Album Overviews

Broad stroke album descriptions, as opposed to long-form analysis

Hannah Frances – Keeper of the Shepherd

While the progressive songwriter’s music retains a rootsy essence of folk and Americana, with passionate multi-tracked vocals and thorny knots of electric and acoustic guitars, the’ polyphonic chamber arrangements and shifting time signatures often push things further into prog territory, without ever losing their rustic warmth. The resulting songs are transcendent, haunting and earthy, rising triumphantly from the remaining layers of volcanic ash after a fiery existential catharsis.

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Sunn Trio / Sam Shalabi – Trippin’ on Coleman

Each artist fills an entire LP side with their own improvised interpretation of Ornette Coleman’s “Lonely Woman” . Shalabi channels the tune through a solo oud meditation, shaped by his characteristically searching and sensitive improvisations. On the other side, Sunn Trio performs an undulating percussive ritual, overdubbed with a wide pallet of tangled acoustic instruments, dub psychedelia, and hypnotizing drones.

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Keiji Haino / Jim O’Rourke / Oren Ambarchi – With Pats on the Head, Just One Too Few Is Evil One Too Many Is Good That’s All It Is

On their twelfth live recording, the electrifying power trio continues to expand the vocabulary of their improvised sonic sorcery. One LP of mysterious duo invocations, followed by two LPs of primordial free rock. Through concentrated force and harnessed chaos, the trio patiently pushes primordial riffs to their noisiest, most visceral limits, striving to become the sound itself.

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(Blouseusa) – Stimulus Overnclusion

Stimulus Overconclusion wastes no time in launching you into an otherwordly space where even familiar textures feel alien and mysterious. Throughout the first side, aquatic percussion loops on tabla or drums are submerged in strange electronic smears and warbly acoustic strings & flutes, suggesting a shapeshifting noise-folk beat tape. The flip side features overcompressed drum blasts, fractured noise rock and sci-fi electronics.

Recommended if you dig Nuke Watch, Fourth World, or This Heat

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Esmerine – Dalmak

Whilst in Istanbul for an artist residency, the adventurous Montreal chamber rock group recorded Dalmak with an ensemble of Turkish musicians, augmenting their core sound of cello, marimba, and drums with the saz, darbuka, bendir and several other instruments used in Turkish and Arabic folk music. Epic, modal themes emerge from watery beds of minimalistic polyrhythms and suspenseful string arrangments. While often sombre, mournful or foreboding, the musi seems driven by a collective sense of spiritual determination and hope.

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Joanna Newsom – Divers

“But stand brave, life-liver, bleeding out your days in the river of time.
Stand brave: time moves both ways, in the nullifying, defeating, negating, repeating joy of life.
The moment of your greatest joy sustains: not axe nor hammer, tumor, tremor, can take it away, and it remains.
And it pains me to say, I was wrong. Love is not a symptom of time. Time is just a symptom of love”

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Friends of the Road – Now You Know Something Right Here and I’ll Tell You For a Fact

This collective of experimental Seattle musicians perform back-porch seances on old-time jigs & folk tunes, half of which can be found in Alan Lomax’s Folk Songs of North America book. The ritualistic, droning dissonance of cello, banjo, harmonium, & fiddle recall Pelt, Henry Flynt, & Tongue Depressor. Despite an often haunting atmosphere, folksiness and camaraderie pervade the tape in the form of warm lo-fi sing-a-longs and friendly, candid banter between tracks. The original social function of the music lives eternally, a nonlinear communication with fellow travelers from the past, present, & future.

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Tim Buckley – Blue Afternoon

Blue Afternoon continues the flowing jazz-folk of Happy Sad while occasionally detouring into the avant-garde atmospheres that manifest more fully on Lorca and Starsailor. The arrangements are characterized by fluid vibraphones, lobbing upright bass, and the virtuosic jazz guitar of Lee Underwood, but what really ties everything together are the vocals and songwriting. Buckley’s voice is so versatile that he is able to express a wide range of emotions, sometimes blurring them from one moment to the next.

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Jackie-O Motherfucker – Bloom

“I am not me” the chorus sings repeatedly, a spell to dissolve the ego and deconstruct the myth of American individualism, leaving fertile ground for a collective vision of abundance to bloom. The open-door band of multi-instrumentalists shakily weave through a suite of haunting drone seances, raggedly tender folk sing-a-longs, liberated group improvisations and triumphant post-rock discord. Once again Jackie-O Motherfucker continues their forward march to a beautiful anarchic world without losing touch with its roots in the weird American underground.

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The Futuristic Folk of The Tower Recordings [Vol. 1 & 2]

These ceremonial meanderings are the interrupted transmissions of campfire songs picked up by intergalactic satellites. Past and future collapse as old-timey banjo melodies fade into squiggly synthesizers and lo-fi electronics. Distant harmonicas sink behind thick fogs of ghostly whirring, while warped slide guitar, drone fiddle and echo percussion bubble through the folky primordial soup

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Land of Kush – Against the Day

Land of Kush’ Against the Day is a passionate, adventurous & rebellious masterpiece of mystical electrified big-band compositions, inspired by the surreal novel of the same name by Thomas Pynchon. Bilocal oudist & composer Osama Shalabi (Montreal/Cairo) bravely leads this 20+ member orchestra through a progressive suite of long form arrangements that synthesize sounds of spiritual jazz, Arabic folk & experimental rock into a sound that’s overwhelmingly unique and gripping.

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Magnolia Electric Co. – Josephine

While Magnolia Electric Co’s final record is still tinged with the weariness & melancholy that pervades all of Jason Molina’s previous work, Josephine also feels imbued with vital life force, bittersweet romance, and hopefulness that make it uplifting despite the odds.
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Recommended if you dig dobro & lap steel, ditch-trilogy Neil young, and autumnal contemplation

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Jack DeJohnette – Have You Heard?

Recorded in Tokyo with regular collaborators Gary Peacock and Benny Maupin, plus amazing local pianist Hideo Ichikawa, “Have You Heard?” is an interesting & exploratory record from master drummer Jack DeJohnette. Two shorter cuts of nocturnal modal-jazz bookend a pair of longer, abstract pieces that recall the “modern creative” improvisations coming out of Chicago.

Recommended for fans of Miles Davis’ Nefertiti as well as the works of Art Ensemble of Chicago

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Spires that in the Sunset Rise – Psychic Oscillations [Review]

Psychedelic electro-acoustics and earthy minimalism from long-running avant-folk group Spires that in the Sunset Rise. The multi-instrumentalist duo of Ka Baird and Taralie Peterson ritualistically loop and layer a hypnotic tapestry of pre-verbal vocalizations, upright bass, flute, saxophone, synth, and autoharp, running each instrument through trippy stereo delays, visually represented by the two minute-apart clocks next to each other on the album cover. While not as witchy or jarring as the their early releases, Psychic Oscillations finds the band as entrancing as ever.

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Klyfta – Cosmic Pilgrimage: The Klyfta Tapes (1972-1975)

This lost slab of mythical prog doesn’t shy away from indulging in the retro pleasures of instrumental psych-jammage and triumphant jazz-rock. The atmospheric guitar, spacey Moog, and Hammond organ playing are both epic and economical, nary a note wasted. Philip Grondahl’s violin playing on the opening track is especially heroic, recalling the flights of Jean-Luc Ponty or Mahavishnu’s Jerry Goodman. Despite their collective starward gaze, Klyfta remains firmly grounded by the tightness of the rhythm section. Aside from the explosive entropy of the first track (beginning with Anders Strand’s expansive upright bass solo), the grooves focus on repetitive momentum with unwavering determination.

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Spencer Zahn – Sunday Painter

Composer and upright bassist Spencer Zahn crafts a peaceful album of impressionistic and pastoral jazz that recalls Talk Talk, ECM Records, In a Silent Way, and Bill Frisell. The atmospheres are open and washy thanks to sweeping piano gestures and Dave Harrington’s guitar loopery, while the slow, rolling rhythms of drummer Kenny Wollesen and percussionist Mauro Refosco keep the results grounded.

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Botany – End the Summertime F(or)ever

While the luminescent drones and angelic simulacra of Deepak Verbera expanded out into the cosmos, Botany’s newest LP feels more rooted in the soil of our material reality. The bass heavy beats and impassioned vocal samples inspire movement and action rather than contemplation alone, not to say the results aren’t heady. Rich tapestries of resonant acoustic instruments (harps, flutes, percussion, strings), woozy synths, and warm tape hiss are as intricate as ever and easy to lose (or find?) yourself in.?Recommended to fans of Flying Lotus’ Until the Quiet Comes, Boards of Canada, and Alice Coltrane.?

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Sunburned Hand of the Man – Fire Escape

The free-form psychedelia and tribal “group therapy” of Sunburned Hand of the Man are in great hands with producer Kieran Hebden (Four Tet)—his dubs and cuts transform their usually lo-fi, meandering jams into something much more immediate, without losing any of their exploratory and spontaneous energy. Recommended for fans of polyrhythmic Afro-inspired percussion, dubbed out production, communal sound rituals, and dense psychedelia.

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Alex G – Beach Music

Listening to Alex G, one might imagine a young alien sitting alone in his martian bedroom baring his angsty, teenage confessions to his 4-track tape recorder. Yet, at the core of his music, underneath layers of psychedelic guitars, weird pitch-shifted vocals, and occasional lo-fi hiss, lies some genius pop songs that feel simultaneously adolescent and mature.

Recommended for fans of lo-fi experimentation and bedroom pop. Alex seems to pull influences from all over and channel them through his own unique personality and penchant for odd, psychedelic production. Recalls Elliot Smith’s loner acoustic songwriting and drum machines pulled from 80?s pop songs; there’s even a fucked up jazz piano ballad thrown into the mix.

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James Holden & the Animal Spirits – The Animal Spirits

These communal sound rituals express a digital-era longing to reconnect to the Earth. The grooves here are circular and ceremonial, not rooted to any specific musical traditions but borrowing from many, including cosmic jazz, kosmische musik and undoubtedly inspired by Holden’s collaboration with legendary Gnawa musician Maleem Mahmoud Ghania. Drums and percussion ground the proceedings while muscular sequencer and fiery saxophone arpeggiations hypnotically intertwine.  The sounds of fluttering recorder and modular synthesizer swirl through the air like offerings to the cosmos. 

Recommended for fans of The Comet is Coming, Tonto’s Exploding Head Band, Maleem Mahmoud Ghania & Pharoah Sander’s Trance of Seven Colors, Natural Information Society, Colin Stetson

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Human Behavior – Kedumim

Religious allegory, profane thoughts, and lustful confessions intertwine on Human Behavior’s third LP; Kedimum is a brooding suite of psychological chamber folk that introspects into a conflicted mind, struggling to reconcile matters of indoctrinated faith, natural human desires, and internalized guilt. Primary songwriter Andres Parada is joined by a sympathetic cast of vocalists to create a vivid sonic drama complete with choral vocals and spoken word passages to complement his haunting narrations. The intricate and shadowy arrangements blend distorted electronic beats with a wide array of acoustic instrumentation, including banjo, clarinet, accordian, acoustic guitar, violin, ehru, and cello.

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Irreversible Entanglements – Who Sent You?

Irreversible Entanglements follows up the scathing fire music of their debut with regenerative and ritualistic earth music. “Who Sent You?”, is a record that looks not only to the violent “rhythms of oppression”, past and present, that need to be burnt to the ground, but to a future built from the ashes of these unjust systems. Irreversible Entanglements are simply one of the most powerful bands in existence, building their symbiotic improvisations with fervent passion, hypnotic rhythm, and urgent truths.

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Gong – Angel’s Egg (Radio Gnome Invisible Part 2)

The second Radio Gnome transmission finds Zero the Hero astral projecting to PlanetGong where he meets with Selene the Moon Goddess and the Octave Doctors to learn the infinite powers of their lovewisdom vibrations. This psychedelic journey brings together fantastical imagery of pothead pixies and flying teapots (and a dose of hippy hedonism) with heady spiritual concepts delivered in a quite fun and silly way, but even before digging into the concept I was immediately grabbed by their unique style spacey jazz-rock with its propulsive bass lines, immersive synthesizer atmospheres and serpentine soprano sax soloing.

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Ulver – ATGCLVLSSCAP

This heavy drone rock feels like a journey through some haunted terrains and forests in ancient Europe. Monolithic fogs of synths and electronic soundscapes drone on for minutes at a time, occasionally being infiltrated by psychedelic guitars and pummeling marches of drums and bass. Given the cohesive ark, determined focus, and fluidity of the album (without as much as a pause between tracks until track 7), it was surprising to find that most of the songs are studio-enchanced improvisations pulled from 2014 tour recordings.

Recommended for fans of motorik drums, the thick drone of early Earth or Sunn O))), psychedelic guitar noises and fuzzy stoner rock riffs.

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Dave Harrington Group – Pure Imagination, No Country

Innovative guitarist and producer Dave Harrington (Darkside) uses his latest record to explore the outer reaches of improvisation and compositional post-production. Pure Imagination, No Country is jazz-rock fusion stripped of its retro connotations—fusing hard grooves, free flights of collective improvisation, and futuristic ambience to create something that is at turns atmospheric and in your face.

Recommended for fans of Bill Frisell, Terje Rypdal, or Jaga Jazzist

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Ought – Sun Coming Down

There is a certain beauty just to being alive, and Ought make it their mission to find it through raw rock n’ roll that veers seamlessly between upbeat post-punk, meditative feedback drones, dramatic ballads, and cathartic guitar freak outs.

Recommended for fans of post-punk that blends the moodiness of Joy Division, Iceage, and Television with the experimentation and noisiness of This Heat and No Wave.

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Circle – Paris-Concert

While more cerebral than emotive, this live set is a frenzied demonstration of what four virtuosic musicians sound like when they give in to the intuitive whims of collective improvisation. Even when playing a composition, this quartet will stretch and mutate the melody into every possible pattern without ever playing it directly. The group interplay is often bombastic and can be overwhelming, but thankfully they vary the dynamics through mellower sections, as well as solo and duo pieces.

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Bibio – Ribbons

On his latest, producer/composer/multi-instrumentalist Bibio blends serene folk pop, lush instrumentation, pastoral guitar instrumentals, nature field recordings, Walt Whitman-esque lyrics and beat-oriented grooves into the perfectly crafted springtime album. Ribbons feels like daydreaming in a garden or out in the woods under a tree or by a trickling stream.

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Tarentel – The Order of Things

The Order of Things takes you on a strange journey, starting off with a long ambient song built around field recordings, light acoustic guitar and some weird drones in the background. Highly recommended if you’re a fan of experimental post-rock, drone, or music that doesn’t like to be easily categorized.?

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David Grubbs – The Thicket

On experimental musician David Grubb’s first dedicated songwriter outing, he synthesizes technical bluegrass banjo and fingerstyle acoustic guitar playing with imaginative arrangements, abrupt stylistic shifts, philosophical questioning lyrics, improvisation, and drones. Featured musicians include drummer John McEntire (Tortoise, The Sea and Cake), bassist Josh Abrams (Natural Information Society), and drone violinist Tony Conrad.

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Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy & Bitchin Bajas – Epic Jammers and Fortunate Little Ditties

A far cry from the sparse folk usually recorded by Will Oldham, “Epic Jammers and Fortunate Little Ditties” finds his intimate voice and warbly acoustic guitar enveloped by the cosmic drones, blooming synths, airy flutes, and hypnotic tape loops of Chicago new age trio, Bitchin Bajas. The lyrics are essentially fortune cookie mantras and, while there’s a chance they’re tongue-in-cheek, it’s difficult not to smile and feel a brightening of the spirit when hearing uplifting phrases like “Your hard work is about to pay off, keep on keepin’ on” or “you and your whole family are well” get repeated over and over. This collaboration is a soothing, heartwarming listen and a refreshing change-of-pace from Oldham’s tendency towards melancholy and solemn lyrical content.

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Soft Machine – Third

Pulling away from the jazzy psych-pop of their first two albums, Soft Machine gears towards sprawling sidelong compositions of spacey prog infused with thematic jazz fusion improvisations, compositional edits, and heavy doses of experimental post-production (Click for Full Review)

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Holy Sons – In the Garden

After 20+ years of using his introspective songwriting as a playground for psychedelic lo-fi experimentation, underdog hero Emil Amos hands the production reins to John Angello (Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr.) for his most polished album yet, capturing the best aspects of 70’s rock classics without ever feeling cliché. The hi-fi analogue production brings a newfound clarity and depth that allows Amos’ songwriting and instrumental performances to bloom; the choruses are anthemic, the atmospheres are darkly psychedelic, and his lyrics are just as philosophical and contemplative as ever.

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Mary Halvorson – Code Girl

Halvorson has been developing her own idiosyncratic and multi-dimensional language on guitar for almost two decades now (perhaps most clearly heard on her 2015 solo album, Meltframe). On Code Girl, this language is augmented by a dramatic and powerful quintet, featuring the symbiotic rhythm section of her usual trio Thumbscrew, as well as Ambrose Akinmusire’s expressive trumpet playing and Amirtha Kidambi’s intensely operatic vocals, singing cryptic lyrics penned by Halvorson. Together the band uses complex five-part counterpoint to weave intricate webs of melody, rhythm, and texture through progressive and dynamic structures.

Side note: It’s interesting how the number 5 is so prominent in all the album images (pentagons, fingers, toes, stars, etc)

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Yonatan Gat – Universalists

The new album from guitarist Yonatan Gat finds cohesiveness in its sprawling diversity. Stylistically it combines the rawness of garage rock, the thematic improvisation of Free jazz, and the experimental editing of musique concréte with psychedelic production, Arabic and Klezmer scales and surfy tremelo guitars.

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Eric Chenaux – Slowly Paradise

Eric Chenaux’s gentle falsetto is the most constant, tangible element on an album characterized by a permanent state of flux. The guitars are warbly and unsteady with their fluctuating tones, volume, and pitch. Yet, despite their experimental nature, they never sound abrasive and, together with some mellow Wurlitzer, create a soft, pillowy environment for Chenaux’s romantic crooning about the nature of love, the moon, and warm nights.

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lojii – lofeye

Categorization and comparison are the least of lojii’s worries, instead prioritizing creative expression and finding spiritual truth and power in this dimly lit dystopia. He delivers his prophetic words with a focused, unwavering determination, while the beats are gritty and nocturnal with their open percussion, eerie synths, and negative space. Don’t miss out on this one.

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Marriages – Kitsune

A unique blend of post-rock, stoner rock, and shoegaze crafted into a cohesive, perfectly fluid 25 minutes. Hallucinogenic atmospheres, shadowy guitar effects, and mysterious pitch-shifted vocals envelope driving, stoner-fuzz bass lines that often liquify into the watery chorus-bass you might find on the Cure’s Disintegration or an Isis album.

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Alfonso Lovo – La Gigantona

Released in 2012 by Numero Group Recorded in 1976 Format: LP Overview Originally recorded in 1976, this psychedelic latin-jazz masterpiece never got a proper release due to both a lack of interest from record labels and Lovo’s family having to flee from Nicaragua in fear of the mass executions committed by the Sandinista government. Thanks

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Poliça – United Crushers

The brooding, atmospheric synth-pop of Poliça’s third LP finds Channy Leaneagh’s passionate vocals once again supported by prominent bass grooves, driving dual drummers, and occasional string and horn arrangements, all mapped into intricate, quantized webs of programmed beats and synthesizers by co-leader/producer Ryan Olsen. Lyrically, the album centers around themes of isolation, fading love, and as well as more political topics such as police violence.

For fans of Portishead, The Knife

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Sandy Bull – Fantasias for Guitar and Banjo

On his debut album, the guitar and banjo virtuoso starts off with a 22-minute droning epic fusing American and Arabic Folk music with Indian Raga on his acoustic guitar (often trying to imitate the feeling of the oud). Here, he is accompanied by the fluid, driving drums of Billy Higgins. Side 2 is made up of 4 shorter solo pieces, mostly for the banjo, including an impressive rendition of “Carmina Burana” by German composer Carl Orff and a folky mountain song.

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Kendrick Lamar – To Pimp a Butterfly

Kendrick travels through the history of African-American music and into the future, taking inspiration from P-Funk, G-Funk, jazz, trap and everything in between. His lyrics display an acute awareness of someone battling with the weight of fame, institutional racism, and his own depression. This album is simultaneously personal and universal, and nothing short of revolutionary.

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Julie Byrne – Not Even Happiness

Julie Byrne’s gentle new-age folk is so light and airy it’s easy to miss its depth, but repeated listening shows that it’s strength lies in its weightlessness. Her soothing voice and delicate fingerpicking are enveloped in warm string arrangements, all tied together by soft reverb and pristine production that makes for an inviting, peaceful listen every time.?

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Jerusalem in My Heart – If He Dies, If If If If If If

At the core of these electrouacoustic Arabic folk songs lies expressive vocals and the buzuk, a fretted lute which Radwan Ghazi Moumneh plays with a near religious determination. While these instruments are played nakedly and organically, it is the production and recording that really exhibits the experimental and atmospheric nature of the music. Acoustic instruments are re-sampled and processed to create granular and rhythmic accompaniment, while waves of white noise, synths and field recordings are used to adorn and enhance the emotional twists and turns of the raw acoustic performances.

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Bill Callahan – Dream River

LP, Drag City, 2013 Overview In an interview around the release of Dream River, Bill Callahan said he wanted it to be “the last record you could listen to at the end of the day, before you go to bed, around midnight.” So for my first listen of the album I crawled into bed with my

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Kamasi Washington – The Epic

Kamasi Washington and his band The Next Step, pick up where their forefathers and mothers left off by making spiritual jazz that respects the jazz canon without getting stuck in the past. This album ranges from free to groovy to melodic without losing sight of its mission. The inclusion of such a large band, an orchestra, a choir, and even a turntablist allows an infinite, colorful array of tonal and dynamic possibilities. 

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Ryley Walker – Deafman Glance

Acoustic-shredder/singer-songwriter ventures out of the jazz-inflected folk-rock territory explored by his last few albums to create something that feels fully himself. Deafman Glance is full of angular left turns, complex structures, airy flutes, jazz detours, and psychedelic atmospheres. A balance of great songwriting, jazz musicianship, and experimental/art-rock tendencies. Recommended to fans of Tortoise’s Standards, Tim Buckley’s Starsailor, and King Crimson’s Red. (Click for full review).

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Death Grips – The Powers that B

This double album set is recommended to anyone looking for extremely primal, complex punk rap with a wide range of influences, including industrial hip-hop, IDM, math rock, noise, and psychedelic rock. Fans of experimental, aggressive hip-hop like Dälek or Public Enemy will probably really dig this, as will fans of math rock for the extremely innovative musicianship and intricate interplay of Death Grips’/Hella’s Zack Hill and Tera Melos’ Nick Reinhart (who plays on 5 of the tracks).

Click further for full review

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Dälek – Endangered Philosophies

After two decades of challenging the system, expanding, and breaking through musical boundaries, New Jersey’s Dälek have distilled their experimental approaches to hip-hop into their most streamlined release yet. Endangered Philosophies exhibits distorted washes of sound, old-school turntablism, and MC Dälek’s insightful political diatribes over pounding boom-bap beats. Influenced by My Bloody Valentine, industrial music, Sunn O)), and the Bomb Squad

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Godspeed You! Black Emperor – Yanqui U.X.O.

Godspeed’s last album before their 10 year hiatus was produced by the legendary Steve Albini, resulting in what might be their heaviest and most direct album to date. Coming off the heels of September 11th, Yanqui U.X.O. seems to be a reaction against the ramped up military-industrial complex and its promotion of fear and xenophobia, as well as protesting Israel’s treatment of Palestinians. The back cover even goes as far as connecting each major record label to some type of weapons manufacturer. 

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Tim Buckley – Blue Afternoon [4menwithbeards]

Blue Afternoon continues the flowing jazz-folk of Tim’s previous release (Happy Sad) while starting to detour into the avant-garde atmospheres that would manifest more fully on his next two albums, Lorca and Starsailor. The songs and lyrics refuse to be boxed into one category as “joyful” or “lonely” or “sad” and instead reflect the intangible multi-dimensionality of feeling.

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Danny Brown – Atrocity Exhibition

On his Warp Records debut, the eccentric rapper crafts an album of shadowy hip-hop that expresses a unique creative vision. His bipolar, extremely personal lyrics fluctuate from paranoid agoraphobia and self-deprecating reflection to uninhibited hedonism and braggadocios swagger, sometimes in the course of a couple lines. Highly recommended for fans of Busdriver, Aesop Rock and other psychedelic hip-hop artists

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Songs: Ohia – The Magnolia Electric Co

“Sometimes it’s hard doing anything”. Somehow Jason Molina knows how to perfectly express what depression feels like without ever succumbing to hopelessness. His music has been a friend and a voice of encouragement when I need it most, reminding me to persist and not beat myself up when I feel unproductive or lazy or unmotivated. “The real truth about it is no one gets it right. The real truth about it is we’re all supposed to try”

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Botany – Deepak Verbera

organic washes of piano and zither, analog synthesizers, wood flutes, saxophone, and the occasional free jazz drums recorded, looped, and manipulated through cassette and reel tape recorders and then masterfully woven into a cosmic tapestry of blissful, meditative drones

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Jack DeJohnette – In Movement

The past, present, and future of jazz converge on this progressive new release from the legendary drummer Jack DeJohnette, who’s played on everything from Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew to albums with Keith Jarrett, Alice Coltrane, Freddie Hubbard, and numerous other masters since the late 60?s. Joining him are two descendants of the classic John Coltrane Quartet, Ravi Coltrane on tenor and soprano sax and Matthew Garrison (son of Jimmy Garrison) on electric bass and electronics. Rather than dwell in the shadows of their fathers, these two have already developed their own powerful and unique voices which are welcome additions to the jazz lineage.

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