie Hubbard to Wayne Kramer, and leading several bands, the most famous of which is the long-running Tribe.
Consisting mostly of standards, plus a couple of originals, the record sways and swings old school, paying tribute to influential pickers like Jim Hall and Joe Pass as much as to the Los Angeles area after which it’s named.
Essentially a meditation on the evolution of civilization, this set of tunes melds traditional European classical forms with noisier, dissonant sounds suggesting the whiplash energy of twenty-first century urban life.
Singer/songwriter John Magee has been knocking around the Boston music scene since the early nineties and the first single by his band Sugarburn. But for the past couple of decades he’s been the engine running Scrimshanders, a late period alt.country band that recalls the best of the genre.
Alto saxophonist Adam Nolan likes his music fresh – so fresh, in fact, that he prefers free improvisation to pre-planned composition.
Parisian ensemble Ghost Rhythms opens its sixth album with a sound you don’t usually hear on one of its records: a human voice.
Recorded in 1967 and just now discovered and issued, Ave B Free Jam captures a group of musicians mostly at the very beginning of their careers.
If you think that you know exactly what Christmas albums sound like then you need to bend an ear towards the latest album from Paul Kelly. Here he overhauls the idea of the seasonal song by reimaging traditional carols and adding new life to the holiday pop canon. Christmas may never sound the same again!
True to the title, Mabern takes on the catalog of iconic saxophonist and composer John Coltrane, backed by saxists Vincent Herring and Eric Alexander, trombonist Steve Davis, bassist John Webber and drummer Joe Farnsworth.
As it slides towards it forty-fifth anniversary, ROVA (AKA the ROVA Saxophone Quartet) shows no signs of easing up, let alone slowing down, on latest album The Circumference of Reason.
Though based in Dallas, Texas, the hearts of the members of Brasuka live in Brazil.
Chicago’s Livingroom released their debut album, Don’t Shoot the Messenger!, this year, and it plays like exactly the breath of fresh air the music world needs at this moment.
For its third album since its 2013 reunion (and sixth overall), L.A. trio Failure modifies its approach while retaining its strengths.
Clearly inspired by prenaturally skilled popsters like Harry Nilsson, Brian Wilson and, most obviously Emitt Rhodes, whose “Promises I’ve Made” closes the record, Gabbard centers his songs around piano, vocal harmonies, and an eager sense of cautious optimism.
An unprecedented collaboration between major jazz labels, Relief aims to raise money for struggling musicians by collecting new and previously unreleased tracks from several well-known jazz artists.
Joined as headliner by his poet/dancer spouse Patricia Nicholson, Parker enters an explicitly political arena here – unsurprisingly for artists of color.
As far as Handsome Jack is concerned, the music of the twenty-first century doesn’t matter.
It’s the Canadian ace’s concerts that still produce awed whispers amongst his followers, and A Time For Love: The Oscar Peterson Quartet Live in Helsinki, 1987 documents a great one.
Longtime readers of this magazine/website will recognize the name Jeff Elbel, as he has written his fair share of pieces for The Big Takeover. But he’s also an accomplished singer/songwriter, as evidenced by his eighth album The Threefinger Opera.
