2025.100
Golden Brown: Whisker Fatigue
Most one-man guitars-and-effects albums out there lean into quiet ambient beauty, sonic balm to the loudness of the modern world. While there's some lovely guitar on his latest, Stefan Beck sandwiches it in layers of murky digitalia, leaning into the darkness rather than ignoring it. It's a welcome dimensionality for the listener. Pretty, sure, but also not. Enjoy!
Album links in LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/recommneds
Somehow forgot to thread this one, so just including 2025.101 here for my own sanity.
Attached: 1 image #recommNeds 2025.101 Goblyns: Three Sisters If there are 3 magic adjectives that might get an album onto the rec radar, they're probably "psychedelic," "groovy" and, of course, "European." This one ticks all the boxes and doesn't disappoint. Two brothers + a good buddy form this Berlin trio that doesn't hide their influences but combines familiar motifs into a highly enjoyable mix. Tough not to love regardless your keywords. Enjoy! #newmusic Album links in LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/recommneds
2025.102
Lou Hazel: Riot of the Red
There's good music made on this side of the Atlantic, too, you know! Take this Durham-based songwriter whose latest is a delight of American folk rock. It lies somewhere at the intersection of Dr Dog and New-Morning-era-ish Dylan where the lyrics, melodies, vocals, and instrumentation are all perfectly matched comfortably cushioned in an easygoing vibe. Enjoy!
Album links in LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/recommneds
2025.103
Holden & Zimpel: The Universe Will Take Care Of You
Two of my favorite electronic artists are James Holden who creates magical realism pieces of pure joy & Wacław Zimpel who combines clarinet + electronics in truly unique ways. So it's no surprise that this collab is pure bliss. The energy of the two is resonant in the truest sense. This is happiness for a world that needs lots of it. Enjoy!
Album links in LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/recommneds
2025.104
Jeremiah Chiu & Marta Sofia Honer: Different Rooms
Pairing of Chiu (SML et al) on modular synth and Honer on viola & electronics makes for a powerful combination. It's a power in understatement and quietude. Lovely improvisations and interplay that's given room to breathe and evolve. The sonic meditations are enhanced by guest appearances from Josh Johnson and Jeff Parker. Masterful all. Enjoy!
Album links in LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/recommneds
2058.105
Brìghde Chaimbeul: Sunwise
The Scottish small pipes player channels ancient musical wisdom, creating an entrancing, mystical sound. Glacial drones eventually yield some lively playing and otherworldly vocals, the sound of her native land but also something that feels not of this planet at all. The listener is left in a heady space, hypnotized and transported. Transcendent. Enjoy!
Album links in LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/recommneds
2025.106
SLUGish Ensemble: Urban Crawl
SF reedsman Steven Lugerner leads an ensemble of the Bay Area's brightest jazz up-and-comers on his latest. Each track is influenced by an intersection in his home city, pandemic walking routes lending themselves to intersections of traditional group playing and more progressive compositions. He sticks to bass clarinet, giving it some extra low groove oomph. Enjoy!
Album links in LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/recommneds
2025.107
The Sorcerers: Other Worlds And Habitats
I've been recommending new music from this Leeds band for 10 years now and if they keep putting out shit this good, I'm gonna keep on doing it for another 10. Once again they deliver with a set of deep afrofunk. This is the dark and the dank, baritone sax and old school keys on minor key grooves and swampy rhythms. Betcha dig it. Enjoy!
Album links in LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/recommneds
2025.108
Maurizio Brunod: Trip with the Ladies - Chapter 2
I often listen to these recs on my commute home before posting and today's listen was partially amidst a rather harrowing rainstorm. Brunod's guitar was a perfect calm in the storm. Mixing classical, flamenco, and gypsy jazz, this is a thing of placid beauty. It's the perfect antidote for whatever is raising your blood pressure these days. Enjoy!
Album links in LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/recommneds
2025.109
Yuuf: Alma’s Cove
Over the course of a five-track EP, the London 4-piece manages to chart a wide range of emotional energy, from pensive quiet to jubilant, desolate to downright giddy. This is high level instrumental music born from a deep catalog of influences for listening either light or heavy. Enjoy!
Album links in LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/recommneds
2025.110
Editrix: The Big E
Guitarist Wendy Eisenberg has been on the one-to-watch list for a while. She can go soft, she can go hard and, like she does leading this power trio, she can go really f'in hard. Like an unholy marriage of punk + math rock, it'll hurt your neck from either the headbanging or the whiplash-inducing time changes. A thrill ride, one of the year's best. Book the masseuse and enjoy!
Album links in LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/recommneds
2025.111
Sababa 5: Nadir
There's a growing handful of bands incorporating Middle Eastern elements into their sound. There are few doing it better than Sababa 5. The Tel Aviv/France create an organic funk centered on the scales and rhythms native to the region. Everything they've put out has been a heady intoxicant of psychedelic groove. Their latest may top them all with its darker explorations. Enjoy!
Album links in LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/recommneds
2025.112
Gwenno: Utopia
Welsh artist Gwenno Saunders is out with her strongest release yet. The songs are an autobiographical coming-of-age telling, definitely worth reading the album notes. But mostly, the material is dense with musical ideas and that off-kilter Welsh quirk. Like an overlap of Cate Le Bon and St Vincent, equally thrilling getting lost in the details as taking it on in full. Enjoy!
Album links in LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/recommneds
2025.113
Rujen: Velvet Dream
Out of Atlanta is Rujen, who updates the sounds of early-aught psych rockers, drawing from the sonic library of early-era Tame Impala and White Denim (amongst others), with a dash of 90's jamband. They invigorate the music with tightly constructed songcraft that's catchy, propulsive, and not shy about coloring outside the lines. A nice treat... Enjoy!
Album links in LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/recommneds
2025.114
Hilary Hawke: Lift Up This Old World
Not obvious but NYC is a decent bluegrass town. Great example = a set of mostly original music from the banjo-playing singer-songwriter that feels both traditional & modern. Backed by stellar supporting musicians, she doesn't try to do anything special beyond play her songs, which is special in itself. A standard & a Radiohead cover round it out nicely. Enjoy!
Album links in LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/recommneds
2025.115
Sissoko/Segal/Parisien/Peirani: Sou Kora
Accordion, saxophone, cello and... kora? Yeah, on paper I'm not sure it works either. In the headphones, though? A delight! Worldmusic in the truest sense, a multicultural, many splendored listen. Helps that each musician is a master, bringing their individual alchemy to the greater sum. Five tracks, 2 of em recorded live, an infinity of textures. Enjoy!
Album links in LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/recommneds
2025.116
C Joynes & Mike Gangloff: Tom Winter, Tom Spring
Sparse instrumental folk duo with an enchanting release with both studio and live tracks. The sound is primitive and otherworldly: lovely guitar, drone violin, mouth harp, and more. Much of it feels magically ancient, like it came from centuries ago. The rest feels extragalactic, as if it came from another world altogether. Enjoy!
Album links in LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/recommneds
2025.117
Kutiman: Dreams In Aspamia
Here's your gateway into the weekend...or possibly a portal to another dimension. Israeli soundmaker Kutiman delivers once again on this 6-track EP. Each song unfolds another beat-filled chapter in the most compelling of novellas. Cool blending of instrumentation and sounds girder by the grooviest of grooves. This is the good stuff, friends. Enjoy!
Album links in LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/recommneds
2025.118
Barry Walker Unit: At the 13th Moon Gravity Well
This sorta spin-off of Rose City Band includes a stoner's delight of players & playing. Recorded live in the Rose City, the quartet, led by pedal steel shaman Walker, channels the Dead ethos circa 1970. Americana meets psychedelic in lightly dosed improvisational exercises that certainly had the audience geeked. For serious zonesters only. Enjoy!
Album links in LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/recommneds
2025.119
Leroi Conroy: A Tiger's Tale
Terry Cole has spent much of the last decade building his groove-heavy label Colemine. Performing here as Conroy, he finishes a longstanding project that fits right in. Old school soul and funk combine for an album that plays like a set of hip hop samples. Irresistibly so. It presents as an instrumental soundtrack to an imagined updated take on The Jungle Book. Enjoy!
Album links in LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/recommneds
2025.120
Cole Quest and The City Pickers: Homegrown
More NYC-based bluegrass. Quest is a grandson of Woody Guthrie and that's not just biographical trivia. His music is also progeny to the folk godfather, infusing his old school bluegrass with a progressive, city-centric viewpoint. Tasty harmonies and tasty pickin' with a nod to the past. Enjoy!
#newmusic #MusicDiscovery #bluegrass
Album links in LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/recommneds
2025.121
Chaos Magick: Through The Looking Glass
Perfect representation of John Zorn's genre-sneering aesthetic: beautiful, scary, groovy, awesome. Medeski, Marsella, Hollenberg, Grohoski, you know, your typical organ/keyboard/guitar/drum quartet. You've never heard anything go quiet to too loud with such ferocity. Restrained to unhinged, only 3 tracks, it covers some ground. Better pack a bag. Enjoy!
Album links in LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/recommneds
2025.122
Alex Benjamin with Phil Cook & Justin Mazer
Multi-instrumentalist typically found backing others (like Hiss Golden Messenger) takes the reins himself on his debut EP. The North Carolinian recruits some talented friends and his compositions play like friendly instrumental sessions on the front porch. Multiple guitars - with appearances by banjo, resonator, slide - in laid back conversation. Enjoy!
Album links in LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/recommneds
2025.123
Matt C White: A Cosmic Year
Currently NYC-based rocker rocks rockingly on his solo debut. White does it all here: writing, playing every instrument, singing, producing, but mostly just freakin' rocking. It's 60's garage psych and 70's prog-glam and even some 80's hair metal flair. For playing loud and rockin' out to. Enjoy!
#newmusic #MusicDiscovery #rock
Album links in LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/recommneds
2025.124
Scree: August
Getting this one in before the calendar turns to September, even though, despite its title, this one has some autumnal vibes. The NYC guitar/bass/drum group has a sound that's more baroque jazz than power trio. Here they're as good as ever with extra musicians and a loose, dreamy chamber sound that is both relaxing and engaging. Perfect falling-leaves music. Enjoy!
Album links in LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/recommneds
2025.125
Ill Considered: Balm
This UK collective never disappoints. Their latest is like a jazzrock fusion sound that's been slowed down about 100x. It's less dynamic than some of their other work, but revels in its staticness. It's cinematic and occasionally spooky and takes its time getting to where it's going. But it gets there. Rewards the patient listener. Enjoy!
Album links in LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/recommneds
2025.126
Ivan the Tolerable and Hawkmoor: Atoms In The Void
More from prolific rec-regulars from the UK. It's been about 6 months since I've posted something from Ivan the Tolerable, and can't have that, can we? Here he's paired with Hawkmoor and the ensuing duo explorations are a psychedelic, downtempo dreamscape. For eyes-closed zoning in and/or out. Enjoy!
Album links in LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/recommneds
2025.127
Hainbach and Ensemble Recherche: Retold
Love a good collab. This one pairs up the Berlin electronic artist with a contemporary classical string ensemble. It's a made-for-each-other blend of ambient and minimalism. It floats on sonic clouds, quiet and pure. But don't get too drowsy, there are moments of creepiness and weirdness in there as well. Something for everyone. Enjoy!
Album links in LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/recommneds
2025.128
Gulp: Beneath Strawberry Moons
Psychedelic pop perfection out of Scotland. The aesthetic is a catchy kinda Lennon-on-LSD thing. Occasionally hallucenegenic lyrics and day-glo melodies create a dreamlike sound that's perfect for escaping to. And couldn't we all use some escaping? Enjoy!
Album links in LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/recommneds
2025.129
Edena Gardens: Dispossesed
Masterful Eurojams from El Paraiso, *the* place to go for heady music from Denmark and beyond. This is a kind of supergroup with members of Causa Sui and Papir and they're killing it with a sound somewhere between the Dead and Floyd, a midpoint on the Garcia-Gilmore axis scuffed with distortion and other accouterments. Blistering psychjams. Enjoy!
Album links in LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/recommneds
2025.130
Weeed: Weeed
This one is the stateside companion to yesterday's rec. A Portland, OR band that seems to have listened to all the great classic and psych rock you grew up with and learned ALL the right musical lessons from the source material. It's a highly enjoyable and rock-outable mix of familiar tropes. It rocks, it jams, it encourages you to take psychedelic drugs. Enjoy!
Album links in LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/recommneds
2025.131
Oren Armbachi: Ghosted III
This is jazz music in 2025, a sound perfectly suited for this moment. Guitarist along with his trio-mates Johan Berthling on bass and Andreas Werliin on drums are at the vanguard bridging the analog and digital, acoustic and electronic. It's minimalism to the maximum, soothing ambient that layers to an ecstatic intensity. Straight to your sweet spot. Enjoy!
Album links in LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/recommneds
2025.132
Organic Pulse Ensemble: Oppression Is Nine Tenths Of The Law
The name is 2 truths and 1 lie. The music pulses and it's organic but it's no ensemble. Somehow it's just one dude creating this spiritual jazz masterpiece. While you sit & wonder how all those horns and overlapping rhythms and the easy flowing chemistry is a single human, don't forget to take in the impressively stirring music. Enjoy!
Album links in LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/recommneds
2025.133
Joseph Decosimo: Fiery Gizzard
In the same vein as Jake Fussell & Nora Brown, Decosimo takes old southern and Appalachian folk songs and channels their ancient spirit as much as interprets them for the modern age. He recruits some help from the ever-evolving NC music scene in which he floats, fleshing things out, but at his best with fiddle or banjo and the source material at its rawest. Enjoy!
Album links in LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/recommneds
2025.134
Linda May Han Oh: Strange Heavens
I saw this trio (bass Oh, drums Tyshawn Sorey, trumpet Ambrose Akinmusire) earlier this year & it was so good I had to go again. If the record doesn't quite capture the live magic, it's damn close. It's best listened to back-to-front, taking in the drums/bass first. The pair has such mastery, chemistry & creativity, the melody almost don't matter. Almost. Enjoy!
Album links in LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/recommneds
2025.135
Spaceface: Lunar Manor
Not complaining, but a lot of psychrock these days can be kinda serious & heavy. That's part of what makes this LA band so enjoyable. Operating in the mix of dreampop, chillwave, and psychedelic, their sound maintains a certain density but with heavy doses of whimsy. It's fun! Sure they'll evoke some old favorites but they've got their own energy, one I'm sure you'll enjoy!
Album links in LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/recommneds
2025.136
Chip Wickham: The Eternal Now
The UK flute/sax player delivers one of his best yet. This is jazz for those who maybe don't realize they like jazz. It's groovy and sexy and warm and cool. A musical umbrella providing an oasis of dry and calm in a rainstorm. This is a headphone bop, as much in the details as the mood. Enjoy!
Album links in LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/recommneds
2025.137
Peki Momés: s/t
Turkey by way of Germany, Momés' debut is rich with the good stuff. It's almost two albums in one: an instrumental Turkish funk with rather irresistible grooves and a psychedelic pop overlaid adding a rather dreamlike quality. It's a heady mix for someone who appears to have arrived at a music career accidentally. Your weekend begins now. Enjoy!
Album links in LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/recommneds
2025.138
Go Kurosawa: soft shakes
One of the great recent gone-too-soon acts has to be Kikagaku Moyo, the Japanese psych band. The silver lining in the dismay that those guys still had great things left in em is that they DO have great things left, like this from drummer + founder of the Guruguru Brain label. Playing every instrument & nearly every genre, it's a work of art & a passion project. Enjoy!
Album links in LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/recommneds
2025.139
Yoo Doo Right with Population II & Nolan Potter: Yoo II Avec Nolan Potter
This collab between two Montreal bands and the Austin psych maestro is an intracontinental 6-man Voltron of awesome. Heavy-churn psychedelic krautrock that's as freewheelin' as it is potent. A lotta drum, a lotta guitar, a lotta keys, a little horn, zero tariffs required. Enjoy!
Album links in LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/recommneds
2025.140
Orcutt Shelley Miller: s/t
Every once in a while you're in the room catching a set that makes you turn & think "man, I wonder if anyone was taping that!" I imagine that's what the crowd did after this one; no surprise they decided to release it. This meeting-of-giants trio rips the guitar/bass/drum rock instrumental modality a new one, each third contributing equally to a monstrous whole. Enjoy!
Album links in LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/recommneds
2025.141
Anna Tivel: Animal Poems
Tivel is the kind of songwriter who seems to spool new worlds in each song, like you're returning from Oz when they end. The title track of her latest plays like her mission statement, each lyric a mantra worth repeating. While her music usually requires little more than voice and guitar, here it's a full band helping create these sonic soundtracks-to-your-day. Enjoy!
Album links in LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/recommneds
2025.142
Holly Palmer: Metamorphosis
The vocalist takes a new direction on her latest, her voice a lyricless instrument and barely even the lead one on her own album. Teaming with a stellar cast of colleagues (Lefebvre! Guliiana! Parker! Et al!), she creates delicate sonic impressions ranging from jazzy to hallucenegenic. At barely three minutes a piece, the tracks are exquisite studies on form. Enjoy!
Album links in LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/recommneds
2025.143
Ancient Infinity Orchestra: It's Always About Love
More great jazz from the UK. This is a 15-large ensemble from Leeds, but, despite the size, it's a light spiritual jazz. It *feels* spiritual. The music shifts easily between composition & communal improv, mixing in folk & classical. It's hard for instrumental music to feel like it's "about" anything but this does the album title justice. Enjoy!
Album links in LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/recommneds
2025.144
Tera Tera: s/t
Debut of a collaborative Italian duo Jacopo Battaglia (drums) and Adriano Viterbini (guitar). The two went into the studio, improvised, and then curated and spliced the results into these tracks. It's a constantly-mutating taffy-pull, landing somewhere between Eno-infected Afrobeat and chaotic psychedelia and, more often, beyond convenient genrification. A promising start. Enjoy!
Album links in LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/recommneds
2025.145
Sam Prekop: Open Close
If you are not familiar with Prekop, he was a principal in Sea & Cake and his own solo career. He brings the same sense of airy melody to his analog synth work. His latest is a brilliant headphone-ready electronica. An ambient that will turn any activity - a trip to the museum, a drive in the country, a walk downtown, navigating the airport - into beautiful art. Enjoy!
Album links in LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/recommneds
2025.146
Drink the Sea
New "supergroup" with a mix of old school altrockers. Not necessarily the frontmen, the lack of a dominant personality does them many favors. The songs come from many voices and while some are stronger than others, the complete package is both modern and throwback, a Gen X sound for today. There are actually 2 volumes released in short succession, no lack of great ideas here. Enjoy!
Album links in LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/recommneds
2025.147
M. Sage: Tender/Wading
Matthew Sage's music is like a gentle breeze - less about the moving air itself then how it ripples through the grass, plays with a tree's leaves, feels on your face. He starts with a base of keyboards and clarinet, but it's really all about the other little details he adds in the crevices: guitars and synth and field recordings and more. A lovely, provacative calm. Enjoy!
Album links in LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/recommneds
2025.148
Mulatu Astatke: Mulatu Plays Mulatu
In case you're not familiar, Astatke is a patriarch of so-called Ethio-jazz. Here he revisits many decades worthy of material: rearranging, re-recording, updating. He's got a large ensemble in tow and they're a force, an afrogroove machine that's both powerful and elegant. The album is a nice, rhythmic reminder of his continued influence and relevance. Enjoy!
Album links in LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/recommneds
2025.149
Sven Wunder: Daybreak
Sometimes the movie is fine, but the soundtrack is pure fire. That's the kind of music Wunder makes and this is a prime example of his sound. Flute-centric with strings and a seriously elegant groove. It feels like Wunder is constantly out with something new, I was surprised to learn this is only his fifth full-length. It's a delight in full technicolor. Enjoy!
Album links in LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/recommneds
2025.150
Psychedelic Source Records: The Tail, the Head and the Snake Itself
I am legally obligated to rec a psych rock band from Europe every few days here, so let's turn our ears to Hungary. These guys are so psychedelic it's in their name, it's in the album artwork, and it is heavily in their music. It's a hearty goulash of guitar, bass, keys, and drums. Altogether relentless. Enjoy!
Album links in LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/recommneds
2025.151
Johnathan Blake: My Life Matters
Blake is one of *the* go-to drummers in jazz today. He plays with everyone and it's no wonder, he makes em all sound great. Of course, that goes for his own stuff and here he delivers his magnum opus (or first one, at least). A wide-scope, message-heavy jazz record on the classic Blue Note label with a band of voracious young talent. It combines a classic jazz sound with a forward-looking one, and plenty of killer drumming, natch. Enjoy!
Album links in LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/recommneds
2025.152
The Diasonics: Ornithology
Today we've got the excellent sophomore full length from these Moscow funkmeisters. The album is inspired by birds and birdsong and each track is named after a different kind of bird. You can actually hear it in the songs - from the owl to the chickadee - which balance a sharp-beaked groove with a feathery melodic lightness. This one really soars. Enjoy!
Album links in LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/recommneds
2025.153
Trio of Bloom: s/t
Well, either you think Nels Cline, Craig Taborn, and Marcus Gilmore are household names or I question the household you're living in. But just in case this wasn't on your radar, please do check out this monumental record from three dudes who legitimately might be the best at what they do. Unsurprisingly, they also kind of kill it together. Each of them is no stranger to the pocket nor to getting totally unhinged and this record alternates between a deep pocket and utter insanity. Enjoy!
Album links in LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/recommneds
2025.154
Animal, Surrender!: A Boot For Every Bane
Equally as important as my Eurojam conquests is my evangelizing super-creative music being made in NYC. I need to make sure y'all know about bands like this one led by bassist Peter Kerlin. His instrument takes the lead on a unique sound that's like an instrumental mix of prog, postrock and jazz. It's intricate and simple at the same time, incredibly melodic and easy to digest. An album that reveals new secrets with each listen. Enjoy!
Album links in LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/recommneds
2025.155
Langendorf United: Undercover Beast
Here's a fire quintet out of Sweden. Led by saxophonist Lina Langendorf, this quintet draws players from a few different groups to form a powerhouse Ethio-jazz ensemble. The original compositions mixing heavy afrobeat and world rhythms with a Scandanvian sleekness creates a uniquely forward-thinking brand of groove that's as much about rule-breaking as it is about reverence to past masters. Damn funky, though. Enjoy!
Album links in LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/recommneds
2025.156
Zachary Cale: Love's Work
At its heart, this is another album of beautiful solo guitar music by a talented player. But on top of that core there's quite a bit going on. Cale recruits some of my favorite NYC musicians: a rhythm section of Shahzad Ismaily and Jeremy Gustin, and a bunch of appearances by other faves on pedal steel, violins, piano. It's an altogether loose, improvisational feel on a sparse Americana frame creating fully-realized pieces out of his lovely compositions. Enjoy!
Album links in LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/recommneds
2025.157
Matt LaJoie: Stonehouse
These days there are almost as many ways to do the looping-guitar thing as there are ways to play the guitar itself. On his latest LaJoie starts small and builds and builds and builds. A little drum machine, but mostly just layers of guitar riffs and melodies. The result is impressive architecture. Brutalist in its balance of intensity and beauty. Enjoy!
#newmusic #MusicDiscovery #guitar
Album links in LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/recommneds
2025.158
Dayna Stephens: Monk'D
The jazz saxophonist's new album has him not playing sax and is a tribute to a pianist, go figure! Stephens turns to the bass and brings along a talented band including Ethan Iverson on piano and crafts a most excellent tribute to the legendary Thelonious Monk. He is appropriately liberal with the material, mash-up-ing some compositions together, going full interpretive on others, and then, for good measure, playing some of it wonderfully straight. I'm sure TM would approve, maybe you will as well. Enjoy!
#newmusic #MusicDiscovery #jazz
Album links in LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/recommneds
2025.159
Faten Kanaan: Diary of a Candle
The Brooklyn-based composer creates a fantastical blend of classical and a kind of baroque folk here. It sounds like some imagined music that is played by elves or somesuch in a middle earth. Dreamlike minimalism somehow feeling both ancient and modern, rootsy and otherworldly. Get lost in this one. Enjoy!
Album links in LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/recommneds
2025.160
Elias Meister: Chinchilla
It's a fun but rare occurrence when a show you've seen gets released as an album. That's the case with this set that I thought was pretty great at the time and certainly holds up. The NYC guitarist led a jammy trio through a set of original material that served as launching pad for some stratospheric improv. His playing his great, but zone in on his bandmates, drummer Jeremy Gustin and bassist Scott Colberg - it's a truly balanced jammer. This starts off pretty great but ends, as all great sets do, in serious holyshit! territory. Enjoy!
Album links in LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/recommneds
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