THE WORLD'S BEST NEW ALBUMS: UPDATED DAILY
CURATED BY HAND - NOT BY ALGORITHM
2025 September Best New Albums
clicking cover art opens Spotify
Devotion & The Black Divine
ANAIIS
Released 26 September 2025
Dream Sequence Recordings / 5dB
*****
Her richest work yet - an inspirational meditation on motherhood, uncertainty and self-respect, in which vulnerability and sonic exploration are held in exquisite, graceful tension.
anaiis (French-Senegalese, based in London) has steadily built a voice in alternative R&B / indie soul characterised by intimacy, nuance, and cultural multiplicity. Devotion & The Black Divine marks a new chapter in her artistry, deeply shaped by her journey into motherhood and by a willingness to relinquish perfection. Recorded live to tape at 5dB Studios with frequent collaborator Josh Grant, with additional songwriting contributions from Jay Prince, Jesse Singer, Alex Cosmo Blake and Sam Crowe, the album holds a wide emotional range without losing its centre. Anaiis writes from both internal and collective worlds, pushing to the edges of her comfort zone while embracing acceptance, change, and the unpredictable.
Devotion & The Black Divine begins with “Something Is Broken”, a raw, emotionally charged overture setting the tone of openness and unguarded vulnerability, which is extended by the astonishing "Deus Deus", it's smooth sway adding a prayer of thanks to the Divine.
The first of four short, spoken-word interludes, "freedom of dreaming" follows, and features a spoken word quotation from American poet Adrienne Maree Brown "That's the constant quest of the dreamer: to learn how to fly, yes, but more than that, to learn how to change, again, and again, and again".
Accordingly, in "Dreamer Too" anaiis confirms "I’m a dreamer, You’re a dreamer too, we make the mountains move".
With fluttering synths and heavy bassline, “Moonlight”, rounds out an inspirational opening quintet of songs, telling a story of the path to achieving life's ambitions and those who follow “you've got every reason / To wanna reach the stars / You need ask no permission / Be yourself from the start".
Judiciously, the album's inspirational narrative arc then pivots towards songs of relationships and affection with "In Real Time" "Call Me (a) (B)" "Here Comes The Sun", before a second interlude is heard from Adrienne Maree Brown who declares "Freedom is an act of togetherness".
From this point anaiis' gentle, inspirational songs alternate with affirmative poetic interludes - from American artist and filmmaker Jas'Tovia Gary and UK poet, writer, clinical psychologist and educator Sanah Ahsan.
The gorgeously melodic “My World (Beyond)” brings warmth, strength of character and quiet revelation in equal measure to lyrics in a love song to motherhood.
Breathy vocals, psychedelic bells and deep grooves dominate “Green Juice”, a lingering love song caught between memory and longing.
Appropriately, the album concludes with the optimistic lyrics of "Bright Lights" reaching toward healing and illumination: “Gotta believe that fate is on your side... loving unconditional / together we can grow”.
Read more... Bandcamp, anaiis, 5dB
I Remember I Forget بنسى وبتذكر”
YASMINE HAMDAN
Released 19 September 2025
Hamdanistan Records | Kwaidan Records
*****
After eight years away, Yasmine Hamdan returns with an album of resistance, intimacy, and timeless beauty. One of the year’s most vital and unforgettable works
Yasmine Hamdan is a pioneer of Lebanon’s indie and electronic scene, first known through Soapkills the group she co-founded in 1997 that defined a new Arab underground. Her solo debut Ya Nass (2013) and follow-ups Al Jamilat (2017), and Jamilat Reprise (2018) established her internationally, leading to appearances on NPR’s Tiny Desk and a haunting cameo in Jim Jarmusch’s Only Lovers Left Alive (2013).
Now based in Paris, her style fuses Arabic poetry, traditional forms, and experimental electronics, weaving the region’s histories into modern sound. Since her earliest albums, Hamden has collaborated with Marc Collin, (a French producer, arranger, and co-founder of Nouvelle Vague, an unlikely project, fusing post-punk songwriting and bossa-nova) who has been a central figure, framing her distinctive vocals and shaping her sound with cinematic arrangements with his deft balance of retro elegance and modern impulses.
Although I Remember I Forget emerges after an extended pause, its voice feels current and sharpened. Hamdan and Collin co-write most of the material, opening with “Hon”, where oud figures weave around Hamdan’s voice in a song written in the aftermath of the Beirut port explosion in 2020: “A tiny land / with a gaping wound", its words resound even louder in today’s context of genocidal violence and dispossession. From there, Hamdan braids personal reflection with cultural resistance. “Shmaali”, sung with her sister, reinterprets a Palestinian tarweeda - an encrypted women’s song used to outwit occupying guards - set against Collin’s electronic textures. The result is both archive and renewal, a solidarity carried in coded melody. “The Beautiful Losers”, written with Syrian composer Omar Harb, refracts exile with wit and tenderness, while “Shadia” channels the pulse of Nubian music from Sudan. The second half of the album subtly shifts gears. “Vows” and “Abyss” offer interior meditations, stripped-down and spectral. “Mor” deepens the palette with darker, more percussive textures below Hamdan's soaring, evocative vocals, while “DAYA3” pulses with disorientation. The closing “Reminiscence” provides a dusk-lit coda: restrained, melancholy, yet quietly luminous, it leaves the album suspended between grief and defiance.
Across I Remember I Forget, Hamdan reminds us of her singular ability to compress worlds into songs: each track a dialogue between past and present, exile and return, vulnerability and resilience. It’s a statement of survival and presence, one that carries as much weight in its silences as in its declarations. I Remember I Forget is one of the year’s essential albums: a brave, beautiful act of memory and resistance.
Read more... Bandcamp Album of the Day, Bandcamp, Yasmine Hamdan
carry the pulse of the film
41 Longford Street Late '80s
KIERAN HEBDEN, WILLIAM TYLER
Released 19 September 2025
Eat Your Own Ears / Temporary Residence Recordings
*****
Hebden and Tyler find warmth and wonder in the past — 41 Longfield Street Late ’80s is hushed Americana reimagined with electronic patience, guitar grace, and nostalgic depth.
Kieran Hebden (a.k.a. Four Tet) is one of electronic music’s most restless minds. From his early post-rock explorations with Fridge, through the folk-electronic leaps of Rounds, and his continuously evolving solo work, Hebden has always balanced the cerebral with the emotive.
William Tyler is a Nashville-based guitarist rooted in Americana, indie-folk and country; - a former member of Lambchop, with a solo catalogue marked by expansive guitar work and widescreen instrumental storytelling.
41 Longfield Street Late ’80s is their first full-length collaboration - a project born from shared teenage listening (country and folk from the 1980s, via their fathers’ record collections), and a desire to recontextualize those influences through electronic production and instrumental interplay.
The album builds around subtle contrasts: acoustic guitar vs ambient electronics, nostalgia vs forward-motion.
The record opens with an audacious move. “If I Had a Boat” begins with Hebden’s electronics, swelling from silence into an atmospheric growl. Nearly three minutes pass before Tyler enters abruptly, his bright fingerpicking carving through the drone like a flare. It feels less like accompaniment and more like a declaration. Only halfway through do the two begin to work together, their languages brushing against each other, not dissolving into unity but holding their edges. That sense of negotiation, a refusal to collapse into easy fusion, becomes the album’s central drama.
Elsewhere, the balance tilts differently. “Spider Ballad” lets Hebden’s skittering synths drive the pulse while Tyler threads plaintive melodies through the gaps.
“Timber” foregrounds Tyler’s pastoral clarity, Hebden’s electronics receding into warmth and shadow. “When It Rains” strips everything down, a spare journey between Ry Cooder's "Paris Texas" and Nels Cline / Wilco "Impossible Germany" , in which the silence and distortion are as important as any note. Brief pieces like “I Want an Antenna” and “Loretta Guides My Hands Through the Radio” act as transmissions - half-formed, suggestive, leaning toward collage.
Closing out the set, “Secret City”, finally gestures toward resolution: Tyler’s guitar luminous, Hebden’s drones cushioning without overwhelming, the two settling into a delicate, hard-earned equilibrium.
41 Longfield Street Late ’80s is an album of boundaries, conversations, and careful trespasses. It asks for close listening, rewarding with moments where contrast becomes communion. Not compromise, but coexistence.
Read more... Bandcamp
,
clicking cover art opens Spotify
Ancient Letters
Music For Piano and Orchestra and Piano Solo
ELENA KATS-CHERNIN
TAMARA-ANNA CISLOWSKA
TASMANIAN SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
JOHANNES FRITZSCH
Released 22 August 2025
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
*****
Sorrow, exile and ancient voices channeled in two piano concertos that confront loss, identity, and grief with a mix of fire and exquisite delicacy.
Born in Uzbekistan and now a key figure in contemporary classical music in her adopted country, Elena Kats-Chernin is one of Australia's foremost composers. Her long collaboration with pianist Tamara-Anna Cislowska spans decades, engendering deep artistic trust. Their past albums Butterflying (2016) and Unsent Love Letters (2017) were both commercial and critical successes. Kats-Chernin composes with virtuosity and emotional immediacy, creating works that are richly orchestrated and deeply humane. With Ancient Letters, Kats-Chernin draws on her heritage, history and empathy to tell stories of exile, loss and longing, through concertos that demand technical brilliance and poetic sensitivity from her collaborators - Cislowska and the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra under Johannes Fritzsch.
The album opens with a new version of one of Kats-Chernin’s signature tunes, “Eliza Aria.” Originally written as an operatic vocalise from the 2003 Meryl Tanard ballet Wild Swans, and recorded by soprano Jane Sheldon, it is here transposed for piano and orchestra: a ragtime piano motif replaces the vocal line, uncovering a more robust emotional dimension without losing the playful underlying lilt that made the original so iconic. However two new concertos are at the centre of this release: Ancient Letters, inspired by 1,700-year-old Sogdian letters from the Silk Road, and Concerto No. 3 'Lebewohl', in which she wrestles with the subject of JS Bach’s grief after the loss of his beloved wife.
The ‘Ancient Letters’, preserved in string and silk across the centuries, are the first known documents of the Sogdian people who lived across what is today Uzbekistan – the place where Kats-Chernin was born. They tell of a woman named Mewnai – Tiger Cub – whose husband has not returned, leaving her in fear that she and her daughter will be sold into slavery. Kats-Chernin’s sweeping and evocative concerto offers what the composer calls ‘a portrait of this feisty, desperate, beautiful, deserted woman: her story spoke to me across the ages.’ Commissioned for Cislowska, Kats-Chernin’s third piano concerto, Lebewohl (meaning ‘Farewell’) explores the core and soul of Johann Sebastian Bach at its nadir, as he returned home from a journey only to discover as he crossed the threshold into his house that his beloved wife of 13 years, whom he had left hale and hearty just six weeks earlier, was now dead – and buried.
The album also includes solo piano works Prelude Machine, Bach Study, and 1720 (a lament to Maria Barbara Bach) that show Kats-Chernin’s love for Bach’s craft and her talent at making old musical forms feel immediate.
Ancient Letters is a major achievement: moving, wide-ranging, deeply personal yet expansive. It reinforces Kats-Chernin’s growing stature as a composer who writes not just for ears, but for heart, memory and identity.
Read more... ABC Listen
I Made My House
ELIOT KRIMSKY
Released 29 August 2025
*****
An artist's grief transformed into a house made of sound, that is intimate, fragile, and luminously sorrowful.
Eliot Krimsky, originally from Cambridge, MA and now based in Brooklyn, emerges from his work with art-pop ensemble Glass Ghost into deeply personal territory. With his distinct falsetto, piano playing and ambient / experimental leanings, Krimsky draws on improvisation, subtle production textures, and memory to create a suite of songs that were spurred by the death of his father in 2022. The album delicately interweaves archival recordings, home-tape manipulations, field recordings and close mic-techniques to explore loss, identity, and legacy. With contributions from Kenny Warren (trumpet), Jeremy Udden (alto sax), and others, Krimsky builds a sonic space where memories both haunt and reassure.
The opening track “Astral” ushers us into Krimsky’s sound-world with shimmering synths, framing an intergenerational, spoken word exchange - an immediate signal that we're being invited into intimate scenario. “Feel I’m Getting Closer” questions how to live, how to be.
Tracks like “Chasing My Shadow” and “Through The Feeling” deepen the emotional weight: the former cleverly manipulates voice and instrumentation - strings, percussion tight, trumpet and sax - all a-flutter, creating tension before finding release; and for the latter, the brief clatter of percussion and mellow piano chords frame the question "How do I let go?"
Next, “My Heart Sings Out To You”, inspired by Ethiopian composer/pianist Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou, along with two other kora-led compositions, "Long Way" and "Transmission", offers an interlude of exquisite stillness at the heart of the album.
These tracks are placed perfectly in sequence, a gentle prelude to the title track: “I Made My House”: guitar, strings, a child's voice, and an adult's voice. "What did you do today?” asks a man with a gentle, encouraging manner. “I did something,” says a small child.” Laughing, the man replies, “And what ‘something’ did you do?” The child answers, “I made my house.” This conversation comes from a home cassette recording made in 1983, when Eliot Krimsky was five years old. The man on the tape is his father, who passed away unexpectedly in 2022.
Krimsky’s purpose on I Made My House is to connect this moment with the present day, to understand his father’s role in his life, and to come to terms with his passing.his is where memory, home, and architecture of sound converge.
Later tracks like “Ghosts in the Garden” or “Time Waves” sit somewhere between dream and echo, small and private.
The inclusion of a reimagined version of George Harrison's "Be Here Now" (inspired by Ram Das' 1971 book of the same name) fits perfectly as the penultimate track, while "New Directions" concludes the set with a positive sentiment.
What makes the album succeed is its emotional honesty combined with careful restraint. The production choices, recording childhood piano and his father’s voice in his old house and close mics, make the grief audible, not just in lyric.
I Made My House is a gracefully heartbreaking album - Krimsky gives shape to grief but leaves room to breathe. For those drawn to art-pop, ambient reflection, or writing through loss, this is a deeply resonant work.
This album reminds us of Sufjan Stevens' masterpiece "Carrie & Lowell" (2015) and is every bit as moving and creative in its execution.
Read more... Bandcamp Album of the Day, Bandcamp, Eliot Krimsky
Oh Snap
CECILE MCLORIN SALVANT
Released 19 September 2025
Nonesuch Records
*****
Salvant’s most daring turn yet: a structural leap beyond jazz into playful, spontaneous experiments, where intimacy, cross-genre wanderings, and lyrical wit coexist uneasily but often beautifully.
Classically trained, steeped in jazz Cecile McLorin Salvant is known for her mastery of jazz vocals, interpretive depth and imaginative narratives across a run of startling albums - The Window (2018), Ghost Song (2022), and Mélusine (2024). She continues to stretch boundaries with Oh Snap, having written most of the material herself over four years, initially recording at home using digital tools then bringing in her band partners Sullivan Fortner (keys, synths, Fender Rhodes, piano, organ) Yasushi Nakamura (bass, upright bass), and Kyle Poole (drums), plus guest vocalists June McDoom and Kate Davis.
Oh Snap leans into spontaneity and play and away from formality in composition, embracing folk, pop, jazz, electronic textures, lyrical experiment and cross-genre pollination, all the while drawing on her wide musical influences - grunge, boy bands, folk and classical.
Oh Snap is more like an adventurous side-step for Salvant - less a departure from her previous high-concept work than a willingness to loosen control; to allow imperfection and surprise to breathe.
The album opens with “I Am a Volcano”, a quiet-simmering, playful statement: her voice echoed, drifting over a minimal electronic pulse, setting up the tone of gradual eruption. “Anything But Now” follows with joyful ensemble jazz, her phrasing agile, Fortner’s piano dancing around her. “Take This Stone” brings folk intimacy with harmonies from June McDoom and Kate Davis, reminding us that storytelling remains core to Salvant’s voice.
She glides through “What Does Blue Mean to You?” whose conversational lyricism, prominent bass lines, unexpected soul wails and honky-tonk led coda, raise it feature status.
The brief “Brick House” cover (Lionel Richie, Commodores) feels like a wink - 27 seconds of playful homage, its brevity and laughter acknowledging the joy of creation itself. It serves as intro to the title track - a synth-and-congas driven gallop that shows Savant at her best, recalling Kate Bush as she melts the boundaries between theatre, jazz and pop. In later tracks like “A Little Bit More”, she pushes into autotuned, dance-adjacent terrain; “Expanse” offers a moment of spacious tranquility; closing the album, "Thank You" a heartfelt declaration of love and thanks, to her sister, “A Frog Jumps In” presents as a sound collage, fragmentary and poetic, a gesture without full resolution.
With this release Salvant resists the safe or predictable path. Although four years in the making, the songs are shorter, leaner and often fragmentary. As a result, they still carry a fresh spontaneity and strong personal pulse. If that looseness feels uneven or underdone at times, it is offset by the album's overall liveliness. This is Salvant letting joy, surprise and risk back into her process, which only broadens her repertoire (and likely, her appeal)
Read more... Nonesuch Records, Bandcamp
clicking cover art opens Spotify
Saving Grace
ROBERT PLANT
WITH SUZI DIAN
Released 26 September 2025
Nonesuch Records
****-
Robert Plant’s Saving Grace extends his folk journey beyond Band of Joy and Raising Sand, blending tenderness, collaboration and an eclectic repertoire into a luminous exploration of tradition.
Saving Grace is Robert Plant's seventeenth release as a solo artist; the first album since Raise the Roof (2021) and his first with his recently formalised band Saving Grace (vocalist & accordianist Suzi Dian, drummer Oli Jefferson, guitarist Tony Kelsey, banjo/string player Matt Worley, cellist Barney Morse-Brown). In his post-Led Zepellin career, Plant has formed a succession of folk-based bands and collaborations: "Priory of Brion" (1999-2001), "Strange Sensations" (2002-2009), Alison Krauss (2007-2009 and 2021), "Band of Joy" (2010-2011), "Sensational Space Shifters" (2012-2018) and "Saving Grace" (2019 to today).
Saving Grace continues this path with an intimate focus. It showcases Plant, now far removed in artistry and time from his rock icon youth, as an attentive interpreter of songs centuries old and newly reimagined. Through collaborative interplay and a wide-ranging repertoire, Plant affirms that his artistic home lies in folk’s enduring, borderless traditions.
Saving Grace feels like the natural extension of Plant’s folk projects with Alison Krauss and Band of Joy, but pared back to something more intimate and communally driven. Where Raising Sand paired him with Krauss’s crystalline voice in luminous Americana settings, and Band of Joy reveled in muscular folk-rock textures, here Plant and Suzi Dian seek a quieter, more conversational balance. Their harmonies glide with a lived-in ease, less about spotlight and more about blending into the grain of the songs.
The repertoire is as diverse as any in Plant’s catalogue: Appalachian hymns, blues-inflected laments, centuries-old British ballads, even modern reinterpretations. Each is treated with care, the arrangements framing voice and lyric rather than overwhelming them. The ensemble - subtle guitars, drones, and restrained percussion - offers just enough color to animate the songs without disturbing their core.
Plant’s voice, weathered yet supple, brings tenderness rather than power. He shapes phrases with attentiveness, leaning into fragility, as though preserving the dignity of the stories being told. In contrast to his Zeppelin years, he now serves the song first, himself second.
Saving Grace is not a reinvention but a reaffirmation—a reminder that Plant’s true artistry has long resided in folk traditions, where collaboration and attentiveness keep the music alive.
Read more... Nonesuch Records, Bandcamp, Robert Plant
.jpg)
One Battle After Another
(Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
JONNY GREENWOOD
Released 26 September 2025
Warner Brothers Entertainment
Nonesuch Records
****-
Relentless and tender - a score of dread punctuated by moments of fragile relief, binding Paul Thomas Anderson’s political thriller with precision and humanity.
Jonny Greenwood, longtime Radiohead guitarist turned acclaimed film composer, reunites with director Paul Thomas Anderson for One Battle After Another (2025), following their work together on There Will Be Blood (2007), The Master (2012), Inherent Vice (2014), Phantom Thread (2018) and Licorice Pizza (2021).
Greenwood masterfully deploys piano, strings, percussion and dissonant electronics to support the film’s dystopian, action-thriller narrative that involves a revolutionary past, moral ambiguities, father-daughter relationships and satire of contemporary political dividedness. The result is both Greenwood’s most politically pointed score to date and his most structurally integrated: music not simply underscoring scenes but entwining with the film’s rhythm and intent.
The score is an all-in co-conspirator in Anderson’s storytelling. From the opening frames, its presence is near-constant, stitching together disparate narrative threads with a low, insistent hum of dread. The title track sets the tone immediately: strings like nervous energy soar above a quickening piano pulse, announcing a world on edge. In “The French 75”, jagged piano figures and electronic textures gnaw at the silence, making tension felt before dialogue or action confirm it. “I Need the Greeting Code” heightens paranoia further with layered dissonance and percussive drive, echoing the coded exchanges and surveillance anxiety that run through the film.
Yet Greenwood understands the value of respite. “Baby Charlene” and “Guitar for Willa” provide tenderness and intimacy, their gentle melodies sketching the human stakes beneath political upheaval. “Avanti Q” and “Trust Device” likewise act as pressure valves, offering brief but crucial breathing space within an otherwise relentless sound world. Not only do these interludes dilute tension, they remind us of the fragility of lives caught in turmoil.
Throughout the film, cumulative pressure is built through repetition, texture and carefully rationed melody. The moments of reprieve - folk-like guitar, hushed piano, intimate duets of strings - are essential to the score’s architecture, making the return to dissonance all the more jarring. It’s this interplay, dread against tenderness, that gives One Battle After Another its force: music that not only accompanies Anderson’s images but articulates their emotional stakes. This may not be Greenwood's most melodic or standalone score, but he delivers one of his most narratively entwined, a work that binds unease, humanity, and politics into the film’s bloodstream.
Read more... Wikipedia
.jpeg)
A Love Supreme
(Monophonic Edition)
JOHN COLTRAINE
Released January 1965
Monophonic Edition 26 September 2025
Impulse! Records
*****
Sixty years on, A Love Supreme remains a spiritual and musical landmark. The 60th-anniversary monophonic reissue brings listeners closer to the intimacy, urgency, and sonic core of Coltrane’s masterpiece.
Recorded in December 1964 at Van Gelder Studio and released in 1965, A Love Supreme is John Coltrane’s defining statement: a four-part suite blending modal jazz, spiritual invocation, and profound personal testimony. Though recorded in stereo, a dedicated monophonic mix was produced for its first release, reflecting the transitional studio practices of the era when many homes still played mono LPs.
For the 60th anniversary, the monophonic edition returns on vinyl, remastered with fidelity to the original tapes. The reissue offers both collectors and new listeners a chance to hear Coltrane’s vision as it was first experienced.
A Love Supreme has never lost its gravity. The 60th-anniversary monophonic reissue offers a fresh yet historically authentic perspective: not a radical reinterpretation, but a closer step into the room where Coltrane, McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Garrison, and Elvin Jones forged their transcendent dialogue.
In stereo, Tyner’s piano often floats left, Jones’s cymbals splash right. In mono, those divisions collapse. The sound is denser, more unified, with Coltrane’s tenor less an isolated voice and more the lead instrument within a tightly woven fabric. “Acknowledgement” feels even more prayer-like, the chant “a love supreme” folding seamlessly into the ensemble. “Resolution” burns with greater drive, Jones’s drums not off to the side but powering from the center. By “Pursuance,” the mono mix intensifies the storm: every drum roll, every bass motif carries a collective force. The closing “Psalm” becomes a single current of devotion rather than four separate streams.
If stereo offered expansiveness, mono offers urgency and intimacy—what listeners in 1965 first encountered. This reissue reminds us that A Love Supreme is not just a record of parts but a singular act of spiritual and musical communion. Sixty years later, its power is undiminished, perhaps even amplified in this form.
An essential reissue that restores immediacy to one of jazz’s most sacred recordings.
Read more... Wikipedia,
clicking cover art opens Spotify
Tron Ares
(Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
NINE INCH NAILS
TRENT REZNOR, ATTICUS ROSS
Released 19 September 2025
Disney
***--
Scored without orchestra, with sleek precision and synthetic unease, it’s polished, thematically apt, yet falls short of the grandeur and personality of its cinematic predecessors or the intensity of NIN's own catalogue.
For Tron: Ares, Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross are officially credited as Nine Inch Nails, blurring the line between band and film composers. Since 2010, the duo have carved a reputation for moody, award-winning scores (The Social Network, Soul and others) while maintaining NIN’s industrial edge. In contrast to Wendy Carlos’ pioneering original soundtrack Tron (1982) or Daft Punk’s symphonic for Tron: Legacy (2010), Ares was created without orchestra. Instead, an all-electronic palette was designed to mirror a story of AI venturing into the human world. That choice emphasizes digital artifice and thematic restraint, but also risks narrowing the emotional and sonic scope expected from the Tron franchise.
As a soundtrack, Tron: Ares feels both fitting and diminished. It avoids the orchestral grandeur that defined Legacy, instead presenting a precise, brooding electronic architecture. Tracks like “Init” and “New Directive” set atmospheric tension, while “Infiltrator” and “Daemonize” lean on industrial pulses that echo classic NIN textures. Without orchestral sweep, however, much of the music lacks scale - functional for film, less commanding as a stand-alone listen.
Judged as a Nine Inch Nails album, the record feels restrained. The (four) vocal tracks provide moments of personality, but much of the score leans ambient, with limited intensity. Compared with the visceral heights of Year Zero (2007) or The Downward Spiral (1994), this is subdued: more soundtrack craft than band fire.
As the sonic support for the Tron: Ares storyline, an AI program entering the human world, the electronic sound design makes thematic sense.: synthetic timbres , almost by definition, highlight artifice, dislocation and tension. Still, the execution often feels safe, missing the daring imagination one hopes for in both Tron and NIN.
Tron: Ares succeeds as polished accompaniment, but falls somewhat short when judged against Tron’s musical legacy or NIN’s creative extremes.
Read more... Nine Inch Nails
,
A Written Testimony: Leaflets
JAY ELECTRONICA
Released 19 September 2025
Jay Electronica / Roc Nation Distribution
****-
Leaflets extends Jay Electronica’s mythic quest - short, dense, and full of spectral samples - linking past and present through mysticism, critique, and spiritual inquiry in a post-pandemic, post-Trump era.
A Written Testimony: Leaflets arrives as a companion to Jay Electronica’s 2020 releases (A Written Testimony and Act II: The Patents of Nobility (The Turn)) and marks a rare return after years of silence. Released on his 49th birthday, Leaflets features guest spots from Quentin Miller and DRAM, and an intro from Diddy.
Though some speculate it might be a supplement or bridge rather than leftovers from earlier eras, Jay’s provocative sampling, clipped lyricism, and esoteric references suggest Leaflets is a living extension of his signature landscape—one where prophecy, conspiracy, scripture, and introspection mingle.
The first thing that strikes you on Leaflets is its compressed ambition. The dialogue samples, spiritual edicts, and layered audio fragments come fast, often eclipsing the vocal verses. The structure feels deliberately fragmentary - a series of pamphlets, leaflets in the wind - suggesting revelation by parts rather than holistic saga.
The opening track, “Abracadabra”, is notable: it resurrects the name of a previous classic, reframed here with new lyrics, a quote from Louis Farrakhan and different beat. This gesture hints at Jay’s ongoing relationship to his own mythos, looping back on earlier works and recontextualizing them.
When he does step up to rap, as in “Who Killed Michael Jackson??????” (ft. Quentin Miller) or “Is It Possible That The Honorable Elijah Muhammad Is Still Physically Alive???” (ft. DRAM), he lands philosophical and provocative lines, wrestling with cultural legacy, mortality, and political obscurity.
In “Japan Airline 1628”, the production takes a subtler turn—melodic, almost airy—offering respite between denser passages. “Four Billion, Four Hundred Million (4,400,000,000) / The Worst Is Yet to Come” carries weight: apocalyptic echoes, social critique, cosmic dread—the kind of connective tissue between inner and outer worlds Jay often seeks. The closer “Highlander” ends matter-of-factly, a short epilogue after a barrage of esoteric thought.
Thematically, Leaflets feels rooted in the fractured present: post-pandemic disillusion, the dismantling of political myths, and spiritual longing in haunted times. Compared to his longer works, it’s leaner, sharper, less forgiving—but that constraint becomes its intensity. Some may find it too fragmentary or heavy in sampled voice at the cost of more bars, but that seems intentional: this is leaflets, not chapters—snippets meant to provoke, not conclude.
Leaflets is not a safe return—it’s Jay Electronica at his most elusive, his most charged, a brief but potent reminder that his voice still unsettles, resists, and beckons.
Read more... Wikipedia
A Written Testimony: Mars, The Inhabited Planet
JAY ELECTRONICA
Released 21 September 2025
Jay Electronica / Roc Nation Distribution
****-
An album structured like a magic trick, where surprise, disappearance, and revelation turn hip-hop into mystic ritual: transforming sampling into some sort of sorcery
Jay Electronica remains one of hip-hop’s most enigmatic figures, releasing new material at a glacial pace yet always surrounded by myth and anticipation. A Written Testimony: Mars, The Inhabited Planet follows his 2020 debut "A Written Testimony", and builds on his reputation for weaving spirituality, political commentary, and cosmic imagery into dense, allusive verses. Collaborators range across producers and vocalists, but it’s Electronica’s curatorial ear that dominates: his samples form a universe of their own, referencing cinema, gospel, classical strings, and Arabic maqam. This is an album less about linear storytelling than about sound as ritual, revelation, and narrative magic.
The key to Mars, The Inhabited Planet lies in its opening: Michael Caine’s monologue from The Prestige, describing the three acts of a magic trick - “The Pledge,” “The Turn,” and “The Prestige.” Electronica frames the album itself as such a trick, where familiar sounds (soul loops, gospel choirs, film dialogue) are pledged, transformed, and returned in altered form.
What follows is an overflow of marvels: samples bent into unlikely juxtapositions, Quranic recitations intercut with electronic textures, and orchestral fragments suspended against heavy low-end beats. Where his debut was cloaked in the gravitas of JAY-Z’s presence, Mars feels more playful, even mischievous. Electronica’s voice weaves between prophet, poet, and conjurer, balancing political fire with mystical imagery.
The midsection, particularly tracks built around gospel and North African textures, suggests hip-hop as a living archive, each borrowed sound given new agency. Later, the album takes on a more reflective register, layering chants and string samples into meditative passages that verge on the cinematic.
Not every transition lands, and some listeners may find the density dizzying. But in spirit, Mars is a testament to hip-hop’s ability to astonish, to disappear the ordinary and return it charged with mystery.
Read more... Wikipedia
clicking cover art opens Spotify
Better Broken
SARAH MCLACHLAN
Released 19 September 2025
Sarah McLachlan Entertainment / Concord Records
****-
Better Broken is a heartfelt comeback from an artist in her prime - a record that doesn’t overpromise but delivers with emotional maturity and graceful honesty. Not every moment soars, but most land beautifully.
Sarah McLachlan, the Canadian singer-songwriter known for her emotive melodies, luminous vocals and lyrical honesty, has not released an album of entirely new original songs since Shine On (2014), and over thirty since her defining album "Fumbling Towards Ecstasy" (1993). Since "Shine On", her intervening years involved other projects - Christmas albums, covers and live releases. "Better Broken" (her tenth studio album) takes her back to familiar territory, with a new team of producers - Tony Berg (Phoebe Bridgers, boygenius) and Will Maclellan (Lucy Dacus, Phoebe Bridgers) - and a fresh set of original songs, recorded mainly at Sound City Studios in Los Angeles. The album draws together themes of loss, healing, motherhood, the state of the world and the small daily ruptures that shape us. McLachlan says she hopes the songs provide “relief and release” ...letting listeners take what they need.
Better Broken opens promisingly with its title track, a graceful acceptance of vulnerability. McLachlan's sonic palette here is instantly familiar: piano, swelling strings and atmospheric production. The passage of time seems not to have resulted in any diminishment of her vocal capacity in her delivery. Tracks like “Gravity” (I will be like gravity, always true / I won't give up on you) and “Rise” (Who do we turn to if we turn on each other?) deliver the album's emotional pillars: “Gravity” with its maternal honesty and “Rise” with its tempered hope and insistence that there is a way forward. "The Last To Go" sways with understated melodic swag and "Only Way Out Is Through" extends the album's sonic palette with a Beatles-like, string section coda. “Reminds Me” (featuring Katie Gavin) balances melody and reflection, its harmonies and vocal textures underscoring McLachlan’s capacity for intimacy. Deep into the album's second half, some tracks move more slowly: "Once In a Long Time", "Only Human" and “Long Road Home” require patience and attention. However, the lyrical content and arrangements of the album's closing sequence - "Rise", “Wilderness” and “If This Is the End…” is far more dynamic, providing a worthy conclusion.
Overall, Better Broken succeeds as a mostly consistent, if not always adventurous, album that works best when McLachlan leans into her strength: illuminating insightful words with delightful, melodic artistry.
Read more... American Songwriter
,
Reno
ROBIN HOLCOMB, PEGGY LEE
Released 12 September 2025
****-
Piano, voice and cello in a quiet, restrained, and devastatingly intimate dialogue - where old songs feel both remembered and reborn in luminous detail.
Robin Holcomb has long occupied a singular space between folk, contemporary classical, and avant-garde jazz. Her compositional voice blends American folk traditions, spare lyricism, and unexpected harmonic shifts. Over decades she’s released solo albums, song cycles, and collaborative projects (including The Point of It All (2015). On Reno, she revisits songs from her repertoire across four decades, offering both old pieces and instrumental variations in a deeply personal context.
Based in Vancouver, Canada, cellist, improviser and composer, Peggy Lee brings a wide vocabulary to Reno, moving between composed parts, intuitive improvisation and textural exploration. In conversation, Lee describes her role as blending with Holcomb’s voice and piano, sometimes following, sometimes reshaping the musical space.
Together, Holcomb and Lee have collaborated for over twenty years, though Reno is their first formal duo recording.
The album, which was recorded in a Seattle home-studio over two days, with intentional intimacy and minimal overdubs, opens with “Sorrow”, setting a contemplative tone.
From there, songs like “Bye Bye”, “Copper Bottom” and “The Point of It All” showcase Holcomb’s lyrical economy and poetic turns, reframed in sparse piano and Lee’s cello counterpoint. “Larks, They Crazy”, one of her oldest compositions, gets renewed life among these settings.
Instrumentation often hovers between arrangement and improvisation: some tracks are tightly formed, others drift and breathe. Lee’s cello sometimes doubles or shadows Holcomb’s lines; at other moments it diverges into subtle textures that push the space outward.
Tracks like “Interlude” and “Silence in the Square” act as pauses - breathing rooms in the sequence. “Reno” (the title track) anchors the set, drawing together voice and cello in a shared, lyrical center. “Waltz” closes with a balance of reflection and openness, starting specific and ending open-ended.
Where Reno really succeeds is in its conversational restraint: nothing overplays or overstates. The duo works in a shared language, allowing space and silence to count as much as notes. The “living room” recording approach amplifies vulnerability and immediacy.
If there is a limitation, it lies in the potential for middle tracks to feel somewhat alike in tempo or moos.
Reno is a quietly powerful statement: a meeting of two deeply sympathetic musical minds who transform familiar songs into living, breathing art. For listeners seeking poetry, space, and emotional resonance, Holcomb and Lee deliver one of 2025’s more delicate, compelling collaborations.
Read more... Bandcamp
maar
ROSIE TURTON, MIRYAM SOLOMAN
Released 12 September 2025
Rosie Turton and Miryam Soloman
****-
Improvised textures unfold like a quiet ritual, with voice, trombone and modular synths in intelligent ambient communion.
Rosie Turton is a London-based trombonist, modular synth artist, composer and producer, known for atmospheric work in UK jazz and experimental sound. Named “One To Watch” by The Guardian and nominated for Jazz FM’s Breakthrough Act she bridges acoustic and electronic media. Miryam Solomon, by way of Sweden and Eritrea, is a vocalist & composer whose practice spans voice, interlocking rhythms, storytelling, jazz, folk, and improvisation.
maar, their compelling new collaboration is an album of five unedited improvisations, 32 minutes total, that map sonic terrain built of ambient musical resonance and fragile vocal dialogue. The project began by chance at the end of a recording session in 2024 at Lightship 95 studio. With 20 minutes to spare, the two decided to use the remainder of the session to experiment with freely improvising with the voice and trombone: “It felt like we were having a different type of conversation”, they write. More moments like these continued at Rosie's home studio, this time incorporating Rosie's modular synthesizer, and from these sessions emerged maar; a space where the two trace new landscapes together.
In the leased version, "The Dove" provides an enticing but brief introduction, a foretaste of the primary elements of the collaboration - voice, trombone and synths.
It's successor “dove down”, bathes the listener in waves of haunting sonic intensity, broadening the album's sonic scope. Turton's trombone line weaves a meandering path, sounding like a lone, second-line musician lost in a deserted New Orleans backstreet, the tune serves as an enticing passage to the album's centrepiece, “deep.”.
Here we are treated to a slow, musical journey through layers of mystery: beginning from an almost silent sound stage, synths rise steadily as Solomon’s voice hovers, fragments, murmurs and glides; Turton’s synth washes and trembles, as trombone tones enter and recede. The piece is contemplative and rewards patience, allowing its mood to register deeply.
The penultimate piece, “It Dove Down Deep” drifts into abstraction, offering denouement without resolution, where structure has dissolved in texture, lines have blurred, and disintegrated. Voices have practically dissolved.
“Into the Maar” brings the suite to its logical conclusion. Now vocalisation morphs into mysterious elongated calls from the depths, that rise and rise again, and eventually find equilibrium.
maar rewards listeners willing to settle into the uncertainty of the moment, rather than chase dramatic events and closure. Its strength is in the virtual space that Solomon and Turton create around each other, listening as much as playing, allowing silence and imperfections to become part of the performance.
Although the lack of melody or rhythmic anchor is uncomfortable, this is ambient improvisation at its most intimate and intelligent.
Read more... Bandcamp
clicking cover art opens Spotify
The Omniverse Oriki
MARSHALL ALLEN
Released 12 September 2025
Kevin Diahl / Two High Recordings
****-
A cosmic ritual, blending free-jazz extroversion and Yoruba liturgical depth into a wild, ecstatic soundscape that reaches past time into future myth.
Marshall Allen - centenarian, alto saxophonist and elder statesman/curator of Sun Ra’s Arkestra since its founder's passing in 1993 - has long embodied and propagated the Arkestra's Afrofuturist vision. In this, his latest release (only his second "solo" album ever, and both released this year, after a lifetime's service to other leaders) Allen collaborates with Kevin Diehl’s Ade Ilu Ensemble, weaving the Arkestra's legacy with Afro-Cuban Yoruba chorus, Lucumi ritual, effects-laden cello and sarangi, guitar/synth experiments, and percussive bata and achere.
Recorded in 2023, this collaboration animates these disparate traditions through visionary improvisation, ritual narrative (oriki), and sonic futurism. Allen positions himself as a guide between worlds - an elder and explorer whose voice (through alto sax, EVI, keyboards) still demands expansive engagement.
The Omniverse Oriki launches with Omniverse Oriki 1, a near-20 minute arc of ceremonial turbulence and vast dream-space. Allen’s alto saxophone (and EVI, Casio, vibrations) arcs over a grounding core of Yoruba batá drums and Lucumi singing. The layering of voices, percussion, effects-laden cello and sarangi (via Kash Killion), and guitar/synth textures (D. Hotep) build a dense sonic architecture: waves of rhythm, extended improvisation, moments of chaos balanced by ritual repetition.
The second and third tracks, shorter but no less ambitious, shift the focus: Oriki 2 leans into vocal chorus and drum interplay, offering trance-inducing call-and-response. Oriki 3 weaves more strings, synths and spatial effects, tension and release, sometimes stretching into ambient erosion, other times snapping back to vivid rhythmic pulse.
There’s a feeling of liminality across the album - between memory and future, tradition and experiment, spiritual invocation and ecstatic jest.
Overall, the suite shines most in its multiplicity: its refusal to settle into any one genre or tradition and to work in the spaces between. Its weakness lies in its density: at times, it's extended improvisations feel overlong, or textures flatten without strong melodic tether. However, this seems intentional: ritual is not tidy.
A powerful, collaborative statement from a master who is still pushing boundaries, The Omniverse Oriki is equal parts homage and prophecy, and a luminous addition to Afrofuturist jazz.
Read more... Bandcamp
2am
ALAN GOGOLL
Released 12 September 2025
Alan Gogoll
***--
Another saccharine collection of finger-style guitar confections from the inventor of the Bell Harmonics technique.
Alan Gogoll is an Australian fingerstyle guitarist best known for his distinctive “bell harmonics” technique and crystalline acoustic sound. Based in Tasmania, he has built a reputation for intricate solo guitar compositions that are as technically dazzling as they are delicate. A prolific performer and recording artist, Gogoll has released numerous albums, often themed around nature or for children, and typically imbued with pastoral, optimistic moods. His work has been embraced by online guitar communities for its purity of tone and execution.
While his music resonates with clarity and charm, it rarely strays from fair-weather atmospheres, leaving deeper emotional currents unexplored. We reviewed his recent album "Cockatoo Skies" in our August playlist, disappointed that this portfolio of sweet melodies didn't embrace or express any of the wild, rambunctious characteristics of these anarchic Australian birds, or their stormy Tasmanian habitat.
The prolific Cogoll's newest, self-released set entitled "2am" is another hour's worth of short, pleasant tunes built around his intimate characteristic style - a mix of rapid finger-style runs punctuated with semi-pauses and incessant, ringing harmonics. All songs are recorded closely-miked, most featuring Gogoll's self-devised "Bell Harmonics" technique, where both hands or multiple fingers produce harmonics at different points on the fretboard, creating layered, bell-like sounds.
Once again with this release, the album's musical reach remains well within the narrow range of expression that varies little from year-to-year, title-to-title or genre-to-genre (children's-to-adult's). If played at the appointed hour of 2am, these saccharine-sweet guitar confections are unlikely to wake the house.
If this is commercially successful and "brand"-enforcing, good luck to him, but Gogoll once again limits himself from wider artistic expression, at the expense of his devotion to the showcasing his Bell Harmonics techniques.
Read more... Alan Gogoll
Double Infinity
BIG THIEF
Released 5 September 2025
****-
A confident and ambitious effort that pushes their sound into new territories and rewards repeated listens with its intricate layers and emotional depth.
Big Thief, the Brooklyn-based indie-folk band, has been a significant force in the music scene since their debut almost a decade ago. The band, now consisting of Adrianne Lenker, Buck Meek and James Krivchenia, is known for their raw, intimate sound and poetic lyricism. Over the years, they've garnered critical acclaim and a dedicated fan base with albums from their debut "Masterpiece" (2016) to the Grammy-nominated "Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You" (2022). Their music often explores themes of love, loss, and the human condition, delivered with a unique blend of folk, rock, and experimental elements.
"Double Infinity," Big Thief's sixth studio album, marks a significant departure from their previous work. Recorded at the Power Station in New York City, the album features a more expansive and experimental sound, incorporating elements of ambient music, electronic loops, and zither drones. The departure of longtime bassist Max Oleartchik has led the band to explore new sonic landscapes with a host of collaborators, including ambient multi-instrumentalist Laraaji.
The album was created in sessions lasting for nine hours a day, a community of musicians - Alena Spanger, Caleb Michel, Hannah Cohen, Jon Nellen, Joshua Crumbly, June McDoom, Laraaji, Mikel Patrick Avery, Mikey Buishas - improvising arrangements and making collective discoveries
The album opens with "Incomprehensible," a track that establishes the tone with its dreamy, meditative quality. Lenker's lyrics, reflecting on aging and memory, are delivered in a gentle, stream-of-consciousness style that draws the listener in. "Words" and "Los Angeles" continue this introspective journey, blending folk roots with lush, experimental arrangements.
The title track, with its repetitive, mantra-like lyrics and expansive production is a turning point, a bridge to the album's second half, in which the band embraces a more atmospheric and free-spirited approach. The result is a
Overall, "Double Infinity" is an ambitious work of transition that maintains the bands core essence but pushes Big Thief's sound into new territories. While it may not have the immediate impact of their earlier work, it rewards repeated listens with its intricate layers and emotional depth
Read more... Bandcamp
clicking cover art opens Spotify
Who Is The Sky?
DAVID BYRNE
Released 5 September 2025
Matador Records
***--
From an icon unafraid of risk there's a promising beginning and flashes of eccentric brilliance, but too many flat textures and diminished spark produce uneven results.
David Byrne has never stood still. From Talking Heads’ art-funk revolution through solo experiments, Broadway (American Utopia), and global collaborations, he has consistently reframed what pop music can mean. His genius lies in marrying rhythm and absurdity, anxiety and celebration, high art and the sweat of the dance floor. Now in his seventies, Byrne faces the paradox of longevity: the artist known for restlessly breaking form must also contend with the limitations of time. Who Is The Sky? arrives as both an extension of his singular worldview and an interrogation of aging’s effect on voice, energy, and imagination.
Who Is The Sky? opens brightly with “Everybody Laughs”, a joyous, familiar-sounding outburst that recalls Talking Heads’ genius at transforming nervous energy into quirky party music. Guitars jitter, rhythms pop, and for a moment it feels like Byrne has found a late-career groove.
But what follows shifts tone alarmingly. “When We Are Singing” and “A Door Called No” reveal a heavier melancholy, their down-tempo pacing spotlighting Byrne’s voice - no longer charmingly off-kilter, but fragile, often straining. Where once imperfection served as counterpoint to exuberant grooves, here it tips toward discomfort, leaving songs bereft.
However, the record's swoon regains buoyancy in “What Is The Reason For It?”, which blends mariachi flair with Byrne’s trademark wit, and “I Met The Buddha at a Downtown Party”, a whimsical narrative that sparkles with playfulness. Yet beyond this point, much of the remaining album feels curiously stale, despite promisingly-titled subject matter: "The Avant Garde", "Moisturizing Thing", "She Explains Things To Me". Too many tracks rely on similar, mid-tempo arrangements. absent the lyrical bite or rhythmic invention that once defined Byrne’s best work. Hooks are elusive, textures blur, and the eccentricities lack momentum.
There are glimmers of brilliance here, but they are scattered and surrounded by the mundane. For longtime fans, Who Is The Sky? offers fragments of the old magic, but not the sustained vision. A respectful three stars.
Read more... Bandcamp
.jpg)
D-Jam/Triangle (EP)
SAM GENDEL, SAM AMIDON, PHILIPPE MELANSON
Released 5 September 2025
****-
A mesmerizing blend of jazz, folk and experimental sounds, pushing the boundaries of contemporary music with its innovative and emotive compositions.
Sam Gendel, Sam Amidon and Philippe Melanson are a trio of highly acclaimed musicians known for their genre-blurring approach to music. Gendel, a saxophonist and producer, is celebrated for his abstract and genre-defying jazz compositions. Amidon, a multi-instrumentalist and singer, reimagines traditional folk songs with a modern twist, blending elements of jazz and classical music. Melanson, a versatile percussionist, brings a unique rhythmic foundation to the group, enhancing their sound with his innovative drumming techniques. Together, they create a rich tapestry of sound that is both deeply rooted in tradition and boldly experimental.
"D-Jam/Triangle (EP)" showcases the trio's ability to seamlessly blend their diverse musical these backgrounds.
The EP opens with "D-Jam", a captivating drone-scape that develops from the interplay of lyrical guitar, haunting vocalisations, and ethereal electronic melodies, the instrumental interplay creating a hypnotic atmosphere that captures and carries the listener from the first note.
The second song in this double-A-sided release "Triangle", opens as a kind of travelogue-to-music, with the spoken word introduction giving way to a few minutes of the complex rhythms and layered textures from interwoven sax, keys and brushed skins.
Together, this pair of song pair represents a further iteration of the ongoing, close musical collaboration between these three ever-curious musicians.
Read more... Bandcamp
MALIK
VENNA
Released 5 September 2025
****-
A kaleidoscopic sonic debut that embraces jazz, Bossa Nova, R&B, rap and soul and invites us to surrender to its mellow mood.
South London’s Venna, a Grammy-winning saxophonist and rising auteur, steps into his own spotlight having established his career crafting flourishes for the likes of Burna Boy, Beyoncé, and J Hus. His debut LP, which takes it's title from the name given to him by his mother - a strong name that means King or leader in Arabic - is a declaration of identity and self-command.
Shunning the constraints of genre, he moulds jazz, Bossa Nova, hip-hop, R&B, and soul with his vision, enlisting collaborators such as Jorja Smith, Smino, MIKE, Marco Bernadis, CARI, Leon Thomas and Yussef Dayes.
MALIK opens gently, with the short, mellow "Yoshi' Intro" and mild-mannered "Numero Uno", unfolding in a carefully-curated sequence: a sonic meditation that becomes a vibrant cross-cultural dialogue.
"Myself” (featuring Jorja Smith) drapes airy Bossa Nova rhythms over breezy guitars and light percussion, sensually inviting and framed in warmth. “Day x2,” with MIKE and Marco Bernardis, introduces a brooding rap inflection, gritty and grounding amid the album’s lighter textures, showcasing Venna’s confidence in emotional contrast. Leon Thomas on “Twisting” lays warm R&B vocal over a free-form grooves, punctuated by jazzy saxophone that glides like a soft breeze.
The instrumental “Eternal Reflections,” featuring Yussef Dayes, closes the album in a shimmering cocktail-jazz haze - complex, layered and timeless.
Across its 50-minute span, MALIK flows like a shimmering dreamscape but resists tidy categorisation. Its strength lies in its emotional clarity, energetic musicality and textural generosity: Venna invites listeners to “let go, be present and submit to sensory experiences” - and he delivers a soundtrack that makes this possible.
Read more... Bandcamp
clicking cover art opens Spotify
Last Night I Heard The Dog Star Bark
GWENIFER RAYMOND
Released 5 September 2025
Gwenifer Raymond / We Are Busy Bodies
****-
An astral folk-odyssey, in which blistering fingerstyle, mystic tunings and haunted atmospheres merge into music that feels carved from wood, myths, and stars.
Welsh-born, Brighton-based instrumentalist - and tech director of a video game audio company with a PhD in astrophysics - Gwenifer Raymond began guitar at age eight, first captivated by Nirvana's "Nevermind" and the loud, raw energy of grunge and punk. Throughout her teenage years she played in punk/alternative bands, while also discovering older roots: early American blues players like Skip James, Blind Boy Fuller, Mississippi John Hurt; Appalachian and folk-blues traditions. A turning point came when she encountered John Fahey and the so-called American Primitive guitar realm. As she matured, she blended her Welsh landscape - mist, forests, folk horror - with these influences, crafting a style she and others term “Welsh Primitive.” Her technique includes clawhammer and alternating-thumb fingerpicking, open tunings, and dissonant, spectral harmonics.
Last Night I Heard The Dog Star Bark feels like Gwenifer Raymond’s clearest manifesto yet. The album opens with tracks that reverberate with her punk roots - bursts of intensity and feedback-tinged acoustic attack - then settles into passages that draw deeply on her discovery of pre-war blues and American Primitive guitar tradition.
In pieces like "", “Banjo Players of Aleph One”, and "Jack Parsons Blues", one hears the influence of Fahey’s spacious ragas; yet Raymond pulls the sound and imagination toward Welsh folklore, such as “Bliws Afon Tâf”: haunted tones, eerie open tunings, layers of echo that evoke misty hillsides and dark forests.
It’s in these contrasts that she shines most: fast, almost aggressive picking alternating with quiet, meditative drones; dissonant moments balanced by melody; abrupt shifts in texture and pace that feel both destabilising and deeply organic.
Her technical command - clawhammer, alternating-thumb style, precise harmonic overtones - is grounded not in virtuosity for its own sake but in emotional expression. While some atmospheric tracks ("One Day You’ll Lie Here But Everything Will Have Changed", "Dreams of Rhiannon's Birds", "Last Night I Heard The Dog Bark") drift close to formlessness, they work as needed punctuation points in a larger journey.
Listeners drawn to comparing her work favourably with veterans (Elizabeth Cotten's pioneering virtuosity, Leo Kottke’s agility, John Fahey’s mysticism, Robbie Basho's legacy or Stefan Grossman's technique), Raymond offers more than a conduit to that heritage. Like her contemporaries, Marissa Anderson, Adrienne Lenker (Big Thief), she reframes it through her own life. In Raymond's case this embodies Wales, punk, grunge, woods, science, myth and a guitar-based "voice" that roars in its virtuosity.
Read more... Bandcamp, Gwenifer Raymond
CHOROPHOBIA
WEVAL
Released 5 September 2025
Ninja Tunes - Technicolour
****-
Embracing the fear they once avoided Weval turn in their most extroverted record yet - an album of higher BPMs, bold hooks, and communal release built for dancing together.
Weval, the Amsterdam-based duo of Harm Coolen and Merijn Scholte Albers, produce lush, introspective beats positioned somewhere between ambient, electronica, and slow-burn dance. Since their 2013 debut EP Half Age, through albums like The Weight (2019) and Remember (2023), they built a reputation for cinematic textures and mood rather than floor-fillers, but on CHOROPHOBIA they challenge their own assumptions. The title, referring to a fear of dancing, becomes ironic: this is their boldest, most physically engaging record yet, packed with vocals, sharper rhythms, guest features like Kilimanjaro and Nsanshi and a willingness to let go of the carefully polished listening posture.
The album is a playful paradox: a record built on hesitation that sounds fearless. The ominous, horror-tinged title intro immediately sets the stage - foreboding drones cracked open by acid squelches - before slipping into the aptly titled party-starter MOVING ON, and the spiralling momentum of MOVEMENT, one of Weval’s sharpest dance tracks to date that moves the set into high gear.
From there, the duo show a willingness to collide genres. JUST FRIENDS is kaleidoscopic pop that wouldn’t feel out of place on a Tame Impala record, while BETTER channels a Motown warmth rare in modern electronica. HEAD FIRST, with an inspired vocal cameo by Nsanshi, tilts into rawer club intensity, as does the UK-bass-inflected DOPAMINE, a standout for its restless propulsion.
Amid these bold peaks, Weval leave space for reflection. OPEN UP THAT DOOR, feat. KILIMANJARO, inserts a funky, percussive interlude, and MERCATOR, bridges past and present with a subtler track that recalls the duo's earlier, more atmospheric releases. This ebb-and-flow makes the album feel like a night out sketched in miniature - moments of release tempered by pauses for breath.
If earlier Weval records carried the weight of introspection, CHOROPHOBIA flips the template: now, joy, risk, and movement take precedence. Not every experiment lands perfectly, but the freedom of letting go is audible. The result is their most extroverted, generous album yet, a dance record and a shared adventure.
Read more... Bandcamp
Triune
NICHOLAS PEYTON
ESPERANZA SPALDING, KARRIEM RIGGINS
Released 29 August 2025
****-
A triumvirate of fire and finesse: three masters blending trumpet, bass-vocals, and drums into a unified sound with soul, edge, and purpose.
Nicholas Payton is a New Orleans-born trumpeter, multi-instrumentalist, composer, and provocateur whose work has long pushed the boundaries of jazz, fusion and Black American Music. From Portland, Oregon, Esperanza Spalding, bassist, vocalist, composer and educator, is celebrated for her virtuosity and her boundary-blurring artistic vision. From Detroit, Michigan, Karriem Riggins is a jazz drummer, record producer, DJ and songwriter whose work bridges jazz and hip-hop with rare fluidity, moving from classic swing to beat-making. Together, on TRIUNE, they return to a trio formation to explore their shared histories, individual voices, and the space where they converge. Guests Nikki Glaspie, Ivan Neville, Erica Falls, Otis McDonald lend vocals and texture, but this is fundamentally a work built on the chemistry of three leaders reshaping tradition and insisting on relevance.
TRIUNE works as both a declaration and a conversation. It opens with “Unconditional Love”, a rendition of a composition by the late jazz pianist, composer, and educator Geri Allen composition, with Payton on piano and Spalding delivering word-less vocals; there’s tenderness, space, and deep feeling right from the start.
“Ultraviolet” adds Nikki Glaspie (best known as Beyonce's drummer) on vocals, bringing funk and intensity; the Clavinet and Rhodes touch amplify groove, while Riggins keeps time with nuanced energy. “Jazz Is a Four-Letter Word” reprises Payton’s long critique of the word “jazz,” reframing its history and implications; Spalding’s vocals underscore how language, power, and legacy are inseparable.
“Let It Ride” and “Gold Dust Black Magic” expand the dynamics: lush horn work, tight interplay, pauses and eruptions. “#bamisforthechildren” gathers guest vocalists (Ivan Neville, Erica Falls, Otis McDonald), offering one of the album’s high-points both in spirit and weight. its multi lead vocal approach nods to the collective soul of New Orleans, to community.
All said and done, TRIUNE is a timely, powerful statement about roots, identity, and the urgency of reinvention. For listeners drawn to jazz’s past, and its possible futures, this is a record that sustains, provokes, and uplifts.
Read more... Bandcamp
,
clicking cover art opens Spotify
Ride Into The Sun
BRAD MEHLDAU
Released 29 August 2025
****-
A luminous recording that transposes Elliott Smith’s intimate melancholy to an expansive, hauntingly beautiful, deeply-felt, chamber-jazz homage.
Brad Mehldau has spent three decades reshaping modern jazz, weaving diverse influences into its fabric, from the harmonic subtleties of Schubert to the emotional depth of Radiohead. A multiple-Grammy–nominated pianist known for bridging classical, jazz and indie sensibilities, Mehldau’s virtuosic journey has included bold reinterpretations, from Bach to The Beatles to prog-rock explorations.
On Ride Into the Sun, he channels his storied craft into a deeply felt homage to Elliott Smith, further stretching his sonic palate with chamber arrangements, guest vocalists and solo piano dialogues that echo both light and loss. The album unfurls as a melancholic pilgrimage, one that honors Elliott Smith’s fragile genius while allowing Mehldau’s pianistic voice to illuminate its contours.
Smith's music has been a regular part of Meldhau's repertoire for years, and across 16 tracks, the album juxtaposes ten Smith interpretations with four Mehldau originals, plus sensitive covers of Big Star’s “Thirteen” (which Smith also covered) and Nick Drake’s “Sunday” (Mehldau sees Drake "in some ways as sort of Smith’s visionary grandfather”). The sonic architecture weaves solo piano reveries, intimate trio interplay, chamber-orchestra expanses, and guest vocal inflections. Solo pieces like “Sweet Adeline Fantasy” offer crystalline, introspective clarity. Orchestral tracks broaden emotional vistas though arguably, they risk depersonalizing Smith’s raw immediacy. Still, the emotional payoff remains potent as Mehldau restores intimacy through sparse piano or trio dynamics.
Vocal appearances by singer/guitarist Daniel Rossen (Grizzly Bear) and ; singer/mandolinist Chris Thile (Punch Brothers, Nickel Creek) lend haunting texture: Rossen’s atmospheric guitar-vocals on “Tomorrow Tomorrow” and “Southern Belle” deepen the album’s introspective arc, while Thile’s mandolin-led “Colorbars” channels Smith’s spectral lyricism. Featured musicians include bassists Felix Moseholm (Brad Mehldau Trio, Samara Joy) and John Davis (who also engineered and mixed the album); drummer Matt Chamberlain and a chamber orchestra led by Dan Coleman, who also conducted on Mehldau’s 2010 album Highway Rider. The closing epilogue, “Ride into the Sun: Conclusion,” is a nearly ten-minute, solo-piano meditation, ending the work in a reflective space that feels both elegiac and transcendental.
Ultimately, Ride Into the Sun emerges as a bold dialogue across eras - a mosaic of grief and illumination. Mehldau honours Smith but also transcends homage, offering an album that pulses with emotional depth and grand ambition, even if its orchestral gestures sometimes overarch what was once intimately bare.
Read more... Nonesuch Records
ok
daoud
Released 29 August 2025
Le Studio du Renard / ACT Music + Vision
****-
A bittersweet jazz manifesto, where collapse and joy coexist in a kaleidoscopic world of sound and experience .
On ok, French-Moroccan trumpeter and self-taught producer daoud builds on the raw clarity of his 2024 debut GOOD BOY, bringing his signature blend of jazz, funk, hip-hop, Afrobeat and pop textures into a consciously disruptive, emotional realm. Recorded live with close collaborators and later sculpted with refined production, ok is a quiet manifesto that is backed up by a busy touring schedule that has taken them to a string of sold-out shows and standout performances, from Ronnie Scott’s in London to the Montreux Jazz Festival, with a stop at Marciac along the way.
Crafted amid personal and external instability, the album is suffused with satire, fragility and the stubborn questioning of what it means to say “I’m fine” when you’re not. ok unfolds like a dream built from tenuous fragments of everyday resilience in which daoud conjures a world where humor and tragedy share the same breath, and where genre serves emotional texture rather than category. The album’s foundation, live interplay between trumpet, Rhodes, bass, drums and synths, retains the intimacy of sketching muses in real time, while post-production layering refracts those sketches into a subtle, cinematic haze. No guest cameo feels gratuitous: guembri here, flutes there, guitars, horns, vocal bits, all become emotional brushstrokes in a larger portrait of weary hope and amused despair.
ok thrives on dualities: cheeky whimsy and anxious weight, melody tangled in noise, resignation draped in defiance. It doesn’t offer redemption or resolution, it asks "How do you carry on when the script has broken?". In daoud’s case, you play it anyway, gracefully, absurdly, and with profound clarity. ok is a quiet yet defiant testament to the beauty in brokenness and to the art in enduring the everyday with open, if sceptical, eyes.
Read more... Bandcamp
Free Up
THANDII
Released 29 August 2025
****-
A playful sonic journey that transcends genres, blending soulful melodies and experimental beats.
Thandii, an emerging duo comprising Jessica Berry and Graham Godfrey, from the vibrant post-pandemic UK music scene, has been making waves with a sound that fuses elements of R&B, soul and electronic music. With captivating vocals and introspective lyrics, Thandii has quickly gained a dedicated following with their previous albums - "Halo" (2025), "Dream With You" (2024), "Come As You" (2024) and "A Beat To Make It Better" (2023) - and a talent for refreshing established genres with contemporary sounds.
Listening to "Free Up", Thandii's most elaborate project to date, it comes as no surprise to find that they’ve collaborated with SAULT and Little Simz, among many others.
The album presents a (very) SAULT-adjacent tapestry of sounds that entices listeners into the depths of this musical universe.
Though derivative, the album nevertheless establishes an identity of its own, marking a further stage in the duo's evolution from low-fi, pop, hip-hop, R&B and psychedelic influences of previous releases, to a now more soulful, playful, jazz-centric sound.
The album opens with the conga-led dance groove of "Simiko", quickly establishing a signature mix of Berry's prominently ethereal vocal, haunting melody and intricate production. "Broken Record", "Karma" and "Try Try Try" gently accelerate the pace, each showcasing Thandii's ability to craft songs that are catchy and thought-provoking, within the band's evolving stylistic range.
The aptly entitled "Slow Down", which commences with what sounds like a tropical storm and rainfall, develops into a piano-backed torch ballad, as Berry declares "I am strong".
This soulful blend of breathy vocals, atmospheric production and electronic beats returns with "You Got It" and continues across all remaining tracks, completing a masterclass in subtle manipulation of mood and sequence across the albums ten tracks.
Read more... Bandcamp, Thandii
clicking cover art opens Spotify
Live-Action
NATE SMITH
Released 29 August 2025
****-
An audacious, genre-crossing sonic tapestry from a driving force in modern music.
Nate Smith, a three-time GRAMMY-nominated drummer, producer and composer, has been a prominent figure in the New York jazz and contemporary music scenes, since joining Dave Holland's quintet soon after his graduation from university. Known for his deep groove and genre-blending style, Smith's versatility extends beyond jazz: he has collaborated as sideman or co-writer with legends as disparate and stellar as Pat Metheny, Paul Simon, Jose James, Brittany Howard and Michael Jackson, (among many others) and works consistently with emerging and established artists alike, across genres, including R&B, hip-hop and pop.
With "Live-Action," his seventh album as bandleader, Smith continues to push boundaries, incorporating elements of funk, Afrobeat, jazz fusion and neo-soul. The album opens with "NOW," featuring Josh Johnson's saxophone and setting the stage for a journey through lush sonics and intricate rhythms. "UNDEFEATED" featuring JSWISS and Marquis Hill, blend hip-hop's rhythmic intensity with jazz's improvisational flair. "AUTOMATIC" with Lalah Hathaway's soulful vocals is an early highlight, offering a modern take on a classic sound.
Smith's ability to seamlessly integrate various influences is evident throughout: "MAGIC DANCE" featuring Lionel Loueke and Michael League, combines jazz fusion and afro-futurism with a touch of psychedelic exploration; "BIG FISH," featuring säje, showcases Smith's knack for creating intricate vocal arrangements; "COUGH DROP" composed by Kiefer and CARRTOON, featuring former's mellow Rhodes and latter's earthy bass.
Finally Smith's solo composition "SUPERMOON" concludes an album otherwise full of collaborations with a mellow tune on which he composes, plays all instruments and arranges the four-part string section of violins, viola and cello.
But "Live-Action" is more than a collection of genre exercises; it is a warm, cohesive, and effortlessly dynamic work that reflects Smith's ever-expanding and inquisitive musical vocabulary. The album's production, characterized by its analog warmth and live instrumentation, adds to its authenticity and charm.
Read more... Bandcamp
88888888
REMI PANOSSIAN TRIO
Released 29 August 2025
****-
An album that marks the group's 15th anniversary and showcases their continued evolution and mastery.
The Remi Panossian Trio, consisting of Remi Panossian (piano), Maxime Delporte (bass), and Frédéric Petitprez (drums), has been a staple in the European contemporary jazz scene in since their formation in 2009. Known for their playful yet sophisticated approach to jazz, the trio has consistently pushed the boundaries of the genre with their inventive compositions and dynamic performances.
The album opens with "Whodunit," a track that immediately sets the tone with its energetic and electric chemistry between the musicians. The playful "You Must Believe In Springroll" and the emotive "Nena" follow, each groove and note meticulously crafted to create an immersive listening experience.
The trio's creativity shines through in tracks like "Bibimbop" and "The Girl From Lamma," where they break the conventions of relaxed jazz with their unique energy. The album's title, "88888888," symbolizing infinity and good fortune, reflects the trio's boundless creativity and the positive vibes that permeate their music. The closing tracks, "Hello Kimchi" and "Trojan," offer a perfect conclusion to this musical journey, blending rock energy with melodic jazz in a way that only the Remi Panossian Trio can achieve.
Read more... Bandcamp
for Mac OS X 10.11
GOOGLE EARTH
JAMES RIOTTO, JOHN VANDERSLICE
Released 29 August 2025
Tiny Telephone
****-
A quirky mix of retro, tech and art-pop, producing a delightful tension: while some tracks bathe in rhythm, others break toward the futuristic.
Google Earth is the LA-based, collaborative project of producer/artist James Riotto and veteran songwriter John Vanderslice. Building on years of shared experimentation, including their debut Street View (2024), they draw upon glitchy electronica, art-rock, jazz and ambient. Starting with the album's Google-baiting title and continuing throughout its nine surprising tracks, for Mac OS X 10.11 mixes digital nostalgia with analog instrumentation (alto sax, piano, reeds, live drums and percussion) braided into synth-driven soundscapes. Engaging with Maria Vanderslice (lyrics, vocals), and a band including Josh Johnson (Alto Sax), Larry Goldings (Piano), Andrew Maguire (Percussion), Jesse McGinty (Alto Flute, Bass Clarinet), Jason Slota (Drums, Percussion) the album continues to push the limits of texture, abstraction and mood that they began to explore in their debut.
for Mac OS X 10.11 runs about 35 minutes across nine tracks, oscillating between introspective stops and moments of propulsion. It opens with “kill screen”, which sets the tone: digital decay and ambient edges, a slow build of atmosphere that feels anticipatory. “meow meow” and “endless corridor” lean further into the electronic side - synth textures, live and programmed percussion, saxophone flourishes - all working in tension. “Endless corridor”, in particular, stands out: it blends reggaetón-tinged rhythm with distorted synths and sax motifs, giving it both groove and disorientation. The track's spoken-word coda cleverly introduces “i cant believe happiness”, enhancing the album's suite-like quality. This track adds a funky element as rhythmic drumming is set against high, electronically-manipulated vocals that recall James Blake. The following tracks, “text and drive” and “proceed to the route” provide a mid-album change of pace, as instrumental breaks are paired with soothing, summer-breeze vocals, that allow breathing room. Next, the all-instrumental "C3" kicks away with a crisp synth-led dance beat, before the quirky “home computer” reverses tack completely, presenting an arrhythmic abstract piece that might have been transmitted from a galaxy far far away. Finally, all the elements of the album seem to resolve themselves in the final track "the source": the album's most conventional piece features steady beats, glitchy synths, regular and manipulated vocals and memorable hooks.
Perhaps the most charming thing about this record is its change-ability: some tracks feel polished and dense, others more sketch-like. This instability becomes it's strength, as it brings the album alive with its imperfection. for Mac OS X 10.11 isn’t a breakthrough, but it’s a strong continuation of Google Earth’s evolution. It wears its nostalgia lightly while exploring how digital and analog grief, technology and sentiment can coexist in beautiful tension.
Read more... Bandcamp
clicking cover art opens Spotify
Kamand
MARYAM RAHMANI
Released 22 August 2025
****-
Kamand entwines ancient Persian poetry, santur and kamancheh, flamenco rhythm and improvised western textures into a luminous debut, both a homecoming and a reaching-out across diasporic space.
Iranian-born, Adelaide-based Maryam Rahmani is a musician, composer and vocalist whose work bridges her roots in classical Persian musical tradition with influences picked up across her life in Australia. Trained in Tehran, she plays the santur (a hammered dulcimer instrument with deep history in Persian classical and folk music) and the kamancheh (an Iranian bowed string instrument), and sings in Persian, often setting text drawn from 13th- and 14th-century mystic poets such as Hafez and Saadi. Kamand, her debut album released August 2025 via Music In Exile, features collaborators from flamenco rhythm, cello, piano/electronics, and double bass, weaving together improvisation, identity, memory, longing and cross-cultural dialogue.
Kamand is both an inward journey and a sonic conversation. The album opens with “Delbar” (≈15 minutes), a suite-like piece in which santur and voice float over shifting textures of piano, cello and silence. It moves from contemplative space to cascading waves of improvisation, fixing moments of pain, longing and reflection before calming into a hush.
“Encanto” follows with more immediate rhythm: a flamenco-inflected drum pulse meets joyous fluttering santur and ethereal vocals, offering contrast and release. “Anchor” draws in the kamancheh, its bowed lament entangled with piano lines and double bass, before collaborators like David Moran (cello) and Sebastian Collen (piano/electronics) shift the mood toward jazz and experimental ambient interludes. The pair of tracks “The Corner (I)” and “The Corner (II)” serve as the album’s twin pillars—first ornate and expansive, then more playful and rhythmic, the latter hinting at flamenco footwork and cross-pollinated folk motifs.
In the latter half, “Chahargah” (mostly instrumental) builds from misty atmosphere into a percussive, dramatic finale; “Khayyam”, inspired by the Khayyam Khani tradition from southern Iran, brings ceremonial poetry into dialog with dance-like claps and improvisational piano; the closer “The Lasso” (Kamand = “lasso”) rounds out the album with urgency and resolve, voice and instruments interlocking in stop-start rhythms.
Where Kamand truly excels is in its balancing act: Rahmani honours Persian classical modes without remaining fixed there, letting improvisation, flamenco rhythm, western strings, electronics, and spacious production stretch the tradition. At times the improvisations can drift, and some motifs recur thinly, but that very looseness becomes part of its magic—uncertainty as aesthetic.
Kamand is a striking debut: tender, adventurous, and culturally rich. It announces Maryam Rahmani as a voice both rooted and unafraid to reach.
Read more... Bandcamp
,
Casa Roxa
LEO LARRATT
Released 25 July 2025
Bandstand Presents / La Reserve Records
****-
Casa Roxa sees Leo Larratt weaving classic jazz touchstones, touch-stone moods and nostalgic lyricism into a sprawling, warm-tone reflection on melody, memory and refined modernity.
Leo Larratt is an Australian-born guitarist, originally from Newcastle, now based in New York City, who has built his reputation on deep respect for jazz and blues tradition, strong technique, and an ear for melody. Trained and mentored by major figures in Australia, then expanding his palette through work in the US, Larratt has become noted for his craft in tone, arrangement, and lifting older standards or jazz classics into his own expressive orbit. Casa Roxa (Bandstand Presents / La Reserve) is his newest full-length (released 25 July 2025), a 12-song set including both standards and originals, demonstrating both comfort in the jazz canon and a desire to bring personal voice.
Casa Roxa mixes standards and originals in generous doses. Right from the opener “Ecaroh”, Larratt sets a nostalgic tone: gentle swing, warm tone, clean soloing. “Don’t Cry Baby” follows with soulful blues inflection; “For Malone” (an evidently original composition) expands scope with longer run-time (≈7½ minutes), allowing interplay between guitar, rhythm section, and possibly horn or piano – giving more room for exploration. He covers “Nuages” (a classic by Django Reinhardt / Jean-René Brunies), which is always a benchmark for tone, phrasing, and atmosphere; here it functions as a mid-album calm, a melodic breathing space. “Out of This World” stretches into nine-plus minutes: ambient intro, chordal shifts, dynamic variation, showcasing both Larratt’s capacity to sustain mood and to explore contrasts of soft and loud, tension and release. “Para Machucar Meu Curaçao” brings in Brazilian flavour, a lighter touch; “In the Still of the Night” and “Rahim’s Blues” provide shades of nocturnal glow and mood. Closing tracks like “Jingles” and “You’re Looking At Me” lean more intimate, subtle, wrapping up the journey with lyrical solo moments.
What stands out is the balance: standards reinterpreted with affection, originals that stretch stylistically without losing coherence, and an awareness of pacing. Some tracks feel long (particularly “Out of This World”) - the expansiveness is beautiful, but occasionally it runs risk of drifting without grip. Also, because many tracks are balladic or mid-tempo, there are stretches where the pace feels uniform, which may reduce contrast for some listeners.
Casa Roxa is a strong album for lovers of lyrical jazz guitar: warm tone, personal voice, and confident arrangements. It doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but it polishes it beautifully, and establishes Leo Larratt as a guitarist who honours tradition while expressing his own expressive subtlety.
Read more... Instagram
,
Mirrors
KAO TRIO
DOMINIC NGUYAN, KELLY OTTAWAY, TOM ROBB
Released 30 May 2025
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
****-
Melding Japanese and Scandinavian jazz sensibilities to create music that reflects Asian heritage and contemporary innovation..
Dominic Nguyen is an Australian-Vietnamese bassist and composer based between Hobart and Tokyo, trained in Jazz and Improvisation at the University of Melbourne. He leads the Koa Trio alongside pianist Kelly Ottaway and drummer Tom Robb. In Mirrors, Nguyen draws, from his own heritage and global influences: this includes traditional music of Asia, modern jazz from Japan, Sweden, Norway. The result is music rooted in cross-cultural dialogue: personal, quietly ambitious. Nguyen represents a fresh new voice in Australian jazz who brings regional and international influences to the broaden the scope of the local conversation in contemporary music and jazz.
Mirrors unfolds over eight track that balance lyricism, space and the interplay of subtle rhythms. It opens with “River Stones”, where double bass lines ripple like pebbles in water, Nguyan’s tone deep and resonant, while Ottaway and Robb gently shape rhythm around delicate melodic gestures. The follow-up “Remember Mulberries” drifts toward wistful nostalgia, tinged with minor harmonic shifts that feel both peaceful and slightly unsettled.
“Shells” introduces a more contemplative mood: quiet introspection, sparse melodies, and space for silence. Then comes “Forgotten Flowers (Wasurebana)”, a highlight: it merges the Japanese concept of “wasurebana” (forgotten flowers) with florid piano, bowed accompaniment, and bass that mourns absence. “Last Gate” and “In View” explore more dynamic interaction: drums come forward, piano lines grow more insistent, bass engages in counterpoint, suggesting tension, motion. “Cliffside, Blindside” builds with drama, more pronounced rhythmic texture, before “What Doesn’t Wane” closes with resolve—melody and harmony both suffused with warmth and hard-won hope.
What makes Mirrors especially successful is its restraint: none of the tracks feel overwrapped, and Nguyen resists the urge to show off technique. Instead, the album lives in layers of emotional contour, balancing stillness and motion, memory and yearning. A possible limitation: some tracks are close in mood and tempo, which makes the album’s middle stretch less distinct; but that also strengthens its coherence and meditative appeal.
Verdict:
Mirrors is a quietly compelling debut from Koa Trio / Dominic Nguyen—an album that gestures outward to global jazz currents while turning inward to heritage, silence, and the spaces in between. For listeners seeking nuance, reflection, and lyrical jazz infused with cultural resonance, this is a strong statement.
Read more... Bandcamp
,
clicking cover art opens Spotify
Echo
EMI MAKABE
Released 16 May 2025
****-
Like a stained-glass window for grief and memory — Emi Makabe’s voice, shamisen and minimalist band framing loss in ancestral echo, beauty, and fragile light.
Japan-born, Brooklyn-based Emi Makabe is a vocalist, composer, shamisen (banjo-like, three-stringed Japanese traditional instrument) and flute player, educator, whose work moves between jazz, Japanese traditional music, and personal storytelling. Her second full-length, after Anniversary (2020), Echo (released 16 May 2025 on Sunnyside Records) is shaped by profound loss — particularly the death of her father during the pandemic — and by longings for reconnection, ritual, and remembrance. Backed by a sympathetic ensemble (Thomas Morgan on bass, Vitor Gonçalves on piano/accordion/Wurlitzer, Kenny Wollesen on drums/percussion/vibraphone/electronics) and distinguished guests (Bill Frisell, Jason Moran, Meshell Ndegeocello), Makabe uses sparse lyricism, wordless vocal passages, and the shamisen to draw from both her Japanese roots and the global jazz idiom.
In an album explores sorrow, reflection, and moments of luminous clarity, "Echo" opens with “The Birthday Song” (featuring Bill Frisell), gentle and elegiac: acoustic guitar, sparse instrumentation, Makabe’s voice threading sorrow and memory. Then comes “Morisan”, more animated — piano and rhythm work push the song forward, offering the sensation of movement, even as grief lingers in the background.
In “Mu”, emptiness is named — the lyrics and musical space dwell in absence, showing Makabe unafraid of silence and slow unfolding. “Dignity” builds from restraint into spaciousness, with vocals and band lifting into heartfelt expression. “Snow” adds spoken-word by Meshell Ndegeocello, deepening the portrait of loss, while “Scape” feels like drifting: ambient, ethereal, wordless motifs floating above the rhythm section, almost meditative. “Text” and “Letter” are more intimate: letters, words, memories, relationships distanced by time. On “Echo” she addresses her father directly — apologetic, longing. Closing with “Overture”, Makabe brings the album full circle into a soft, hopeful dusk: an ending that also gestures toward a beginning.
Where Echo succeeds is in its restraint: nothing is over-wrought; emotional intensity is lived rather than shown off. Its weakness might lie in how the slow tracks sometimes blur into each other; for some listeners, the spacing of similar moods may lead to moments of stasis. But that very pensive pacing feels appropriate: grief is not a punchline, not a show—it is recurrence, echoes, pauses, and breath.
Verdict:
A beautifully wrought record of mourning, memory and quiet resurrection through which Emi Makabe bridges distance, finding resonance in what remains and reminding us that even in absence, something of the voice lingers.
.
Read more... Bandcamp
,
Expanding To One
PHI-PSONICS
Released 23 May 2025
****-
A luminous, live-improvised collection that soothes the spirit with textured, meditative jazz of rare warmth.
Phi-Psonics is the Los Angeles-based collective founded by acoustic bassist Seth Ford-Young in 2016. Emerging from the L.A. spiritual jazz scene, the group blends improvisation, ambient grooves, and a broad palette of instruments (saxophones, flutes, Wurlitzer electric pianos, guitars, harp, vocal textures).
For Expanding to One, their third full-length album, Ford-Young assembled a cast of over a dozen players and recorded live over six sessions, in front of a respectful audience at Healing Force of the Universe, a record store & event space in Pasadena. The project is rooted in ideals of community, inner peace, and collective listening - qualities evident in their previous work but here expanded in both scale and emotional reach.
The album opens with “Prelude: Expansion”, a short ambient introduction that sets a spacious tone. “There’s Still Hope” follows with leisurely paced interplay between instruments, led by twin tenor saxes, a softly undulating bassline and propulsive but gentle drums.
As the album title suggests, listeners are drawn together, into a mellifluous world of Phi-Psonics' making. “Healing Time” and “Many Paths” deepen the journey: the former rippling like water, with layers of flute, harp, Wurlitzer and sax; the latter smouldering, as soloists weave in and out, creating texture and allowing space for tension and release. “Sunrise”, a mid-album highlight, "Love Theme From Life" and “We’re All One” form the emotional core of the set, delivering many peak moments, the result of evocative melodies, broader instrumentation, moments of uplift.
Later pieces like centrepiece “Discovery”, the album's longest cut, allow improvisation to breathe. “Mysteries of the Dark” closes out the performance, as twin saxes and percussion lead a triumphant instrumental march-past.
What makes this album compelling is Ford-Young's encouragement of expansiveness, even as he nurtures a collective intimacy. Although many instruments are often present, there's always breathing space, moments of silence and subtle restraint.
The live-session origin causes textures to shift, and dynamics to rise and fall naturally and some tracks blur into each other (especially mid-album, where the album's core mood is sustained for long stretches), but there's such quality, balance, diversity and surprise within the ensemble (a tasty barri-sax cameo in "Discovery", for example) that attentive listening is well rewarded.
Read more... Bandcamp
,
In Limerence
JACOB ALON
Released 30 May 2025
****-
Glowing with myth and memory, Alon's debut transforms grief, queerness and longing into poetic folk reveries.
From Fife, Scotland, Jacob Alon's debut is a milestone on the artist's remarkable path from medical school and physics studies to van-life songwriting and festival stages. With intricate guitar work, spectral vocals and storytelling steeped in folklore and intimacy, Alon joins a rich lineage of introspective UK folk artists, but effects course correction as through queer experience and poetic candor.
Alon’s formative influences - Nick Drake, Adrianne Lenker (Big Thief), Sufjan Stevens, Rufus Wainwright and mentor Kae Tempest - have shaped their emotional clarity and vision, while echoes of predecessors like John Martyn and Fairport Convention seem to hover.
In his debut album, Alon eschews a mixed-tempo portfolio to deliver a statement of subdued artistic intent, where folk hAS become a vessel for exploring myth, grief and unguarded tenderness in a world both ethereal and disarmingly direct. To sparse accompaniment and with little musical variety, Alon relies on his poetic lyricism to carry listeners through a heartfelt album that unfolds as a song-cycle of myths and memories.
The album's title refers to an involuntary mental and emotional state of intense, obsessive infatuation with another person, characterized by intrusive thoughts.
The set begins with “Glimmer” a wordless prelude that beckons the listener into this dream-lit world. “Of Amber” follows, casting love as something radiant and elusive, part fairytale, part relic. In “Don’t Fall Asleep”, grief speaks in dialogue with the dead while “Confession”, to this listener the most compelling songs here, opens a raw, coming-of-age diary, filled with shame and release "We were only fourteen / wild, wide eyes / pledging our virtues between holy crimes".
“Elijah” delivers the album's apocalyptic centre: here, violence and denial are scorched by prophetic fire, echoing the biblical story of the prophet who challenged idolatry and demonstrated God's power by calling fire from heaven. Relief arrives in the form of “Liquid Gold 25", which frames queer intimacy as awkward, funny and tender. The song provides lyrical re-grounding in the arc of the album, but the lack of variety in approach causes the songs to blur in Alon's fog of folkloric quietude - caught lyrically between dreamscape and autobiography and sonically grounded in minimalism.
The concluding song pair "Fairy in a Bottle" and "Seratine" (a medication used to manage and treat the major depressive disorder) mirror the opening tracks. In the former, Alon acknowledges both the enchantment (the fairy’s glow) and the harm (bottle as cage). It’s a song about learning to release idealised love, in order to face the deeper, unhealed wounds within. The latter, fragmentally brief, and a surreal tableau of what it feels like to live inside depression, presents intimacy not as a cure, but as a shared wound. Together, the songs condense the album’s central consideration - the reckoning of the space between fantasy and pain.
As a whole, In Limerence moves between longing and grief, confession and anger, release and awe. It is an immersive journey, led by one of folk’s most vital new voices, but let down by it's narrowly-cast musical choices.
Read more... Bandcamp