Best Albums of August 2024 Playlist
clicking cover art opens Spotify
Amelia
LAURIE ANDERSON
feat. ANOHNI
Released 30 August 2024
Canal Street Communications / Nonesuch Records
****-
The avant-garde legend's moving album takes on a daunting task: to tell the story of Amelia Earhart, and her perilous attempt to fly around the world. Shaped by Anderson's personal response to the pilot's story, the album is a reflection on what our heroes reveal about ourselves.
"The idea? To fly from California back to California—to circle the world," purrs avant-garde composer Laurie Anderson in the opening of Amelia, a masterful, cinematic album charting the final voyage of aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart.
In 1937, Earhart attempted to become the first female pilot to circumnavigate Earth, reaching the final leg of her journey before her plane vanished over the Pacific Ocean—never to be recovered.
Anderson's spoken-word vignettes, delivered over haunting orchestral and ambient electronic arrangements, reconstruct the journey from the pilot's surviving letters and reports. When asked on BBC Radio 4 why Earhart's story appealed to Anderson, who first conceived Amelia as a stage performance 24 years ago, her answer is simple: "She was a bad girl pilot—and I liked that."
The album plays like an audio documentary, achieving an immersive experience by drawing directly from Earhart's writings.
Anderson's musical arrangements bring Earhart's 1937 flightpath to life, putting shaky, surround sound instrumentation in direct communication with her voice.
Featured artist ANOHNI contributes gorgeous, dreamy vocals on six of the albums 22 tracks.
Anderson's vocals as Earhart are distorted as if transmitted through a radio mic, reflecting the unreliable radio signals that her safety depended on. This brings urgency to her exasperated cry in "Fly into the Sun," fighting to be heard amid the tense arrangement of yearning, quickly bowed strings: "Where did I get this obsession to hurl myself against the sky?" That lyric is central to Anderson's approach to storytelling in Amelia, not only because of questions the album invites about Earhart's motivations, but also because it isn't actually something the pilot ever said.
This relationship between Anderson and her subject is what elevates Amelia from mere biography into an enormously moving, poignant creative triumph.
Read more ... Pitchfork, New York Times
No More Water
The Gospel of James Baldwin
MESHELL NDEGEOCELLO
Released 2 August 2024
*****
This is a work of complexity and depth, one that relies on repeated listens to gauge the many layers of its meaning but also one that can convey the sincerity of its instrumental ingenuity simply from its first sounds.
Marking the centenary of James Baldwin’s birth, Meshell Ndegeocello’s latest album for Blue Note, following 2023’s stellar Omnichord Real Book, takes the visionary black writer’s oeuvre as her inspiration. Across a sprawling 17 tracks, Ndegeocello draws on everything from Baldwin’s writings on race and the class struggle in America to suicide, sexual identity, Civil Rights and the artist’s responsibility to society. It is an involved and potentially overwhelming range of topics to improvise from, yet the strength of No More Water: The Gospel of James Baldwin lies in Ndegeocello’s capacity to subsume lofty ideas within the heartfelt thump of her groove.
While spoken word interludes from poet Staceyann Chin and critic Hilton Als take a more literal approach to Baldwin’s work, interpolating his writing into explorations of Black Lives Matter and contemporary politics, it’s in Ndegecello’s music that we get closest to the spirit of Baldwin’s urgency and vitality. From opener ‘Travel’, which weaves spoken word with syncopated funk, to the thundering hand drums and percussion of ‘Another Country’, the plaintive bass melodies of ‘What Did I Do?’ and the ecstatic West African polyrhythms of ‘Pride I’, Ndegeocello manages to instil each composition with a lively and emotionally-charged energy.
Read more ... Jazzwise
Lover, Other
ROSIE LOWE
Released 16 August 2024
Blue Flowers Music / [PIAS]
*****
This is a record that knows its history, but has an eye on the future too – but most of all, stylistic questions aside, it’s an individualist singer-songwriter stepping up to whole new levels of achievement.
Over the past decade, she’s shown a great amount of range, bringing experimental indie, post-classical composition and more into the mix – working with maverick talents like Little Simz, Jay Electronica and Duval Timothy – but always with soulful expression at the heart of everything. And on this, produced by Lowe with Harvey Grant and D’Monk, that’s come right to the fore for the most part. The opening salvo of the acapella “Sundown” and hazy, woozy “Mood to Make Love” rolling into the absolutely classic trip hop of “In My Head” is one of the most enticing album openers you’ll hear this year, for starters.
Head-nod tempo and velvety vocals predominate, but it’s not 90s retro by any means. Lowe’s production is done with the scientific precision of the greatest sampler-wranglers, bringing out both micro details of texture and a huge sense of space within her breakbeats and instrumentation. There are distinctly spicy moments too, like the jagged, panicky funk of “Berzerk” and the bittersweet Detroit techno-leaning chant-along “Something” but they’re so well placed in the mix that the underlying flow of the record continues inexorably.
Read more ... The Arts Desk
Amen
JOY GUIDRY
Released 10 May 2024
Whited Sepulchre Records
*****
Piercing and purposeful, raw and real, Guidry’s past and present music permeates with intelligence and openness. Sonically, the meditative pulses of ambient music blended with elements of jazz and soul, forming something new and true.
AMEN is the 3rd release by bassoonist / composer / producer Joy Guidry. Representing a major step up in her ability to fully realize and embody a sound and concept, AMEN moves from rousing, rafter-splitting spiritual jazz and gospel compositions to ambient compositions that create a powerful statement of communal healing and peace. The album features contributions by Niecy Blues, Kalia Vandever, Jillian Grace, and Jessie Cox.
Love is a verb. It is an action taken, one that must be renewed within the self. It is a process of learning, evolution, and the very nature of what it means to nurture ourselves and others. And few artists know this as intimately as Joy Guidry, the Texas-bred, California-based bassoonist. The fruits of her efforts can be heard through Guidry's latest album, Amen.
Recognizing her trans identity and embracing the need to make difficult decisions with the people in her life brought forth the heart of Radical Acceptance. “There's nothing wrong with us. There's nothing wrong with any of us, when we look in the mirror, and we see something wrong, that was purely taught,” Guidry says.
Amen is the next step forward, one that calls in the power of community when embodying our true selves.
Read more ... Bandcamp
Wild God
NICK CAVE & THE BAD SEEDS
Released 30 August 2024
Bad Seed / Play It Again Sam
*****
Throughout Wild God, the rattling fire of Thomas Wydler’s drums and the rolling undertow of Martyn Casey’s bass keep up the heat beneath the gracefully meandering, melodic arcs of Cave’s piano, Ellis’s violin, synths, flute and loops, Jim Sclavounos’s spine-tinglingly resonant vibraphone, and George Vjestica’s tender guitar. Melodies flood through the music and then disappear like currents. Wild God can feel fathomless, but it leaves you buoyant
Punk-turned-prophet Nick Cave often describes music as “sacred”. Performance, for him, is an act of communion with the audience. But Wild God, his 18th album with The Bad Seeds, feels more like a baptism: an ecstatic immersion in the rushing, pooling waters of love and loss that the sexagenarian artist has experienced since the death of his sons Arthur Cave (15) and Jethro Lazenby (31) in 2015 and 2022, respectively.
Across nine swelling, sinking, swirling soundscapes, the album’s imagery plunges listeners into the lakes and seas of a “swimming god” before bringing us up for air to gawp up at the stars (“bright, triumphant metaphors for love”) and then grounding us on a warm Earth where “the country doctor whistles across the meadow” and rocking us to sleep with the muffled piano ballad “As the Waters Cover the Sea”.
Cave has described each song on this record as an individual conversion – one track is titled as such – but you don’t need to subscribe to any religious faith to buy into the transformative power of love that is hymned here.
Read more ... The Independent
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Sophcore (EP)
MOSES SUMNEY
Released 2 August 2024
TUNTUM Records
****-
Over Sophcore’s recombinant grooves, Sumney radiates a sense of fun. Confidence in his vocal talents doesn’t congeal into self-regard. Turns out he’s right: Trills and melisma suit arrangements that swell and contract like protoplasmic organisms.
When Moses Sumney sings, “I am not a woman, I am not a man” in something close to his speaking voice on “Hey Girl,” I thought, Right on. He is himself and his artistic forebears too - namely, the Prince who offered a similar affirmation in “I Would Die 4 U” Then the kicker: “I am an amoeba.” The San Bernardino native of Ghanaian parents sings over squishy, squirrelly tracks whose post-Maxwell R&B foundations accommodate damaged rock rifflets and modest gospel overtones; you might imagine him practicing vocal runs in the bedroom before church. The six-song EP Sophcore - a curriculum vitae outlining his robust laryngeal resources - recaps Sumney’s achievements and sets up what audiences might expect from a new full-length statement. It’s a tease in the best sense.
Trending Now
Read more ... Pitchfork
Nara
EMILY WURRAMARA
Released 23 August 2024
Emily Wurramara / Australian Broadcasting Corporation
****-
Emily Wurramara’s latest album, NARA, is a musical journey that defies categorization and blends a diverse array of genres and influences. From indie and alt-pop to RnB, rock, and ambient sound, Emily fearlessly explores the complexities of life, love, and identity.
NARA is a testament to her unwavering commitment to artistic growth and weaves together thirteen years of personal and creative evolution into a cohesive and compelling narrative.
NARA opens with “Midnight Blues,” a track that immediately draws one in with its haunting melody and introspective lyrics. The song sets the tone for the album. A tone that is balanced between ethereal and earth, Emily’s voice soars above a bed of lush music and her delivery is delicate yet powerful. Her voice reflects the duality of her experiences: joy and sorrow, hope and despair. As she says, “You need both to truly understand peace.”
Throughout NARA, Emily collaborates with a range of artists that add depth and variety to her sound. But what truly sets NARA apart is its authenticity. Emily’s lyrics are steeped in honesty and reflection. They offer a window into her soul. She does not shy away from the difficult moments, her struggles with mental health, the devastation of losing her home, and the pressures of her public profile are all laid bare. Yet, there is also a sense of triumph, a celebration of survival and the joy found in community, family, and Country.
NARA is a statement of intent from an artist who refuses to be confined by expectations. Emily Wurramara has crafted a body of work that is as expansive as it is intimate, as complex as it is accessible. It is a celebration of life’s highs and lows, and a reminder of the beauty that can be found in both.
Read more ... Amplify The Noise
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Family (EP)
JALGANY
Released 10 August 2024
Jalgany
****-
They are songs about love, loss, trauma, survival and strength in Aboriginal culture. They are also stories about the long and winding road that is the life we all live. These stories were written and recorded to be shared with your own families and friends.
Jalgany is fronted by Nola Lauch, a Kirrae-wurrung/Bundjalung woman who lives on the Mornington Peninsula of Victoria, Australia - south west of Narrm / Melbourne.
Nola is a visual artist, singer and songwriter who is committed to celebrating and sharing Aboriginal music, art and culture - in 2017 Nola received a regional NAIDOC Artist of the Year award in recognition of her songwriting and live performances.
Nola entertains audiences with her powerful and soulful vocal style. ‘Jalgany’ is a Yugambeh language word meaning Aboriginal woman.
The second Jalgany EP is a collection of five songs that talk about family. They are deeply personal stories from Nola about her brother, her mother, her aunts and uncles and her grandparents.
Read more ... Jalgany
Waku Minaral A Minalay
CHRISTINE ANU
Released 9 August 2024
Christine Anu / Australian Broadcasting Corporation
****-
The literal translation of Waku is mat. Minaral is colours and Minalay means the patterns.
"The fabric of this album weaves together the songs of my maternal grandfather, Nadi Anu," she says.
Christine Anu spent many "hot, balmy nights" on the verandah at their rental in Wooloowin, Brisbane before her family relocated to Mabuiag Island in the Torres Strait where she spent much of her childhood. Anu's parents taught their children how to speak Kala Lagaw Ya, her Dad's language, and Kalaw Kawaw Ya, her mother's, through song. "It was shown [to us] that [music] could take up space in a room, fill it and really give joy to other people," Anu says, adding that music was handed down to her Dad too. "His mother was also a prolific composer in her own right."
Anu has been a household name since she released a cover version of the Warumpi Band's Island Home in 1995.
The song was the second single on her debut album Stylin' Up which was certified platinum.
Anu was "dropped" by Mushroom Records after her 10-year contract expired. "There was no email, there was no phone call, there was no card," she said.
Now with ABC Music, she says she couldn't have released Waku – Minaral A Minalay all those years ago anyway. The time is now.
"What's sprung forth is a beautiful ancestor that is exactly the second album that should come from a debut if you took out everything that happened in between."
The album Waku – Minaral A Minalay, also the name of the lead single, is produced by David Bridie, who produced Stylin' Up.There are soundscapes captured from Anu's visit to Thursday Island with Bridie, as well as traditional instruments from the Torres Strait on the album, but the primary instrument is Anu's powerful and euphonic vocals.
Read more ... ABC
Twentyfour
AL DIMEOLA
Released 19 July 2024
earMUSIC / Edel Music
****-
It’s good to have Al Di Meola back on the music scene and this album is a fine reminder of what a talented musician he is.
Twentyfour is yet another album whose roots lie in the Covid-19 pandemic era. Originally conceived as a reflective acoustic guitar project, it now includes electric guitar and orchestral parts and was recorded in several studios across continents. It’s a double LP/CD release featuring 15 tunes, all composed and arranged by Di Meola.
A typical Al Di Meola album will include jazz, rock and flamenco, along with some Latin and world music. This album is no exception, although the emphasis is very much on an acoustic guitar/jazz-flamenco sound. If you’re one of those Di Meola fans who enjoy lots of fast, scorching guitar lines and dizzying runs, then you’ll find little of it on this album. But if you prefer the softer, melodic, more meditative side of Di Meola’s playing, there’s plenty here to savour.
Read more ... Jazz Views
When I'm Called
JAKE XERXES FUSSELL
Released 12 July 2024
Fat Possum Records
****-
Like the old field recorders who went out a-huntin’ for the songs in the first place, Fussell is fueled by the sense of mystery these songs often bring; he certainly does his due diligence delving into the mysteries of the lyrics and trying to figure out what’s really going on.
With an upbringing in folk music, he’s always been able to pull out lovely, subtle versions of obscure folk songs, but with his new album, When I’m Called (out July 12 on Fat Possum Records), he’s paying homage also to the field recordings of his late mentor, Art Rosenbaum. A Georgia art professor (Fussell grew up in Georgia, too), Rosenbaum’s not as celebrated as his field recording peers like Alan Lomax, but he roamed nearly as far as Lomax and had a gentle touch with field recordings that brought out great performances.
Joined by fellow outsider folk singers Joan Shelley and Robin Holcomb, Fussell certainly fits into a wave of indie folk that has taken old songs out of their lands of origin, and placed them in elementally raw, quiet settings, making them just right for new audiences to love; Sam Amidon is a musician doing this, too. What’s impressive is that both Fussell and Amidon love and KNOW the roots of the music they’re sharing; their interpretations become celebrations of the musical past.
Read more ... Folk Alley
Olhos D'águ
Fabiano do Nascimento, Daniel Santiago
Released 1 August 2024
Nascimento Music
****-
Nascimento and Santiago have conjured an enchanting, minimalist set of Brazilian-tinged, acoustic guitar pieces, some featuring ethereal guest female vocals.
Los Angeles-based Fabiano Do Nascimento is a multi-string guitarist and songwriter who melds the traditional idioms of his native Brazil (i.e., samba, choro) with the more contemporary and experimental strains of jazz, pop, and electronic music.
Raised in Rio and São Paulo before eventually relocating to Southern California as a teenager, Nascimento’s approach to guitar and songcraft is informed by an adolescence enmeshed in Brazil’s exceptionally fertile musical environs.
Daniel Santiago is a composer, guitarist and music producer who for the past 20 years has been an active and key contributor to the Brazilian and world music scenes. Originally from Brazil, Santiago is deeply rooted in the traditional sounds of his homeland, and also cites English rock of the 1970’s and 80’s and the contemporary aesthetic and complexities of modern jazz as major influences upon his unique and diverse musical world. His work is characterized by the development and search for an original sonic language, and a remarkable ability to translate deep, resonant emotion through whichever musical medium he chooses.
Read more ... Bandcamp, Spotify
MoonDial
PAT METHENY
Released 26 July 2024
Metheny Group / Modern Recordings
****-
Metheny describes the album as having an overall vibe of "intense contemplation" and being "a dusk-to-sunrise record, hard-core mellow." Lyrical, nuanced and beautiful, as lovely as a flower, it is designed to make ears smile.
Pat Metheny has rung the changes in lineups, trajectories and collaborators—Ornette Coleman, Jim Hall, Sonny Rollins, Charlie Haden, Gary Burton and more—so skillfully that every new Metheny album is still an event. It is a talent he shares with Charles Lloyd, who has been on the road and on record for even longer than Metheny.
MoonDial is the third movement, with variations, in a sequence of albums that began with One Quiet Night (Warner Bros., 2003) and continued with What's It All About (Nonesuch, 2011) - a solo recording, with no overdubs, on which Metheny plays only a baritone acoustic guitar (on the 2011 album he did play other guitars on three tracks, but it was mainly a baritone affair). The variations come with the guitar itself, a custom-built nylon-string instrument made by the renowned Linda Manzer. Coupled with a new kind of nylon string made in Argentina, the guitar allows Metheny to use a novel tuning system with a range from bass to soprano, something that he has previously found possible only with steel strings.
The program is split half and half between Metheny originals, written on the road in 2023, and covers, the latter including Chick Corea's "You're Everything" (check the YouTube below), Lennon and McCartney's "Here, There And Everywhere," Leonard Bernstein's "Somewhere" and Matt Dennis' "Everything Happens To Me" and "Angel Eyes."
Read more ... All About Jazz
Remembrance
CHICK COREA & BELA FLECK
Released 10 May 2024
Bela Fleck / Thirty Tigers
****-
With a mix of jazz and pop standards, crossing a myriad of genres, from jazz, bluegrass, rock, flamenco and gospel, this will be a casual, intimate evening with two legends from different musical worlds.
Chick Corea & Béla Fleck, two master songwriters, musicians, and band leaders meet in a historic duet of piano and banjo. The Grammy-winning duet combines Corea and Fleck’s most recognizable tunes with the music from their Latin Grammy-winning album The Enchantment and their extraordinary live set Two (originally released in 2015 and now available on vinyl as well).
Remembrance serves as a moving final document of the profound creative and personal rapport that banjoist Béla Fleck and pianist Chick Corea first showcased at album length with 2007’s Latin Grammy-winning The Enchantment. Featuring three previously unreleased Corea compositions as well as five short free improvisations, or impromptus, that Fleck has infused with written music. “We pushed this duo to a new place before we ran out of time,” says Fleck, who produced Remembrance. “We have here another cool look at Chick Corea, at the different ways that he can play that we wouldn’t have had. There’s a lot of great Chick Corea out there, and this is different.”
Read more ... Bela Fleck
Chiromancy
TIM ROLLINSON
TOBY HALL, BRETT HIRST
Released 28 July 2024
Tim Rollinson
****-
‘Guitarist Tim Rollinson proves himself to be a thorough modernist, taking bits and pieces from the styles of Bill Frisell, John Scofield, Jerry Garcia, and a lot of others, then synthesizing them into an expansive and easy-going approach that’s pretty much a pleasure to listen to.’
Stuart Kremsky Cadence Magazine (USA)
Sydney - based Tim Rollinson is a guitarist and composer who is best known as a founder member of Dig (Directions in Groove). He has also played with a range of other artists such as Vince Jones, The Black-Eyed Susans, eon beats project, Louis Tillett, the young northside big band, Phil Slater, The 10 Guitar Project, jurassic bark, the greasy chicken orchestra and the gospel choir 'cafe of the gate of salvation'.
Tim is also currently playing with clayton doley, james ryan's 'shuffle city' and 'the specialists' with rick robertson.
Tim has written and released Four albums: ‘Cause + Effect’ (1998), ‘You Tunes’ (2010), 'nitty gritty' (2016) and 'old new blues' (2019).
Rollinson's playing career has been described as an ‘eclectic trajectory’, including jazz, indie rock, funk, soul and free improvisation.
Read more ... Tim Rollinson
Lamentations
JOHN ZORN, BILL FRISELL,
JULIAN LAGE, GYAN RILEY
Released 16 August 2024
Tzadik
****-
Stunningly beautiful music that will make you think, dream, and that will nourish your soul.
Zorn's lush and seductive compositions for the magical trio of Frisell-Lage-Riley are some of his most beautiful 21st century creations, and this seventh CD in their ever-expanding series is their best yet. A dramatic and colorful tribute to the expressive Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, Lamentations contains four extended pieces that unfold like exotic flowers—gorgeous music with a dark philosophical edge. These master musicians—three of the greatest guitarists in the world—work together with a profound symbiosis, forging a unique orchestral sound world unlike any other.
Personnel:
Bill Frisell: Guitar
Gyan Riley: Guitar
Julian Lage: Guitar
Read more ... Tzadik
Hannigan Sings Zorn
Volume One - Live
JOHN ZORN, BAEBAEA HANNIGAN, STEPHEN GOSLING
Released 16 August 2024
Tzadik
****-
A remarkable meeting of two musical forces of nature finally available on recording!
Barbara Hannigan is one of the most fearless and passionate performers in the classical world, and here she sings a challenging program of Zorn compositions with the virtuoso pianist Stephen Gosling. Featured here is the long-awaited recording of Jumalattaret, a song cycle in praise of nine Finnish Goddesses out of Sami Shamanism, and Split the Lark, Zorn’s tribute to the magical American poet Emily Dickinson. Using a variety of musical techniques and genres, the music moves from lyrical folk-like simplicity to more complex atonal and textural pyrotechnics.
Included as a bonus is a rare piece of juvenilia: the charming surrealistic song Nazdar, Poupon, Nazdar. Composed circa 1971, when Zorn was about 17 years old, it is a very early example of Zorn’s multi layered genre smashing. In its brief twominute duration it contains traditional, proportional and graphic notation, and touches upon tonality, atonality, Messiaen birdsong, jazz, cartoon music, lyricism, French recitativo, whispering, vocalise, and vocal noises.
Personnel:
Stephen Gosling: Piano
Barbara Hannigan: Voice
Read more ... Tzadik
Ballades
JOHN ZORN, BRIAN MARSALLA,
JORGE ROEDER, CHES SMITH
Released 2 August 2024
Tzadik
*****
This third CD from the dynamic piano trio of Brian Marsella, Jorge Roeder, and Ches Smith is a delightful surprise - and one of Zorn’s greatest achievements.
Exploring a wide variety of tempi, moods, and feelings the compositions dive deeply into the parameters of melody, harmony, rhythm, and texture, stretching the ballade format to its limits and beyond. The trio, three essential members of Zorn’s inner circle, performs with passion, imagination, virtuosity, and a telepathic improvisational interplay at the very highest level. A stunning collection of modern Ballades performed by three of the greatest young musicians in the Downtown scene. Essential!
Personnel:
Brian Marsella: Piano
Jorge Roeder: Bass
Ches Smith: Drums
Read more ... Tzadik
No Name
JACK WHITE
Released 2 August 2024
Jack White
****-
Metheny describes the album as having an overall vibe of "intense contemplation" and being "a dusk-to-sunrise record, hard-core mellow." Lyrical, nuanced and beautiful, as lovely as a flower, it is designed to make ears smile.
No Name, the sixth Jack White solo album (was initially given away to customers in his record store and then bootlegged online) and is now receiving a more orthodox release. To call it a return to garage rock would be something of an oversimplification, given that White has recorded plenty of songs fitting that description in the past few years – the title track, That Was Then (This Is Now) and Morning, Noon And Night from Fear Of The Dawn, for starters.
What No Name represents, though, is a return to a sonic aesthetic
We’re roughly transported to a point way back on an alternative, dislocated timeline of rock history: one where Led Zeppelin rather than The Beatles and The Stones inspired the ur-punk attack of the Nuggets generation.
Read more ... Mojo
Passage Du Desir
JOHNNY BLUE SKIES - STURGILL SIMPSON
Released 10 May 2024
Bela Fleck / Thirty Tigers
****-
Passage du Desir is a return to the style of 2016’s A Sailor’s Guide to Earth, mixing cowboy honky-tonk with bluesy guitar and sweeping strings.
The offbeat pseudonym belongs to Sturgill Simpson, American country’s most singular star, for whom five albums under one name is enough (he has actually issued seven, two being old songs recast in bluegrass style). His new guise proves deeply ironic, as opener Swamp of Sadness makes clear, with most of the other numbers similarly cast under a pall of heartache, anguish and regret.
Nakedly autobiographical, it’s a deeply emotional journey. Its songs are characteristically poetic, whether describing a sojourn in Paris – “a drunken sailor lost and lonely in a sad and magic swamp” – or the tender grief on hearing an old lover has died, on Jupiter’s Faerie. The nine minutes of One for the Road are a plea for forgiveness in a sea of ethereal strings; a beautiful lament.
You can hear it deployed again on Passage Du Désir’s closer, One For The Road, a heartbreakingly dignified farewell to a relationship that’s as close to a straightforward country hit he’s ever written. Straightforward that is until, nearing the five-minute mark, a melodica drifts in, soon to be joined by pedal steel and Simpson/ Blue Skies carving out the most graceful, keening, psychedelic guitar solo for the next four minutes. It’s a reminder of another tantalising path this virtuoso shapeshifter could’ve taken, as a jam band outlaw who’s guested with various Grateful Dead alumni.
Perhaps these songs might further evolve in that direction when they make their live debuts on tour later this year – a tour, it should be noted, billed as Sturgill Simpson rather than Johnny Blue Skies. “I’m not the man that you think I am,” he admits on One For The Road, but maybe, by August, he will be again. After all, the tour is titled Why Not?.
Read more ... The Guardian
Civilians
JOE HENRY
Released 23 August 2024
Worksong / earMusic / edel
****-
Civilians is a naked light bulb, late-night reflection on what is impurely beautiful, profanely sacred, and beautifully treacherous.
This is the re-masterd release of Henry's classic 2011 album.
First there's the practical stuff: the band on this date is essentially the same one that Henry and Loudon Wainwright used on Wainwright's Strange Weirdos album (that Henry collaborated on and acted and co-produced) that ended up, in its own skewed way, becoming the best soundtrack of 2007 for the film Knocked Up. The recruited are Bill Frisell, Patrick Warren, David Piltch, Greg Leisz and Jay Bellerose (other than Warren, the rest were a quartet who toured in support of Frisell's Good Dog, Happy Man album). Wainwright is here on backing vocals, and there are guests including Van Dyke Parks and Chris Hickey. The Section, a string quartet, appears on "Our Song."
On the surface, this record is the other side of 2003's wonderfully surreal Tiny Voices, and a world away from 2001's hunted Scar where Ornette Coleman made his presence felt, known, and in his way informed with his spirit all the songs on the album, though he only really appeared on one. The fragmented, cibachrome soundscapes on Tiny Voices have been replaced by a band playing it (mostly) straight. They lay down Henry's tunes with the kind of subtlety, an underlying net that is required when walking this far out on the observational ledge, but since these are in the first person that's a sleight of hand dodge. The horns and other aspects of the Tiny Voices and Scar mosaics are completely absent, put in a closet for now in favor of something more seemingly organic. That said, those longing for a return to the more "rootsy" sounds of far earlier Henry records aren't getting that either. What this band plays can't be called rock or jazz or folk or pop or anything at all that falls inside the lines; it's music. And that's quite a thing. The mostly relaxed, snaky noise this group does make, accessible as it is, is every bit as lush and warm as its predecessors only in reverse. It's every bit the warm yet torn coat one needs to wear while standing alone in a cold wind without the sunshine for reassurance.
Read more ... AllMusic
Phoenix Reimagined (Live)
LUCRECIA BENJAMIN
Released 12 July 2024
Ropeadope
****-
Benjamin cuts through the malaise of an empire falling, burning down the ministry of b.s. as she wields her flashy golden alto and flames on like a rogue acetylene torch.
The certifiable beauty of Phoenix Reimagined (Live) is that it all happens in very very real time as Lakecia Benjamin comes fiercely into her immediate own and then, in a tear of a performance that blisters the paint on the wall, surpasses herself. It is a momentous achievement. One that we rarely get to hear up close, personal and live.
"Brooklyyynnnn! We are celebrating joy tonight!" she proclaims, and if this career kicking recording is not the purest manifestation of community joy, then it is the next best thing.
Both artist and Phoenix Reimagined (Live) never stop. Never relent. A flame throwing contest from the onset, the artist, her horn and her rap, wildfire forward. "Trane," her blast furnace nod to none other than John Coltrane, machetes the air, the stage, the consciousness. Her tone bold, blaring, incanting like the master himself. Pianist Zaccai Curtis goes full tilt McCoy Tyner, drummer E.J. Strickland summons up Elvin Jones and its forward rate of spread is exponential.
John Scofield, Randy Brecker, bassist Elias Bailey and Jeff Tain Watts light the fuse on "Phoenix Reimagined" and a jam for the ages rages forth.
Read more ... All About Jazz
History of House
SOWETO GOSPEL CHOIR
GROOVE TERMINATOR
Released 2 August 2024
Umculo House
****-
This (collaboration is founded on) a simple premise, but its execution is where it shines. Australian DJ Groove Terminator (aka Simon Lewicki) brings the beats and Soweto Gospel Choir brings the melody, with projected visuals setting the club scene.
At first glance, the pairing of the choir with electronic dance music seems a little unusual, however it doesn’t take long for the relationship to become clear. African and North American music traditions feature call and response, with heavy reliance on rhythm and repetition. These elements form the bread and butter of house music styles and, in turn, this show.
History of House is non-stop high energy from the first beat (and the audience ) is mesmerised by the charisma of each singer as they take their turn coming to the front of the stage to belt out a song, play some beats or offer up dance moves.
Read more ... In Review
Find Joy
THAT WOMAN, OH WONDER
Released 9 August 2024
Josephine Vander West
****-
That Woman (Josephine Vander West) from the band Oh Wonder steps out solo - hunting for happiness and finding it in a set of gorgeous hymns of sorority: combining patience and hope with a terrific talent for melody
'That Woman' is the solo project of Josephine Vander West from alt-pop duo, Oh Wonder with songs written by Josie & produced by her bandmate & partner Anthony West.
"This project emerged in the space after I made 5 albums with Oh Wonder, finished up a world tour, came home and then thought, "well what's next?
There must be more than this." It felt strange that after fulfilling all my wildest dreams a few times over, I still couldn't find peace.
So I started writing songs trying to explore where I came from, who I was, why I tried to become an artist, why I was so desperate for external validation, why I couldn't find internal validation, and interestingly how this related to womanhood.
I explored idealised expectations of conforming to certain female stereotypes - of being a "good girl", cheerful, smaller, more agreeable - or putting others’ needs before my own, such as being a mother or wife.
The record has taught me a lot; I've realised that for me these feelings of not being good enough, or not deserving of joy, are so intricately tied to my gender. But making it has definitely allowed me to remove the chains of expectation, stop wrestling myself (which is what the album cover references) and enjoy being entirely myself, as I come."
Read more ... Resident Music
Mối Lương Duyên
SAIGON SOUL REVIVAL
Released 2 May 2024
Saigon Supersound
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In Vietnamese "Mối Lương Duyên" means destiny but it doesn't only refer to love. It can mean many things, for example: How we all came together to form this band."
In this way - by being part of the unfolding story - the album also attempts to musically connect the past with Vietnam's evolving future.
Descending out of the southern night sky through a turbulent cloud of dreams, memory, longing and psychedelia, Saigon Soul Revival’s second full length album — Mối Lương Duyên — represents the latest act in the group’s resuscitation of the raw, heavy and subversive sounds of 1960s and 70s Saigon. Roughly translated to “destiny”, Mối Lương Duyên is a journey through eight original compositions and three soul-stirring reinterpretations of Saigonese nhạc vàng or golden music: the soundtrack to a Saigon once thought lost to history and amnesia.Driven by Western influences rock, bolero, soul, jazz and the rich heritage of Vietnamese ballads, Mối Lương Duyên delivers a seamless blend of genres and traditional instrumentation (Đàn Tranh, Đàn Bầu & Đàn Nguyệt) with themes from across time and space.
Read more ... Bandcamp
Sainyan
ABIDA PARVEEN
Released 31 July 2024
Naz Production
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She has been described as "Pakistan's Nina Simone!" and it is true the two singers share something in the resonance and strength of their voices. And as Simone moved between the blues, gospel and jazz, so Parveen's repertoire includes the ghazal, the kafi and the qawwali (the last involving an improvisational quality that some listeners compare to scat).
Abida Parveen is a Pakistani singer, composer, and musician of Sufi music. She is also a painter and an entrepreneur. Parveen is one of the highest- paid singers in Pakistan. Her singing and music have earned her many accolades, and she has been dubbed the 'Queen of Sufi music'.
Born and raised in Larkana into a Sindhi Sufi family, she was trained by her father, Ustad Ghulam Haider, who was a famous singer and music teacher. She plays the Pump organ, Keyboard, and Sitar. Parveen started performing in the early 1970s and came into global prominence in the 1990s.
She is a remarkable qawwal—the rendition of "Must Qalandar" with which she ends many of her concerts is among the most rousing pieces of music anyone is ever likely to hear, and is one of the many reasons she is often talked of as the heir to the great Pakistani qawwal Nusrat Fateh Ali Kha.
But it is with the kafi that she is most closely associated. Love songs with mystical undertones, kafis make use of refrains that form the fixed points around which the singer can string together verses from many different sources. Though most kafis are written by men (Abida Parveen feels a special affinity to those of the Sufi saint Shah Abdul Latif), the poets often take on a female persona as they write of their passion for God, which allows Parveen to bring a particular intimacy to their words.
Read more ... YouTube, Prospect Magazine
Ezzine
MOHAMED ROUICHA
Released 31 July 2024
AZ Music
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Mohamed Rouicha was a Moroccan folk singer. His songs often contain themes such as love and life in Morocco. His most famous songs are Ya lehbiba, bini w'binek darou lehdouden and Inas inas
Mohamed Rouicha (1950 - 2012) was a famous Amazigh artist, poet, singer, composer and musician. “Rouicha” was a nickname which meant “mix something for us” in Tamazight, which was the phrase his friends used to ask him to come up with and perform a new piece of music on the spot. He mastered the “loutar” instrument.
Rouicha travelled and performed his music worldwide. He left the “Dior Chioukhs” school in his native Khenifra in central Morocco at the age of 11, and began playing loutar in 1964, especially in traditional bands. The same year, Rouicha started interpreting traditional Tamazight songs and produced his first record in collaboration with the Moroccan channel RTV1. To have accomplished this at that time, when there was only one TV station, was an enormous milestone on the path towards an unprecedented success.
Rouicha sang in a warm manner, and gradually gained fame in Morocco and North Africa, even among Moroccans who do not speak or understand Tamazight.
Read more ... YouTube
Mango Mambo - Mongo Santamaria Summer Jam
RAMON "MONGO" SANTAMARIA
Released 9 August 2024
Tropical Sounds
****-
A Mongo Santamaria concert is a mesmerizing spectacle for both eyes and ears, and even in his seventies, this seemingly ageless Cuban percussionist/bandleader could energize packed behemoth arenas such as the Hollywood Bowl.
A master conguero, Santamaria at his best creates an incantatory spell rooted in Cuban religious rituals, quietly seating himself before his congas and soloing with total command over the rhythmic spaces between the beats while his band pumps out an endless vamp (a potent example on records is the hypnotic "Mazacote" available on Afro-Roots [Prestige]). He has been hugely influential as a leader, running durable bands that combine the traditional charanga with jazz-oriented brass, wind, and piano solos, featuring such future notables as Chick Corea and Hubert Laws. He also reached out into R&B, rock, and electric jazz at times in his long career. No Cuban percussionist, with the possible exception of Santana's Armando Peraza (and let's not count Desi Arnaz!), has reached more listeners than Mongo.
Read more ... Tidal
BRSB
BACAO RHYTHM & STEEL BAND
Released 8 March 2024
Big Crown Records
****-
Bacao Rhythm & Steel Band continues building their legacy and pushing the boundaries of steel pan music forward with another rock solid musical offering. Enjoy.
The German port of Hamburg town has long had a reputation for its musical heritage, famously nurturing an emerging Liverpool act that went on to conquer the world. Now it gives us the Bacao Rhythm & Steel Band, a mysterious steel pan outfit that has amassed a somewhat smaller, it must be said, cult following around the globe. With a slew of classic 7”s and two critically acclaimed full length albums, they set a high bar for themselves, one they clearly intend on pushing even higher with this new offering, Expansions
On their fourth album BRSB, Bacao are back with more of the same, but more of the same with them is inherently different. Covering songs that span genres and range from mega hits to underground album cuts, they make them their own with their unique approach to the traditional steel pans of Trinidad and Tobago.
By the time BRSB is through, Bacao has taken the listener on a journey spanning a myriad of energies, tempos, and moods while keeping it all under one umbrella. For all that, these songs are alive, and they will be taken out of the context of this album and sewn into the fabric of DJ sets around the globe for many years to come.
Read more ... Bandcamp
Munir Hossn & Elas
Live at the Black Room Sessions
MUNIR HOSSN & ELAS
Released 23 August 2024
Munir Hossn
****-
LIve performance recorded at The Black Room Sessions a state-of-the-art multi-media recording studio in Florida, USA
Born on November 24, 1981 in Brazil, Munir Hossn is an award-winning producer, composer and multi-instrumentalist. His incredible mix of heritage reveals itself in his sound: he is African, Italian, Middle-Eastern, and Brazilian Indigenous, making his music undeniably original, and deeply authentic. Both in his personhood and his music, Munir Hossn reveals pathways to a deep togetherness of many peoples.
When listening to Munir Hossn’s compositions or arrangements, the listener is able to imagine how wide and great his journeys through different countries and cultures have been.
Hossn has been featured on Grammy award-nominated albums, and his Hossn’s collaborators include: Quincy Jones, Hermeto Pascoal, Gilberto Gil, Jacob Collier, Maro, Ibrahim Maalouf, Concha Buika, Nella, Joe Zawinul Syndicate, Didier Lockwood, Alfredo Rodriguez and many others.
Read more ... Munir Hossn
Joy
COLONEL RED, INKSWELL
Released 9 August 2024
Liquid Beat Records
****-
London's Neo-soul | Broken | House vocalist Colonel Red & Adelaide beatmaker Inkswel explore themes of freedom, liberation, emancipation, and reinvention with music that is soulful and immediate.
The layered and rhythmic backbone of the production, coupled with the poetic songwriting all speak to the idea that there is joy in freeing oneself from mental & economic slavery, and that joy is a necessary mindset pertaining to being on the right side of history and this side of humanity.
Joined on this sonic journey are familiar names from the Liquid Beat crew. Libretto drops an incredible guest verse on the digital exclusive track, “Honour & Pride”, and HOT16 & Roane Namuh both deliver outstanding remixes to the tracks “Joy” and “This Side” respectively.
Artist Eatcho was key in bringing the audio soul of the recordings to visual form, and in so doing depicted an “allegory of shiva in Roman statue form moving and cracking to become anew, and along [the way], facing inner truths.”
Read more ... Bandcamp, Colonel Red
Sunny Day
THE REGIME, PRO UNO
Released 1 December 2023
wearethgeregime
****-
Smooth loved-up and sun-kissed soul, melting over jazzy road-trip’n summertime vinyl dust. The Regime’s sophomore release is strictly vintage, playfully psychedelic, smothered in funky soul, and irrefutably ‘on the One’.
Spawned from 70s soul, jazz and funk, combined with the plethora of free time the covid pandemic demanded, The Regime’s jazzy-soul outfit ‘Pro Uno’ rose out of the ashes, dousing the public with a whiff of the good ol Days, where music was real, authentic and pure.
Their 70s aesthetic and full in house production combines sounds reminiscent of Al Green, Steely Dan, Bill Withers, and America, to create a state of total nostalgia and peace love n harmony vibes.
This Iteration of the Funk Collective The Regime is the most exciting and tasteful project yet.
Expanding on the original hip hop, funk niche, ‘Sunny Day’ is undeniably one for all, and indeed all for one.
Read more ... Bandcamp
The Napoli Exchange
EX GENERATION
Released 21 June 2024
Energy Exchange Records
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The project was inspired by numerous visits to Naples, allured by the mediterranean breeze and of course the underground disco and funk forged by labels such as Early Sounds and Periodica Records.
Energy Exchange Records presents ‘The Napoli Exchange’ - the brainchild of Energy Exchange Records co-founders, Ziggy Zeitgeist and Lewis Moody, joining forces with producer and label boss Federico Gallotti (Tartelet / La Scimmia).
This meeting of minds created an opportunity to build bridges from the historic Italian city to the broader European scene of club crossover music.
Zeitgeist and Moody under the latest moniker 'EX GENERATION' assembled a team of Napoli's A list session musicians including Paolo Petrella (Fratelli Malibu/Cumbia Luciana), Alessio Pignorio (Parbleu/Funkin’ Machine), Paolo “Bata” Bianconcini (Nu Genea/Parbleu), Pietro Santangelo (Nu Genea/PS5), Dario Bassolino (Bassolino/LNDFK) and old friend and collaborator Allysha Joy.
With the goal of finding a middle ground between the new wave of Napoli Funk and Italo Disco, UK/AUS Jazz-Rave and German Electronic Music, the group cut a record in Napoli's famous Auditorium Novecento in May of 2023.
This is the first edition of what is rumored to be some kind of global jam band, an especially ambitious undertaking from the team at EX records.
Read more ... Bandcamp
Halfway Somewhere
GALIANO
Released 30 August 2023
Brownswood Recordings
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Almost three decades on from their last release, Acid Jazz forefathers Galliano - Rob Gallagher and his partner, vocalist Valerie Etienne, Ernie McKone on bass, Crispin Taylor on drums, Ski Oakenfull on keys, saxophonist Jason Yarde and Galliano Crispin ‘Spry’ Robinson - release new music on fellow traveller Gilles Peterson’s Brownswood Recordings.
Born out of London’s underground clubs and warehouse parties of the mid to late eighties, with the debut single on the Acid Jazz label in 1988, Galliano came out of a culture that spanned music, dance, fashion, art, design, and the written word.
When they arrived as the first act on Gilles Peterson’s Talkin’ Loud label in 1990 with ‘Welcome to the Story’ (produced by Chris Bangs who invented the term Acid Jazz) dressed in Gabicci sweaters, beads and skullcaps they captured a scene built on re-invention. “We were all playing around with what we could get our hands on whether that was a seventies book on Jamaican style or old Last Poets and Watts Prophets records,” says Gallagher. “We’d been recycling things for a few years but suddenly everything had coalesced and you’ve got an amalgam that seemed quite solid.”
Read more ... Bandcamp
Brass Conspiracy
FRANK LONDON
Released 16 August 2024
Tzadik
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Featuring an all-star collection of Downtown musicians, Brass Conspiracy is a vibrant new musical vision from a Downtown legend.
Composer, trumpeter, and educator Frank London has been a central figure of the Downtown Scene since the mid 1980s.
A founding member of the Klezmatics, the Klezmer Conservatory Band, and Hasidic New Wave, he has worked with everyone from LaMonte Young, Itzhak Perlman, John Cale, and Allen Ginsberg to Gal Costa, Lester Bowie, and Iggy Pop.
This exciting project is a startling new take on the deep tradition of music for brass and percussion and is informed by Latin, New Orleans, Soundtrack, Ragtime, and Avant Garde styles. Essential!
Personnel:
Frank London - trumpet
Josh Roseman - trombone
Marcus Rojas - tuba
Javier Diaz - drums, percussion
Onel Matos - drums, percussion
Kenny Wollesen - drums, percussion
Read more ... Tzadik
Barefoot In Bryophyte
MARI KVIEN BRUVOLL &
STEIN URHEIM with MOSKUS
Released 9 August 2024
Hubro / Grappa Musikkforlag
****-
With playful and creative interaction and exceptional chemistry, Mari Kvien Brunvoll, Stein Urheim, and Moskus take another step into uncharted musical territory.
From a world of its own, somewhat like ours, yet a bit different. Familiar sound, but in a slightly different order, upside down or backwards, with different instruments or in another language just beyond comprehension, that still, somehow, makes sense and carries us further in search of musical discovery.
The members of this quintet from Oslo, Norway, are frequent figures in the Hubro discography but had not played together before this project.
The collaboration began as the commissioned work Branches & Limits for Voss Jazz Festival in 2023. The music has an immediacy, an unusual combination of song material, spontaneous improvisation and musicianship that made the concert a favorite among both critics and audience at the festival.
Mari Kvien Brunvoll (vocals, electronics, percussion, zither, glockenspiel) and Stein Urheim (vocals, guitars, flutes, electronics) have written the songs that were further developed together with Moskus - Anja Lauvdal (piano, synth, harmonium, electronics, vocals), Fredrik Luhr Dietrichson (upright bass, cello, whistling, vocals), Hans Hulbækmo (drums, percussion, recorder, harmonica, tabla machine, vocals). The open and improvisational approach is evident, in the blending of the known and unknown in their songs. They have a curious approach to creativity, with lyrics that are both open for interpretation and poignant at the same time.
Read more ... Bandcamp
You're A Liar, Girl
SUNNY MORRIS
Released 2 August 2024
Blossom Rot Records
****-
'You're A Liar, Girl' sees Sunny step confidently into ambitious new sonic territory with luscious string arrangements, trumpets, saxophones and rich harmonies. The record is timely, intimate, compelling - and it will touch you to your core..
Melbourne's Sunny Morris is a trans folk artist and poet. Rich in musicality and perspective, her lyrics meander through themes of gender, family and love over layers of sparkling guitars and leisurely percussion. Absorbing, moving, insightful - Sunny’s music has that air of familiarity and warmth that is usually reserved for classics, whilst retaining its own distinctive contemporary flavour.
You're A Liar, Girl is a portrait of a trans woman's experience; from childhood reminiscence, to the questioning of her relationship with family, society, and even God.
Amidst releasing debut album Hearsay (2022) and follow up EP "I Left The Hospital" (2023), Sunny Morris befriended Melbourne artist and producer (and fellow Blossom Rot petal) Liam 'Snowy' Halliwell (Snowy Band, The Ocean Party) with whom she explored new sounds and honed in on the sonic direction for the new record.
Read more ... Bandcamp
Bewitched The Goddess Edition
LAUFEY
Released 26 April 2024
Vingolf Recordings / AWAL
****-
Laufey re-issues her 2023 hit album, adding four additional tracks.
Growing up, Laufey Lín Jónsdóttir found that the jazz singers of the past, with their rumbling low registers, resonated more deeply with her than charting pop vocalists. As Laufey, her style falls somewhere between the two, meshing jazz instrumentation and the careful diction of the Great American Songbook with contemporary themes: big city living, social media, the anxiety of being in the “talking stage” with a crush. The Icelandic-Chinese singer-songwriter learned piano and cello from her mother, violinist Lin Wei, and started making a name for herself on TikTok, posting snippets of original music and covers of songs by Chet Baker and Billie Eilish. There, she found a Gen Z audience eager to hear classic vocal jazz made cool again, including Eilish, who reshared her version of “My Future.”
On Bewitched, Laufey’s 2023 album was her second full-length, big feelings - eternal hope, unconditional love - take center stage. It’s bolder and more intentional than her 2022 debut, Everything I Know About Love, which felt like a sketchbook compiling the artist’s assumptions and hesitations on the topic.
For "Bewitched: The Goddess Edition" the artist adds four additional tracks to the 2023 album.
Read more ... Pitchfork
Meditations on Love
SUSANNA
Released 23 August 2024
SusannaSonata
****-
For a record whose subject matter involves unfaithfulness, ageing, loneliness, fear of death, darkness, sorrow, battles, haunting, sleeplessness and struggling to breathe, this is a lot of fun. But then Susanna Wallumrød has always leavened fathomless darkness with wry wit.
On this album, that enjoyment comes above all from beautiful placement and production of percussive sounds. Chimes, bells, marimbas, boinking piano bass notes all bounce around one another in a way that feels heavily influenced by Tom Waits in his junkyard percussion phase, but isn’t simply derivative but dances around Wallumrød’s unique phrasing and relentlessly mind-grabbing hooks in its own particular way. There's a jazz groove, even perhaps an electronic dance sensibility, but it's its own, odd, skeletal thing.
And that phrasing, and her strength and purity of tone, bounce in turn off that instrumentation like someone having a good deal of fun with their talent and that of their collaborators.
There’s a sense of cabaret to it all, of facing the darkness, naming it and describing it, and dancing into the night with it without care for what might come tomorrow, just relishing the moment.
Read more ... The Arts Desk
Salvation
AVR - ANNA VON RAISON
Released 7 June 2024
HOLYWOOD
****-
The boundary-pushing, left-field nature of 'Salvation' not only establishes AVR as a formidable contemporary artist but also as a visionary shaping the future of pop music.
Berlin and London based pianist, singer and producer Anna von Raison, better known by her stage name AVR - dubbed by Rolling Stone as "The most exciting new avant-gardist in today's pop world" - has crafted an avant-garde pop record for her arresting debut.
Defying traditional genre confines, 'Salvation' is the culmination of four years' work.
Beginning her musical journey in the realm of academic jazz, training at the Amsterdam Conservatory, and with Jason Moran in New York, it is only natural that this influence is clear throughout the record. Simultaneously, AVR's innate desire to challenge tradition can also be felt across the album's 12 tracks, which span jazz and neo-soul to ambient and trip-hop.
The album opens with 'Acknowledgement. Stay Soft,' an ambient instrumental piece inspired by John Coltrane’s 'A Love Supreme.'
As the album unfolds, tracks like 'Confirm Humanity' and 'A Closer Touch, A Plan of Art' explore deep emotional themes against lush orchestral backdrops.
AVR’s ability to weave diverse musical elements together shines in songs like 'SKIN' and 'Falling High,' where gospel choirs, Motown basslines, and cinematic strings converge.
'Stars In The Room,' closes the record, and offers a glimpse into AVR’s future musical direction. The song transforms a Duke Ellington classic into a modern hip-hop track, showcasing her talent for reimagining the past while pushing boundaries.
Read more ... DMY
Nine
solace
Released 16 August 2024
solace
****-
This is a superb debut set of neo-soul / R&B from the school of Cleo Sol, Yazmin Lacey, Orion Sun by an emerging artist with almost no online presence (only 955 followers on X, for example).
That's sure to change very soon!
Solace is a Houston singer/songwriter and producer who describes her style as a blend of Indie, Alternative, Folk and Soul.
At the age of 11 she began her musical journey, learning piano.
Picking up guitar along the way, Solace began to hone her craft, gradually building up the confidence to upload her first song to Soundcloud in 2015.
Since then, Solace has released a number of songs & covers, cultivating a following online.
In 2017 she released her debut EP entitled "thesis" and has since followed with a steady string of nine new singles leading to "NINE" - her debut album
Read more ... Spotify
LIFE
MARI SAMUELSEN
Released 23 August 2024
Deutsche Grammophon
****-
Known for her vibrant and imaginative programming as well as her passionate and virtuosic playing, Samuelsen has created a kaleidoscopic musical reflection of some of the emotional discoveries that come with parenthood..
Rich in contemporary colour and contrast, LIFE is inspired by the Norwegian violinist’s experience of becoming a mother.
The album presents music by Olivia Belli, Bryce Dessner, Ludovico Einaudi, Nils Frahm, Jóhann Jóhannsson, Mário Laginha, Hania Rani, Max Richter and Steve Reich, with a dash of Schubert also thrown into the mix. Samuelsen is joined on the album by a small group of fellow musicians, including the string players of Scoring Berlin, conducted by Jonathan Stockhammer.
The initial idea for LIFE came to Mari Samuelsen around the time her first child was born, and she recorded the album while pregnant with her second.
The sheer beauty of her playing is the thread that runs through all eleven tracks. She hopes LIFE will speak to many listeners, whether by stirring childhood memories or by chiming with emotions they have experienced as new parents, watching a child discover the world.
“I play music because I want to tell stories,” she says. “They have something personal – but I want them to be relatable for as many people as possible.”
Read more ... Deutsche Grammophon
Opus
RYUICHI SAKOMOTO
Released 0 August 2024
KAB America / KAB / Milan Records
****-
Six months before his death, the composer sat down to record Opus, his final concert film and album. Slow and contemplative, it offers a moving testament to his spirit and perseverance.
When director Neo Sora was approached by his father, Ryuichi Sakamoto, to direct the concert film that became Ryuichi Sakamoto | Opus, urgency was in the air. Sakamoto and his team knew that the week-long sessions planned for September 2022 might be the last time the 70-year-old composer, whose cancer had recently escalated to stage four, might have the energy to record. But the urgency was not motivated only by a sense of dwindling time. Even though he was so physically weakened that he could perform only a few songs at a time, Sakamoto felt full of ideas and creative energy.
Sakamoto drew up new arrangements of some of the most notable songs from his career, prepared three new pieces, and contemplated ways to stage them; he imagined the studio lighting shifting with the daylight over the course of the performances, progressing from early-morning gloom to afternoon sunshine and back to stark twilight. This cyclical motion provides a somber echo of the subtext of the film: All things must end. Opus—the soundtrack to the film—could easily have been a maudlin document of Sakamoto’s final concert, but instead, it feels like a celebration of the irrepressible perseverance of one of popular music’s most steadfast experimenters.
Read more ... Pitchfork
Sakamoto in Guitar
RYUICHI SAKAMOTO
JONATHAN BOCKELMANN
Released 23 August 2024
Squama
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After his much-lauded debut ‘Childish Mind’, classical guitarist Jonathan Bockelmann pays tribute to Ryuichi Sakamoto with a series of innovative arrangements of pieces by the Japanese composer
Jonathan’s stripped-down arrangement for guitar takes the piano and all the lush and bubbly synths of the original and decants them into a fine blend of flageolets and arpeggios, masterfully combining the different layers of the composition on his instrument.
Read more ... Bandcamp
The Tumbling
Psychic Joy of Now
HOLY TONGUE, SHACKLETON
Released 23 August 2024
AD93
****-
A psychedelic, ritualistic, dub trip, oscillating between the maximal and the minimal, the internal and the external, the micro and the macro, ecstasy and agony, all the tumbling psychic joy of now.
The Tumbling Psychic Joy of Now, a ritualistic and expanding collaborative album between Holy Tongue and Shackleton.
Sam Shackleton, better known by his stage name Shackleton, is an English electronic producer and founder of the record labels Skull Disco and Woe to the Septic Heart! AND one of the most original and critically lauded voices in electronic music.
Holy Tongue are a trio composed of Valentina Magaletti, Al Wootton and Susumu Mukai. Accomplished musicians in their own right, they combined to create psychedelic, free-form, high energy, spiritual dub-dance music across a trilogy of critically acclaimed EPs and their debut album Deliverance and Spiritual Warfare. Their high energy live performances invoke the experimental dub of On-U-Sound, the frenetic rhythms of 23 Skidoo, Liquid Liquid and ESG, and the spiritual energy of free jazz.
Shackleton has moved from the depths of the early 2000s dubstep underground to a diverse range of international collaborations and commissions over the last two decades. His unique rhythmic touch is now heard on some of the most adventurous and progressive projects that have emerged from the European dance scene in recent years. Shackleton’s work explores conceptual and spiritual themes with an emotional depth beyond most artists working in European dance music today, and his visions of inner space, apocalypse and dread are more timely than ever before.
Read more ... Bandcamp
Outerstate
KESSONKODE
Released 12 July 2024
Gondwana Records
****-
Drawing on their array of musical interests, and influences from rock, electronica, ambient, breakbeat and soundtracks for film and artists such as Squarepusher, Radiohead and Clark, all hot-housed in their unique studio set-up - a shed at the bottom of Tom’s garden. They’re developing a new vision of jazz, revolutionized by lulling dance music.
Standing firm between acoustic tradition and electronica, West London duo Kessoncoda - keyboardist Filip Sowa and drummer Tom Sunney - is founded on a unique blend of melodic ostinato-laced piano and unwavering drums. They’re developing a new vision of jazz revolutionized by lulling dance music and electronica in their tracks.
Like former and present Gondwana Records label mates such as GoGo Penguin and Portico Quartet there’s something strongly cinematic about Kessoncoda’s music, like a narrative arc which unfolds through different themes and moods, with an ebb-and-flow of intensity, as breath-taking swells of melody burst into being, eventually to resolve in a wondrous climax.
There’s a deliberate undercurrent of post Covid unease which is encapsulated in the title Outerstate, “this feeling of being within a group of friends and you're chatting, and you’re physically there but mentally you're not at all – you're somewhere else, a really weird state of being.”
Read more ... Bandcamp
Frutaria Electronica
MISHA PANFILOV
Released 9 August 2024
Jack White
****-
Estonian composer, multi-instrumentalist and producer, Misha Panfilov based in Funchal, Portugal, has been making waves in the vibrant rare groove scene, solidifying his presence with a string of personalized albums.
Renowned for his crafted and funk-infused singles on the FNR label out of Detroit, it was albums like the laid-back “Days As Echoes” and the jazz-inflected “Momentum” that firmly placed him on the map, leading to coveted gigs in Hamburg, Copenhagen and Stockholm.
Recognizing his burgeoning talent, Jazzaggression approached Misha to collaborate on an album before the opportunity slipped away. The decision was clear: a library album for the esteemed ‘New Library Series,’ a realm Misha is intimately familiar with, having drawn inspiration from his fellow library music composers for years. The result was 2023's "In Focus".
His latest release is on his own Miraaz Records label and comprises ten trippy and uplifting compositions linked to naturalistic and fruit-flavoured themes, as the album title suggests, with titles like "Maracuja (passionfruit) Lounge", "Rhythm-O-Green", "Crystals", "Pear Blossoms", "Island Byrd Improv", "Journey to the Lemon Moon", "Whale Song", "Silver Pineapples", "Formosa".
Totally refreshing!
Personnel:
Francisco Coelho: percussion
Anna Dotsenko: vocals
Misha Panfilov: synthesizers, piano, organ, lap steel guitar, electric guitar, percussion, drum machine, field recording.
Read more ... Bandcamp
Small Medium Large
SML
Released 24 June 2024
International Anthem
****-
A sublime assemblage of circulatory grooves and textural anomalies, at different moments recalling the synth-laced improvisations of Herbie Hancock's Sextant, the jagged dance punk of Essential Logic, the rhythmic revelry of Fela Kuti, the low-end elasticity of Parliament/Funkadelic, or the glitchy dub techno of Pole. Taken in totality, the album captures a euphoric creative synchronicity between some of today's most exciting musicians
SML is the quintet of bassist Anna Butterss, synthesist Jeremiah Chiu, saxophonist Josh Johnson, percussionist Booker Stardrum, and guitarist Gregory Uhlmann.
Their debut album 'Small Medium Large' began as a collection of long form improvisations recorded during two separate two-night stands at beloved Highland Park, Los Angeles venue ETA. Unfortunately, this major development site for the burgeoning new West Coast jazz & improvised music sound closed its doors permanently at the end of 2023. The venue, perhaps best known outside of LA for Jeff Parker's 2022 album 'Mondays at the Enfield Tennis Academy' was the perfect location for the start of SML, especially given that both bassist Anna Butterss and saxophonist Josh Johnson are part of Parker's quartet that held down a regular gig at ETA since the venue's early days (and hence thoroughly documented, heard on Parker's album). 'Small Medium Large' was engineered and recorded in stereo direct to Nagra by Bryce Gonzales and compiled, arranged, and edited with additional production, recording, and studio composition by SML across their various home studios.
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This but More
PRIORI
Released 30 May 2024
Naf / Courage Holdings
****-
Built like a classic crossover '90s electronica album, This but More is both nostalgic and forward-facing, a story told in an aural language from the past and future.
Francis Latreille is an avid reader, and a voracious consumer of films and video games. These influences feed into his music, where he tries to recreate specific textures, scenarios or atmospheres as he sees and hears them in his mind - even on his clubbiest 12-inches. Whether or not that comes across is in the ear of the beholder, but luckily, Latreille is a remarkably talented producer. For him, keyboards and generative sounds are like paintbrushes on a canvas. You'll hear glass, water, grit and stone in his music, and the familiar rhythms of genres like prog and garage become almost ritualistic, experiments in movement divorced from a DJ set. (Of course, they work plenty well in DJ sets too.)
Only six years into releasing electronic music, he's already got three excellent albums under his belt, and it seems like his experience with multimedia gives him a keen understanding of narrative and pacing. But there's still something different about This but More, a heavily collaborative and gently experimental album that expands the Priori world into new dimensions, sometimes literally. (The album comes with a booklet of evocative short story vignettes written by fellow Montrealer Devon Hansen.) It's a patient and lovely LP that touches on electroacoustic music, pop and the outer reaches of techno and drum & bass, built with the vibrant melodies and diamond-hard textures of the best Priori records.
Read more ... Resident Adviser
Desire!
PRIVATE JOY
Released 23 August 2024
Rhythm Section International
****-
Each track draws from personal experience; be it heartbreak or reconnection, an emotional diary conveying the trials and tribulations of love, loss and ultimately, desire.
With a namesake derived from the mighty Prince’s catalogue, and its lustful connotations, Private Joy is the producer of soul band Lovescene and a supreme vocalist of the Manchester scene.
With collaborations working with the likes of Ruf Dug, Finn, and Lenzman, a solo EP was inevitable and a statement this is.
In just over 18 minutes, Private Joy welcomes you into her world of sensuality and soulful warmth. Musical hugs galore, the production balances synths, harps, saxophones, tight beats and meaningful lyrical content; eschewing millennial whoops for Sade indebted dulcet tones.
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Aurelia
MATTY GROVES
Released 2 August 2024
Grove Records
****-
Reminiscent of the golden era of Psychedelic Folk during the 60s and 70s, ‘Aurelia’ is a dreamy 12-track album sure to soothe the soul.
Matty Groves (whose stage name derives from the ancient Northern English folk ballad) has graced our ears and captured our hearts on killer debut album, ‘Aurelia’. The blossoming musician from the heart of Naarm/Melbourne evokes the spirit of trailblazers like Nick Drake, Gary Higgins, and Linda Perhacs in his artistry.
‘Aurelia’ is a part of a larger project, these songs are the highlights for my full scale prog-rock opera stage show that includes narration and added music.
Groves plans to release the extended soundtrack later this year.
Read more ... Happy
SunNeverSetsOnMusic | Sun Never Sets On Music | www.sunneversetsonmusic.com
A monthly digest of innovative new music from around the world
especially Jazz, Contemporary, International, Folk, Avant-garde, Soul, R&B and Soundtracks
including album artwork, album reviews
and YouTube playlists, Spotify playlists.