“Slapp Happy meanwhile was planning its second record for Virgin. One night the trio showed up at the quartet's door and proposed that the two groups make the second Slapphappy LP together...Henry Cow jumped at the chance and Desperate Straights was the result. It's still a gem to my ears, and now at last it's possible to release it, properly re-mastered (by Bob Drake), its sound closer to the original tapes even than our earlier Nimbus vinyl pressing. Great songs, great arrangements, great performances...

“How do you make personal music when the lyrics are all about wizards, demons, aliens and serial killers?
That was the conundrum Tom Slatter decided to solve with his latest album, Demon.
‘It’s supposed to be fun still, I’ve not suddenly gone emo. But I felt like I wanted to put my heart on my sleeve a little more than usual. Because this music, and the fact that some people enjoy it, really matters to me,’
‘A latter-day Victorian street-theatre barker with a guitar promising tales of...

I had heard good things about this Brooklyn-based band of jazz musicians who take the instrumental folk music of the Balkans and Macedonia and give it their own twist several years ago, but when I finally got to actually hear one of their albums, I was...

A wild disc by 4 noted musicians/improvisors; Jon Rose (violin, electronics), the great Peter Hollinger (drums), Johannes Bauer (trombone), & Dietmar Diesner (saxes & electronics). Very hot stuff. [Victo]

This California band has been getting a lot of ink & attention recently, & it's no surprise why, as this is an intriguing and classy release, from the music all the way to the packaging. I hear a sorta strange hybrid of metal & RIO attention to detail...

"The seven-piece Slivovitz reside in Napoli (Naples), and are devoted to a poly-stylistic mangling whose forebears include Frank Zappa and John Zorn. Much of their core material also arrives from the folkloric knees-ups of the Balkan regions. Despite...

Jamie Saft-organ, keyboards
Joe Morris-guitar
Mats Gustafsson-saxes
Balazs Pandi-drums

"Slobber Pup are back with their sophomore release, titled Pole Axe; The original core lineup is here augmented by the presence of Swedish sax titan Mats-Olof Gustafsson (already present on Cuts and Cuts Of Guilt, Cuts Deeper), replacing Trevor Dunn.

The endless depth of Saft’s and Morris’ interplay, multiple analog synths and organs engaged in a at times vertiginous dance with the guitar.

I love descriptions that are all poetic and stuff and tell you basically nothing - and here's the latest offender...

"The Bog is the 2nd full-length release from Slomo, honing down the ritual clatter of their first album, The Creep (2005), into..

"At their second opus, one of the most surprising projects emerging these last years from the very dynamic and rich cauldron of Portuguese jazz are capable to go very far beyond what they showed us before. Embracing a kind of cinematic jazz vaguely influenced by John Zorn’s compositional work for the big and the little screens, the band Slow is Possible is simultaneously accessible, due to the sugestibility of the melodic work and the directness of the rhythmic propulsion, and experimental, presenting a...

While they last, this is $8.00 off the original price! Third release by this interesting group who combine modern classical with rock and post-rock.Third release by this interesting group who combine modern classical with rock and post-rock. Funnily...

''Composer, performer, one of the foremost sound designers on the West Coast, the mad genius of David Slusser has enhanced the films of David Lynch, George Lucas, Francis Ford Coppola and the music of John Zorn, Mike Patton and Angelo Badalamenti. Draw...

Greatly weird, dubby/not dubby music from these five musicians, who work in very different worlds most of the time. This combines certain aspects of the weirder releases on ECM with the great releases done by Adrian Sherwood. Recommended!

"The first album by Grammy-winning reggae legends Sly & Robbie and Norwegian Jazz innovator Nils Petter Molvaer featuring Eivind Aarset and Vladislav Delay. On Nordub, Sly & Robbie team up with Nils to create a unique sound panorama, spanning the colorful...

"33 1/3 is Smegma's tribute to their twentieth-century avant-garde and out-jazz influences. The title is one part reference to the happy revival of passionate vinyl listening in the twenty-first century, and one part celebration of over thirty-three...

Walter Smith III – saxophone
Matthew Stevens - guitar
Kris Davis - piano
Dave Holland - bass
Terri Lyne Carrington - drums

Walter Smith III and Matthew Stevens are two musicians at the forefront of developments in jazz and improvised music, listing the likes of Terence Blanchard, Ambrose Akinmusire, Esperanza Spalding and Christian Scott as collaborators. The pair started working together in 2017, and four years later, they're back for the third iteration of their highly commend

"Recorded in Los Angeles over four months in 1970, this double album is one of the most personal and involving statements to have emerged from California's psychedelic underground. Backed by a fine band including Daryl Dragon (later to find fame as...

Sirene Dantor Rene vocals
Miguel Zenón alto saxophone
Matt Mitchell piano
Nick Dunston bass
Daniel Brevil tanbou and vocals
Fanfan Jean-Guy Rene tanbou and vocals
Markus Schwartz tanbou and vocals
Ches Smith drums, percussion and vocals

“Formed in 2013 by drummer/composer Ches Smith, We All Break is an ensemble at the crossroads of traditional Haitian Vodou music and au courant composition and improvisation.”

"This fabulous collaborative musical project features the legendary magus David Chaim Smith reading selections from his mystical text The Awakening Ground along with the magical creator of Dark Ambient music Bill Laswell on bass and drones, and John...

His first release! This is 22 short solo improvisations that find Smith moving from acoustic to amplified acoustic and finally to electric guitar. [Impetus]

"With the release of "Tipping Point-Live at the Jazz Bakery," drummer Jason Smith makes his voice emphatically heard. Flanked by Gary Husband on piano and Fender Rhodes, and Dave Carpenter on acoustic bass, Smith leads his cohorts through a set of...

"Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith composes bright, fluid soundscapes on a variety of synthesizers, most notably the Buchla Music Easel. Excited by the endless possibilities of electronic instruments, her music is filled with vivid, expressive melodies along with her warped, ethereal vocals. Smith grew up on the serene, peaceful Orcas Island in northwest Washington, and attended the Berklee College of Music in order to study composition and sound engineering. She started out as a vocalist before taking up....

Leo Smith: trumpet, flugelhorn, percussion
Dwight Andrews: alto flute, bass clarinet, tenor saxophone
Bobby Naughton: vibraharp, marimba, bells
Charlie Haden: double bass
Lester Bowie: trumpet
Kenny Wheeler: trumpet

“Recently described by Vijay Iyer as “one of the greatest recorded works of all time”, Wadada Leo Smith’s Divine Love counts as a classic by any definition. “His sound has strong resemblances to that of Miles Davis,” wrote John Fordham in a five-star Guardian...

"The Year of the Elephant is the first album by the Golden Quartet as a working band. Their previous album, Golden Quartet, was recorded before the band had ever played out live together. The time in-between the two recordings has given the group the...

"The Great Lakes Suites introduces us to composer and trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith's latest small ensemble: the Great Lakes Quartet. A true super group in creative music, it includes two legends in their own right, saxophonist/flutist Henry Threadgill...

''Trumpeter, multi-instrumentalist, improviser and theoretician, Wadada Leo Smith is one of the most important composers of our time. An original member of Chicago's AACM, his exciting pieces blending composition and improvisation have been performed b...