2026-09 September Reviews | SunNeverSetsOnMusic

Live in Berlin تسجيل حي من برلين

RASHA NAHAS

Released 9 September 2026

Rasha Nahas

Rock

Palestine

*****

A career-defining declaration from a Palestinian artist, far from home, a focus for diasporic solidarity, singing with anger, sorrow and frustration of her troubled homeland.

Rasha Nahas is a Haifa-born, Berlin-based Palestinian singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist. Emerging from Haifa’s underground scene with a classical guitar background, she crafts a distinct sound merging theatrical post-punk, Arab indie, and intimate poetry. Her debut album Desert (2021) chronicled her migration to Europe, while her acclaimed two-chapter LP Amrat (2023) explored belonging and exile across Arabic and English lyrics. Blending fierce rock dynamics with vulnerable storytelling, Nahas has toured across five continents, playing stages from Glastonbury to international art centres while remaining deeply committed to community-focused artivism.

Recorded live at Berlin’s HAU Hebbel am Ufer during her May 2026 show, Live In Berlin captures Rasha Nahas (electric guitar, vocals) alongside her tight-knit trio: bassist Jelmer De Haan and drummer Altaïr Chague. Rather than merely mirroring her studio catalogue, this recording documents the living, breathing evolution of her songs shaped by four years on the road. The power of the album lies in its balance of raw intensity and deep intimacy. De Haan’s melodic bass and Chague’s virtuosic percussion build an expansive foundation that allows Nahas’s signature electric guitar work and commanding vocals to soar.

The album's highlight for me is a four song sequence that makes up the second half of the set - a mix of English, Spanish & Arabic - commencing with a brief spoken word intro, into the gradually rising intensity of "Ghanneeli" ("Sing For Me") leading to the set's intense guitar-shredding climax of "The Clown" and finale "La Llorona" ("The Weeping Woman"), together forming a spectacular Patti Smith-like sequence.

"Live In Berlin" is a career-defining declaration from a Palestinian artist, far from home, a focus for diasporic solidarity, singing with anger, sorrow and frustration of her troubled homeland.

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Leap Life

SAUL WILLIAMS

Released 28 August 2026

Big Dada

Jazz

USA

*****

A demanding, high-wire act of vocal improvisation that redefines the boundaries between spoken word, avant-garde jazz, and sacred rhythm.

For decades, Saul Williams has operated as a vital bridge between modern poetry and musical avant-gardism. Emerging through the 1990s slam poetry movement before defining an unfiltered, genre-defying solo discography, Williams' work spans radical literature, film, and sonic experimentation. Following his ambitious, (pre-pandemic), multimedia project Encrypted & Vulnerable (2019), the Neptune Frost companion soundtrack Unanimous Goldmine (2022), and a collaborative 2025 live recording with producer Carlos Niño, Williams returns with a masterwork built on real-time improvisation. He continues to treat art as a living force of political and spiritual resistance.

Leap Life is built upon a singular foundational principle: that places the voice as the ensemble's supreme instrument of expression. Moving beyond conventional rap structures, the musicians surrender to spontaneity, and use wordplay as an instrumental element. Backed by Carlos Niño’s fluid production and an elite ensemble - including Georgia Anne Muldrow, Moor Mother, and Jimetta Rose - the record oscillates, often unsettlingly, between avant-garde poetry, field-recording sound collages and a polyrhythmic live jazz session, as Williams speaks, chants, and testifies.

Embracing the inherent uncertainty of unscripted performance, Leap Life feels electric, immediate, and utterly transformative.

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Saul Williams Official

Here Because of Hope

EZRA COLLECTIVE

Released 14 August 2026

Partisan Records

Soul

*****

A profound, three-part masterpiece - joyful, urgent, undeniable - that asks "why does so much Black music born out of pain sound so joyful?".

Rising from the youth clubs of London

to win Mercury's and BRIT's, at the helm of the UK nu-soul movement, Ezra Collective - Femi Koleoso (drums), TJ Koleoso (bass guitar), Joe Armon-Jones (keyboards), James Mollison (saxophone) and Ife Ogunjobi (trumpet) - presents their most ambitious and artistically successful work to date. With spoken interludes by Letita Wright, featured vocals from Pa Salieu, Leona Lewis, Lila Ike and Libianca "Here Because of Hope" is an Album of the Year candidate.

Part 1:

It is written
That on the other side of this pain
There will be a renewal
Beauty for ashes
Joy for mourning
Praise for heaviness
Everything in my spirit knows this to be true
I feel it deep within my soul
That my feet will land on solid ground
No knowing how or when
But I feel strong
An unshaken power within me
Pressed but not crushed
I feel strong

Part 2:

There's this energy that follows us
As a people
This familiar feeling
Seeking purpose
To belong
No matter how much they try to bury it
It just flows
It's in our souls
Moves through our bodies
The rhythms and melodies
It feels like home
Rooted in truth
And that truth we chose to amplify
Through a sound system

Part 3:

How do you go through such hardship
Such pain
Such injustice
And then come out with a sound like calypso?
It's the afrobeat that makes you scream, innit?
That dancehall blaring from the float
It's the garage on that pirate station
That's hope
It's because of this hope that I'm here
It's a feeling, a power
It's in the sound
It's the swaying between two lovers at the end of the night
Somewhere in Ladbroke Grove
It's that lovers rock

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Ezra Collective Official

I Must Be Dreaming

ALABAMA SHAKES

Released 7 August 2026

Limestone Listening Club / Island Records

Soul

USA

*****

An intense, but relatively subdued return that trades their signature dynamic grit for lush, introspective textures, and deeply atmospheric, though no less penetrating grooves.

Formed in Athens, Alabama, in 2009, Alabama Shakes took the global music scene by storm with their fiery fusion of Southern rock, roots, and soul. Fronted by powerhouse vocalist and songwriter Brittany Howard, the band achieved massive critical and commercial success with their debut Boys & Girls (2012) and follow-up Sound & Color (2015), capturing multiple Grammy Awards. They were immensely successful, winning four Grammy Awards as a group and Howard becoming household-name celebrity feted by all including the President. Following an extended hiatus, during which Howard launched a acclaimed solo career and the loss of original drummer Steve Johnson - the reunited core trio of Howard, guitarist Heath Fogg, and bassist Zac Cockrell has emerged anew, with music that appears to herald a more refined era of collective sound-craft for the band.

From the opening chords of I Must Be Dreaming it is evident that a graceful pivot has been taken, from the explosive, raw-nerve power of the band's early hits, toward the atmospheric warmth teased on the band's early albums. Then, over a decade ago, the band was defined by its bombastic big hits like like "Hold On", "Always Right" and "Don't Wanna Fight". But even then, we heard other shades, in slower, smouldering songs like "This Feeling" and "Sound and Color". Now following the broadening opportunities and of her solo career, Brittany Howard steer's the group into gentler waters, prioritizing dynamic nuance over sheer volume as the still-reliable rhythm section - anchored by Zac Cockrell's liquid basslines alongside new drummer Noah Bond's deeply resonant grooves - provides a steady pulse throughout.

Highlight tracks like "Another Life", "I Feel Hope Is Coming", "Time" and "American Dream" lean heavily into psychedelic soul arrangements, airy guitar arpeggios, and intimate vocals that float effortlessly across the mix. Long-time fans of both the band in its earlier iterations or of Howard's solo career may miss the roof-raising belts that have popularised, dominated and even defined, their work. But they should be reassured from the long coda to "American Dream" (along with its politically-pointed stand) and the intensity of the album's final song "Tied To You", that the rafter-shaking, grandeur of Alabama Shakes still burns, just below the surface of these songs.

Rather than representing a "new direction", I would suggest that "I Must Be Dreaming" instead delivers an immensely satisfying, but more demanding, listening experience that proves the band's identity lies in their deep musical connection rather than mere volume. But we do recommend playing it loud.

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Alabama Shakes Official

BLACKPRINT (Mixtape / EP)

MISS KANINNA

Released 21 September 2026

Miss Kaninna / AWAL Recordings

****-

Laced with profanities, Kaninna's lyrics are uncompromising, powerful and insightful, touching all the bases of indigenous survival in so-called Australia - racism, law, welfare, sexuality.

Hailing from Bruny Island, Tasmania, and of Yorta Yorta, Dja Dja Wurrung, Kalkadoon, and Yirendali heritage, Miss Kaninna is a First Nations artist whose music, voice, and presence have positioned her as one of the most compelling figures in so-called Australian music today.

Full of confidence on the back of her breakout 2024 debut 6-track EP "KANINNA" and successful tours of Europe, UK and US, the rapper returns with another confronting, explosion of bombastic, expletive-laced missives. The tracklist - "CHAT MY SHIT", "BLACKPRINT", "LOOK AT ME NOW", "MOB TIES", "HANDOUT", "STOLEN WAGES" - is revealing, but only hints at the frank and fearless lyrical approach throughout. Stripping away the carapace of profanity that is the mixtape's superficial shell, Kinanna's lyrics are uncompromising, powerful and insightful, touching all the bases of indigenous survival - racism, law, welfare, sexuality.

Musically, the mixtape is steeped in classic hip-hop, rhythms driven consistently by a funky bedrock underpinning of drum and base that is constantly embellished with perfectly-placed elements - jazzy sax and flute riffs, vocal snippets.

Her first words on "CHAT MY SHIT", the album's opener, may be confronting - I'm indigenous, so you know you gon' be feeling this / And if you don't, then you're probably white supremacist (Man)" - but her conclusion ("STOLEN WAGES") is sanguine: "Being Black is a wonderful thing, something you cannot hide / I'm a Black person myself, but I never questioned why / I can say I'm proud of my culture and my heritage and my skin / But it's not the outside that counts, it's the soul that lives within / For being Black, I'll shout it aloud, for being Black, I feel so proud"

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Miss Kinanna Official

This Life

KASINDA

Released 17 September 2026

Kasinda Faase

Afrobeat | Reggae | Jazz

Australia

****-

A much-too-brief debut collection of warm, laid-back, genre-fluid beats, from an impressive new musical voice.

Melbourne/Naarm-based Kasinda (Kasinda Faase) is a versatile multi-instrumentalist, composer, researcher and educator who uses her Nigerian and Dutch identity to fuse new sounds and connect to a wide variety of audiences.

Her musical pedigree is elite, having collaborated and appeared with Owelu Dreamhouse, Afrospace Interchange, Ella Thompson, Temporary Blessings, Kee’ahn, Moontide, Heavy Amber, The Public Opinion Afro Orchestra and others. Her music embraces themes of freedom, justice and cultural connection, showcasing our shared humanity and experiences across seas and continents.

The music for This Life was inspired through Kasinda’s three journeys to Ghana and Nigeria throughout 2024 and 2025, where she sought to explore her own Nigerian heritage and contemplated the themes which bind people despite their differences.

The four-song set is framed by versions of the title track: "conventional" reggae to kick things off and a dub version to close. In both versions, the songs' flute-propelled signature melody, offsetting the low-key vocal line, lingers long in memory. Between the two, Kasinda presents "Justice" and "Edina" as a pair of gentle folk songs: the former develops a vintage Californian folk-pop aesthetic while the latter mixes timeless folk and Ghanaian spoken word elements (from Afrobeat-Afrotrap producer and artist Slim Drumz).

Recorded across Accra, Ghana and Melbourne (Naarm), the EP features many talented musicians across Afrobeat, reggae and jazz genres including members from Surprise Chef, Ben Mckone, (Jalen Ngona, Hollie Cook), Immy Owusu, Ansong Jnr (GH).

Kasinda's mix of human rights, cultural, reggae, folk and spoken word in This Life (which is reflected in a brief interview excerpt on YouTube), suggests an artist with a wide range of interests and influences, inviting early comparisons to the likes of Emily Wurramara, Leyla McCella, Rhiannon Giddens, Yola - whetting the musical appetite for what she might achieve with the scope of a full LP.

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Mezze (EP)

EJE EJE

Released 16 September 2026

Batov

Rock

Türkiye

****-

Five concise musical sketches, each exploring a different flavour, drawing inspiration from old Turkish, Arabic and regional recordings.

Multi-instrumentalist, composer and producer Eje Eje Eje is a project of Turkish artist Itamar Kluger, who is best known for his work with the Şatellites, a six-piece band whose blend of Turkish folk and psych with funk and disco has won them champions and listeners across the globe,

Following a growing catalogue of solo releases exploring psychedelic groove, Middle Eastern traditions, organic hip hop and global rhythms, Eje Eje returns with this five-track EP inspired by the simple ritual of gathering, sharing food and listening deeply.

Named after the tradition of serving small dishes designed to be enjoyed together, Mezze grew from regular trips into nature with a close friend, where music, conversation and home-made food became inseparable.

Drawing inspiration from old Turkish, Arabic and regional recordings played around what they affectionately called a 'Turkish campfire', due to the food they brought and shared, the EP offers five concise musical sketches, each exploring a different flavour while belonging to the same table.

For Eje Eje, the music is never about faithfully recreating traditions. Instead, it reflects the way he has always collected records, absorbing sounds from wherever they resonate before reshaping them into something unmistakably his own. “I see no reason not to combine musical worlds,' he says. “That's how I listen to music, so that's how I make music.”

Yet beyond its instrumentation and influences, Mezze is ultimately an invitation to slow down. Conceived during a time of constant information, endless distraction and increasingly automated creativity, the EP offers twenty minutes of space simply to sit, listen and breathe. 'I hope people take a deep breath,' says Eje Eje. 'Just pause for twenty minutes. Then come back to the world with a little more strength.'

FFO: Glass Beams, Surprise Chef, The Heliocentrics, Khruangbin, Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek

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Yours Sincerely

HARUOMI HOSOMO

Released 11 September 2026

Ghostly International / medium

Avant-Pop

Japan

****-

Across arrangements that span tender psych-folk and bubbling avant-pop, Hosono contemplates the concept of a maternal force that envelops the Earth.

Haruomi Hosono, the pioneering Japanese musician, producer, composer, and founding member of Yellow Magic Orchestra (with keyboardist Ryuichi Sakamoto and drummer Yukihiro Takahashi), has “found his voice in a late career renaissance," writes The Wire. His five-decade legacy continues to grow and attract new fans, and has been cited by an acclaimed list of artists, including Mac DeMarco, Cameron Winter, Ginger Root, Vampire Weekend, and Harry Styles. Shaped by mid-century American music, Hosono's work now reverberates back through a new generation of Western artists, in a remarkable circular exchange.

Yours Sincerely, his 23rd studio album and first collection of new music in over seven years, finds Hosono ever-pushing his exploratory songcraft: “I am now 78 years old, but from here on, I feel a growing curiosity toward the unknown music that my new self will create, while also embracing the music of my former self - as if I now carry two musical worlds within me.”

Across arrangements that span tender psych-folk and bubbling avant-pop, Hosono contemplates the concept of a maternal force that envelops the Earth, “humanity’s understanding of the unconditional love possessed by those who give us life,” he says. Songs tap into a collective current, engaging the “deeply buried instincts—maternal compassion and mercy, things we rarely engage with in our daily lives.”

The work represents an artistic and subconscious shift. Several tracks feature female vocalists, such as “Note of Mothership”, a group-chanted expression of childlike wonder, “To a Wild Rose”, which delights with oceanside hums and prose, and on the elegant, marching “Figlio Perdute.” “This was a completely new approach for me,” he adds.

The unofficial title track, “Sincerely”, frames the legend in his signature mode, strumming, singing, playfully pondering the answer to a simple question. How do you express the Japanese ideas of omoiyari (compassion), jihi (慈悲), or boseiai (母性愛) in English? Hosono explains, “I searched, but no word felt quite right. Each came close, yet carried a slightly different nuance…I turned to a more familiar word often used to close a letter: ‘Sincerely.’” “It is in this spirit that I offer this album to you - sincerely, from the heart.”

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Ibibio Sound Machine Official

Chopping Mountain

IBIBIO SOUND MACHINE

Released 11 September 2026

Merge Records

Afrobeat

****-

Chopping Mountain draws on the earthy textures of classic West African highlife alongside post-punk, Afrobeat, soul, and electronic music.

Fronted by London-born Nigerian singer Eno Williams, Ibibio Sound Machine is a clash of African and electronic elements inspired in equal measure by the golden era of West African funk, disco, and modern post-punk and electro. Evocative Nigerian poetic imagery set against an edgy Afro-Electro soundscape gives the band a unique space within the wave of modern Afrocentric sounds sweeping the globe.

Chopping Mountain is the clearest rendering yet of the London collective’s longstanding mission to promote love, unity, and resistance through music. It is the band’s sixth full-length record, and the first to feature the band’s Max Grunhard as producer since 2019’s Doko Mien. Following their Hot Chip-produced breakthrough Electricity (2022) and the darker, clubbier inflection of the Ross Orton-produced Pull the Rope (2024), Chopping Mountain feels like it was pulled directly from the hearts and experiences of the Eno Williams and Grunhard-led band.

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Salt Catchers

ANDY SHEPPARD, RITA MARCOTULLI, MICHEL BENITA

Released 11 September 2026

ECM

Jazz

UK | ITALY | FRANCE

****-

Full of captivating melodic beauty, delicate harmony and thoughtful interplay - eight new Sheppard originals plus one tune by Carla Bley.

English saxophonist Andy Sheppard's stellar career as band-leader started in 1987 and he made his ECM debut with the quintet recording Movements in Colour, (2009), followed by a critically lauded release with Trio Libero 2012), successful quartet recordings Surrounded By Sea, (2015) and Romaria, (2018) and an internationally acclaimed trilogy of albums in a trio with Carla Bley and Steve Swallow. Now, for Salt Catchers, nearly four decades since his auspicious career start, Sheppard has assembled a new trio with Italian pianist Rita Marcotulli and French bass player Michel Benita – two musicians "with whom I go back quite a long time, but never recorded with collectively.“

Full of captivating melodic beauty, delicate harmony and thoughtful interplay, Salt Catchers features eight new Sheppard originals plus one tune by Carla Bley, taking shape as a haven of tranquillity. Sheppard’s distinctive sound and elegantly phrased lines are complemented here by two fellow travellers of impeccable taste and deep empathy.

Explaining the album’s title Andy Sheppard remembers, ”it came about...when...I went to visit the Salinas (salt works) and saw some wonderful photos...of workers catching salt - which struck me as a very hard job.

Sheppard‘s eights originals were all written especially for this new recording and are completed by "Lawns“, a Carla-Bley-composition. "It is a tune that we played a lot in the trio with Carla and Steve but that we actually never recorded. Manfred (Eicher), who is an unrivalled master when it comes to create the running order of the tracks, also liked the idea of including it – and I think now it is really an important part of the album‘s fabric.“

Salt Catchers was recorded in March 2025 at Auditorio Stelio Molo RSI in Lugano and produced by Manfred Eicher.

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Andy Sheppard Official

ECM

Comfortable

HAMED SADEGHI

Released 5 September 2026

Hamed Sadeghi

Persian / Australian

Australia

****-

Timeless and entrancing studies in spatial tension, integrating Persian modal resonance and western octet arrangements, for music that lingers long in memory.

Hamed Sadeghi is a Sydney-based composer and performer whose music occupies a unique space between ancient Persian musical structures and contemporary jazz improvisation. A prominent feature on global stages, from the London Jazz Festival to the Sydney Opera House, Sadeghi’s career is defined by curiosity and structural innovation. In addition to solo, composition and ensemble work Sadeghi also leads East-West fusion group Eishan Ensemble, whose latest album is "Northern Rhapsody"(2025).

His previous solo album Empty Voices (2024) - one of our "Albums of the Year" - sought "to define a new form of beauty and to present a forgotten love through music". His compositions for live ensemble, recorded over three concerts in October 2026, spanning string trio, Persian classical, and an improvised duo with piano , ere released on ABC Records as a single album, "Convergence" earlier this year - reviewed separately, below.

Premiered at Sydney's City Recital Hall, Comfortable, Sadeghi reassembled the 8-piece ensemble from "Empty Voices", comprising Sadeghi (tar), Sandy Evans (soprano and tenor saxophone), Paul Cutlan (bass clarinet), Lloyd Swanton (double bass),
Michael Avgenicos (alto and tenor saxophone), Thomas Avgenicos (trumpet), Adem Yilmaz and Sohrab Kolahdooz (percussion). Built around the dynamic contrast between security and unease, the album eschews flashy solo virtuosity in favor of rich, slow-burning textures. Low brass and woodwind swells wrap tightly around the woody, ancient twang of the tar, allowing the octet to act as one breathing instrument. Dark, modal jazz grooves dissolve into quiet ambient passages, producing an immersive listening experience that confirms Sadeghi as one of the country's most compelling musical architects. "I wanted something that feels rooted and open at once," Hamed says - "the harmony between structure and freedom, between comfort and paradox."

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Hamed Sadeghi Official

SOME SMALL FORTUNE

corto.alto

Released 4 September 2026

Ninja Tune

Jazz

****-

Superb Scottish jazz, weaving intricate broken beats, cinematic orchestration, and raw, vulnerable vocal collaborations together seamlessly..

Performing as corto.alto, multi-instrumentalist and producer Liam Shortall is at the creative intersection of Glasgow’s underground jazz movement and the UK's broader nu-jazz renaissance. Coming up alongside contemporaries in London and Manchester, Shortall combines bass-heavy electronic production, dub mechanics, and hip-hop sensibilities with masterful brass elements. His hyper-dynamic, self-produced sound has helped establish Glasgow as an essential hub on the contemporary UK music map, proving that cutting-edge, cross-genre jazz thrives well beyond the capital.

"SOME SMALL FORTUNE" kicks off with a brief but evocative string quartet prelude, the first of 15 varied tracks in the album's meticulously paced, 43 minute narrative. "THIEF" grabs early attention, it's easy tone, pulsing instrumentation, busy drums and regular drops creating a sense of anticipation and excitement. Standout collaborations stud the album, commencing with "APRIL" (featuring anaiis), whose delicate introspective vocal floats amid a mix of acoustic and electronica, bass and drums.

Instrumental "TEMPLE" sets a cracking pace - a fitting lead-in to the rapid fire spoken word delivery of "GO" (featuring Vector), and later "WHODIS" (featuring Mick Jenkins), each injecting sharp, rhythmic energy.

"PRAYED WE WOULD" is a mid-album highlight, featuring Oscar Jerome's assured vocals and warm, neo-soul guitar work. The instrumental "PAPER" allows brass to flourish and "OMNI" (featuring Terra Kin) manifests a delightful confection, as her melodic vocals are elevated by swirling strings. These tracks balance darker, percussive tones in tracks like "PAPER", and "SOMETHING" (featuring BINA.). Finally, "NOBLEHILL" (featuring the angelic voice of fellow Scott Jacob Alon) brings the 15-track collection to a poignant, cinematic close.

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corto.alto Official

Spotify

Linda Sikhakhane Instagram

LINDA

LINDA SIKHAKHANE

Released 4 September 2026

Blue Note

Jazz

South Africa

****-

A deeply spiritual, resonant exploration of contemporary South African jazz, connecting ancestral heritage with expansive modern improvisation.

Linda Sikhakhane is a Durban-born saxophonist and composer whose music stands at the vibrant intersection of traditional Zulu music, South African jazz heritage, and contemporary spiritual jazz. Educated under the tutelage of legend Nduduzo Makhathini and later at The New School in New York, Sikhakhane has rapidly established himself as a vital force in the global jazz landscape. His expressive tenor work, characterized by warm, breathy phrasing and cascading modal runs, honors ancestors like Winston Mankunku Ngozi while charting forward-looking, cross-cultural sonic territories.

On LINDA, Sikhakhane delivers his most cohesive statement yet, weaving rich indigenous rhythms with sophisticated harmonic landscapes. The album features the saxophonist with pianist Cameron Campbell, bassist Conway Campbell, drummer Kabelo Mokhatla, and special guest vocalists for five the album's nine pieces: Phila Dlozi ("Abalimi Bayovuna"), Omagugu (Days Begin to Sing"), Ovuyonke ("Izibusiso"), Zuluboy ("Ilanga"), and Thabo Sikhakhane ("Uzalo").

Sikhakhane’s tenor saxophone acts as both a narrative voice and a meditative conduit throughout, grounding complex polyrhythms in deep, soulful melody. Supported by a stellar ensemble of South African and international collaborators, the project balances fiery, percussive crescendos with contemplative, space-filled ballads.

Tracks seamlessly shift between traditional Zulu chant motifs and expansive modal explorations, evoking a sense of communal healing and spiritual grounding.

LINDA is a powerful testament to Sikhakhane’s evolving mastery, affirming his place in the forefront of South Africa's modern jazz renaissance.

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Linda Sikhakhane Facebook

Blue Note

Henry Threadgill Official

Punching the Clown

LAMBCHOP

Released 21 August 2026

City Slang

Independent

USA

***--

Kurt Wagner turns domestic mundanity into quietly devastating high art with his trademark auto-tuned croon and lush, slow-burning arrangements - interesting in small doses, but becomes tedious over the course of an album.

Formed in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1986, Lambchop began as a sprawling, country-adjacent collective before evolving into one of modern indie music's most gracefully unpredictable entities. Led by visual artist turned singer-songwriter Kurt Wagner, the group spent the 1990s and 2000s dismantling traditional alt-country constructs. In recent years, Wagner has famously embraced vocoders, electronic textures, and ambient jazz, reinventing the ensemble’s sonic palette while maintaining the intimate, deeply literate soul of his songwriting. Decades into their career, Lambchop remains devoted to their prototypical understated, atmospheric storytelling.

Punching the Clown leans further into the hushed, nocturnal minimalism that has defined Lambchop’s late-era renaissance. The record meanders like an late-night conversation, weaving delicate piano figures, subtle modular synthesizer hums, and brushed percussion around Wagner's processed vocals. Rather than stripping the emotional weight from his performance, the electronic manipulation adds a ghostlike vulnerability to his dry, observational lyrics. Tracks drift lazily across micro-doses of chamber pop and ambient soul, finding beauty in life’s unglamorous intermissions. It is an unhurried, quietly captivating effort that proves Wagner's understated genius remains entirely unmatched.

However, there is a wearying similarity to the album's dozen songs, resulting in an album that is interesting in small doses, but becomes tedious over the course.

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Fifteen

HENRY THREADGILL, VIJAY IYER & DAFNIS PRIETO

Released 21 August 2026

Nonesuch Records

Jazz

USA

****-

A modern avant-garde chamber jazz trio, distilling fifteen years of quiet, dynamic alchemy into a fiery, unpredictable triumph.

This illustrious trio brings together American Pulitzer Prize-winning composer and iconoclast Henry Threadgill (alto saxophone, flute), fellow American composer, pianist, bandleader, producer, writer, and professor Vijay Iyer, and master Afro-Cuban drummer-composer Dafnis Prieto. Though performing informally under "The Trio" moniker for fifteen years, originating at a 2012 NYC Jazz Gallery benefit, Fifteen marks the group's debut studio document and their collective debut for Nonesuch Records. Combining Threadgill's radical systems-based composition, Iyer's polyrhythmic intellectual depth, and Prieto's explosive, syncopated drive, the ensemble represents the absolute pinnacle of high-concept improvisational mastery.

Fifteen is a rare alignment of genius that avoids the pitfalls of supergroup hubris, instead presenting a deeply intuitive, three-way conversation. On Threadgill’s "Last Night," his acerbic, dry-toned alto sax cuts through Iyer’s cluster-chord harmonies and Prieto’s micro-detailed cymbal work. Iyer’s "I Wanted a Map" is driven by intricate counterpoint and metric tension. The title reflects the complex, twisting directional changes as the three musicians navigate interlocking rhythmic patterns without a fixed harmonic anchor. "Where Coconuts Fall" showcases Prieto’s Latin-jazz rhythmic sensibilities. His propulsive, multi-layered percussion syncopates against Iyer’s percussive piano vamps, allowing Threadgill to weave sharp, microtonal lines through the dense rhythm. "Fire City", the album’s longest track is a high-energy collective improvisation, marked by aggressive piano runs, virtuosic drum syncopation, and authoritative, fiery saxophone motifs.

Rather than trading ego-driven solos, the trio constructs dense, cellular structures in which composition and spontaneous creation are indistinguishable.

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Vijay Iyer Official

Dafnis Prieto Official

Alien Metal

KING GIZZARD & THE LIZARD WIZARD

Released 14 August 2026

p(doom)

Techno

Australia

****-

Australia’s genre-shifting chameleons hijack the rave circuit, coaxing an intoxicating, high-voltage dance-floor opus out of modified Eurorack modular synths.

Melbourne chameleons, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard have long been regarded as one of the most relentlessly prolific and inventive acts in modern music. Across 28 studio albums, the collective has continuously mutated their sound - astounding, surprising, alarming, charming and energising their global fanbase at each turn. Their early surf and garage rock output soon morphed, as their sprawling output fearlessly traversed psychedelic, thrash metal, jazz fusion, microtonal, acoustic folk, and complex progressive rock. Famous for their dizzying work ethic and conceptual audacity, the sextet has built a global cult following by refusing to stay in one lane for long, treat genres as rigid boundaries, or take a breath between releases.

Now, Alien Metal finds King Gizzard entering the wild, sweat-soaked territory of EDM rave culture. Plunging headlong into a heady conflation of techno, hardcore, house, and jungle, the band customised their iconic Eurorack synthesizer setup (affectionately nicknamed "Nathan") for the exact sound profile they envisioned. The result is an energised, intoxicating amalgam of timeless, high-energy dance music drawing upon predecessors from the 1980s to the present, yet completely re-energising the form - a feat fully consistent with the Gizz’s creative DNA on full display in past releases.

Pulsing basslines, hyperactive breakbeats, and modular wizardry merge seamlessly with their signature frantic energy. The band's decision to modify their synths has resulted in a much warmer soundscape, closer to early Moog sounds than a slick, clinical "out of the box" feel of modern electronica: this feels alive, kinetic, and dangerously unpredictable.

Note: KG&TLW don't support Spotify due to objections to it's the inclusion investments in military drone technology, so we've used the Bandcamp player for this one.

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King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard Official

JID027 Joyce e Tutty Moreno

ADRIAN YOUNGE, JOYCE E TUTTY MORENO

Released 7 August 2026

Jazz Is Dead

Jazz, Samba

Brazil

****-

Brazilian MPB royalty receives Adrian Younge’s vintage analogue production, yielding an emotional, improvised masterclass of samba and soul.

For over five years, multi-instrumentalist Adrian Younge and Ali Shaheed Muhammad’s Jazz Is Dead imprint has revitalized music culture by uniting iconic global masters with custom analog production. JID027 brings together two widely celebrated architects of Brazilian sophisticated samba: legendary singer-songwriter/guitarist Joyce Moreno and her musical and life partner, master drummer Tutty Moreno. Emerging from the tail end of the Bossa Nova movement into the vibrant MPB (Música Popular Brasileira - Brazilian Popular Music) era, Joyce and Tutty redefined Brazilian pop by blending complex jazz harmonies with fluid, syncopated samba rhythms.

Recorded directly to tape, the session captures the intimate dance between Tutty’s elastic, brushed drumming and Joyce’s signature syncopated nylon-string guitar riffs. Joyce uses her voice as a woodwind instrument, on cuts like "Mandala" and "Is This Love?", soaring above Younge’s vintage organ and bass arrangements, without the need for words. The interplay shifts fluidly between breezy bossa grooves and cinematic neo-soul. The album reaches its emotional zenith on the closing track "Círculo Vicioso," where Joyce recites Machado de Assis’ iconic poem in her native Portuguese over haunting instrumentation, turning the album into a meditation on time and memory.

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Jazz Is Dead Official

Afro Disco Makossa

AFRIAN YOUNGE

Released 17 July 2026

Linear Labs Crew / Sony Music

****-

USA

The imagined disco record of a Ghanaian producer in '76 - resulting in a relentless, hypnotic patchwork of Afrobeat, funk, and disco recorded to tape, built for the DJ of any era.

The brainchild of producer Adrian Younge, Linear Labs Records is a Los Angeles-based label born out of vinyl culture and the dizzying array of music released during the format’s peak years. “The label will focus on creating new progressive music with a cultivated compositional perspective and a higher quality sonic palette,” Younge attests.

Afro-Disco Makossa is the first Linear Labs album built for the dance floor, and Adrian Younge is uniquely qualified to make it. Having already recorded modern Afrobeat classics with Tony Allen and Ebo Taylor through the consistently remarkable Jazz Is Dead series (currently, having released 27 editions since 2020) Younge asks a new question: what would a Ghanaian producer in '76 have made if he set out to create an American disco record for his hometown? The result is a relentless, hypnotic patchwork of Afrobeat, funk, and disco recorded to tape, built for the DJ of any era.

Valveilla

UNI UNI

Released 10 July 2026

Haapojan Studio

****-

FINLAND

A climate conscious, electro-folk debut weaving archaic instruments and ambient electronica into a tantalizing, neo-primitive soundscape.

Uni Uni is an innovative Finnish electro-folk duo formed by multi-instrumentalists Ella Isotalo and Mikko H. Haapoja. Blending folk heritage with modern electronic pop, the pair crafts immersive sonic environments using ancient instruments alongside cutting-edge technology. Isotalo contributes violin, viola, jouhikko (bowed lyre), ilimba, and live-looped vocals, while Haapoja manages production, synth beats, keyboards, and musical saw. Lyrically, the duo explores the profound forces of nature and urgent ecological themes, establishing a unique niche in contemporary European world music.

Meaning "Awake" in Finnish, Valveilla is a thrilling debut across eight tracks that combines archaic instruments like the bowed jouhikko and eerie singing saw with hypnotic synth loops, lush string harmonies, and driving electronic beats. The arrangements move fluidly between calm Baltic coastal atmospheres and surging, storm-like energy.

Thematic threads of nature’s raw beauty and concerns over the climate crisis run deep throughout the record. Isotalo’s ethereal vocal layers and soaring violin work interplay dynamic phrasing against Haapoja’s rhythmic production, producing a sound both earthy and futuristic.

Valveilla succedes as a cinematic, boundary-pushing example of modern folktronica that commands listener attention from start to finish.

Uni Uni Official

From Japan with Love

MINYO CRUSADERS

Released 26 June 2026

Blue Note Records

*****

JAPAN

A deliriously joyous collision of historic Japanese folk traditions, exuberant Afro-Latin rhythms, irreverent humour and dance-floor swagger.

Formed in the working-class Tokyo suburb of Fussa, Minyo Crusaders are a ten-piece collective dedicated to revitalising min'yō - traditional Japanese working-class folk music. Historically sung by fishermen, farmers, and geishas, min'yō was once deeply ingrained in daily life but gradually receded into cultural preservation. Co-founded by guitarist Katsumi Tanaka and vocalist Freddie Tsukamoto, the group rescues these ancient melodies from dry museum archives and injects them with infectious Afrobeat, cumbia, salsa, and reggae backbeats. By marrying forgotten historical lyrics with vibrant global grooves, they have become international festival favorites and world-music charts regulars.

Topping the Transglobal World Music Chart upon entry this month, From Japan with Love expands Minyo Crusaders' kaleidoscopic vision with undeniable theatrical charm. Rooted in century-old songs about field work, regional festivals, and local legends, the record rescues min'yō from its status as a museum relic and reinvents it as a living party. Pentatonic vocal ornamentation and traditional call-and-response (kakegoe) blend effortlessly with blazing horn sections, tropical percussion, and funky, sun-baked rhythms.

A sly, self-aware humour underscores the entire record: seriousness is discarded in favour of tongue-in-cheek showmanship, syncopated comedic flourishes, and sheer festive abandon - reminiscent of the way UK's Madness took Madness took Caribbean ska and blue-beat and run it through a distinct, cheeky London cultural filter. Traditional chants morph into vibrant cumbia shakers and brass riffs, creating a joyful dialogue between East Asian heritage and Pan-African rhythm. It is a delightfully buoyant, groove-laden masterpiece that proves traditional folk music is at its absolute best when it makes you move your feet.

Minyo Crusaders Official

We Are Not The Headliner

OMAR SOSA & QUARTETO AMEICANOS

Released 25 June 2026

OTA Records

*****

CUBA / USA

A world-jazz tapestry, blending Afro-Cuban heritage, hip-hop, and global interplay with deep spiritual warmth and boundless improvisational freedom.

Omar Sosa is a multi-Grammy-nominated Cuban composer, pianist, and bandleader whose expansive career bridges world jazz, classical, electronic, and global folk traditions. Following the African diaspora from Cuba to South America, San Francisco, New York, and Europe, Sosa's nomadic spirit makes him a true internationalist. Known for his rhythmic brilliance, improvisational fluidity, and open-hearted collaboration, he routinely connects disparate cultures through music. We Are Not The Headliner, is the debut release from his East-Bay, San Francisco-based ensemble, with saxophone, clarinet and flute master Sheldon Brown, Cuban baby-bass player Ernesto Mazar Kindelán and drummer Josh Jones..

Across 11 dynamic tracks, recorded at Studio 9 in North Adams, Massachusetts, with additional recording and post-production by Greg Landau in Alameda, California the Quarteto Americanos weaves world-class musicianship into a flowing, unpretentious dialogue, capturing the kinetic energy they have honed over their years of touring and performance. Central to the record's appeal is its genre-defying fluidity. Opening with the aptly-titled "Meditative" , the listener is immediately impressed by the balance of composition and ease of the players: Sosa's resonant piano perfectly placed, as if in the embrace of the ensemble's primary instruments - and spoken spoken word. "Back Home To My Dwelling" brings with it an edgier mood, described by Brown's moody saxophone. Later, "Africa In My Fingers" and "Hella Changui" pulse with fierce Afro-Cuban percussion, that intersect seamlessly with hip-hop cadence, intermittent rapping and fiery sax lines.

The album’s narrative depth is elevated by a stellar line-up of guests - particularly spoken-word performances from Guillermo Gómez-Peña (A Mexico City born, performance artist, writer, activist, radical thinker and director of performance troupe La Pocha Nostra) and LA based spoken word artist Reggie Stephens, which anchor the project’s cultural storytelling. In addition, Belgian-Egyptian vocalist Natascha Atlas, provides haunting, expressive vocals on “We Say Part 2”. Camilo Landau and Kai Lyons, add delicate tres-cubano (a small guitar-like instrument from Cuba featuring six strings arranged in pairs).

We Are Not The Headliner delivers a rich, multi-layered listening experience that memorialises the Qarteto's live performance chemistry. Eschewing mainstream contemporary trends or production, they have produced a timeless work that is simultaneously varied, sophisticated, grounded, and profoundly soulful.

Music Is My Truth

QUEEN DJENNY DJELLA, HALME PROSPEKT

Released 22 May 2026

Halme Prospekt

Jazz

Finland

****-

West African soul encounters Northern European psychedelia in an unforgettable, groove-driven meeting, infusing progressive jazz with warm new life.

Led for over two decades by Finnish pioneer Heikki ”Hepa” Halme, whose legend spans 50 years across punk, roots rock, and acid jazz, Halme Prospekt is an open-minded, borderline-jazz collective featuring esteemed musicians that thrives on atmospheric, highly improvised, and genre-blending rhythm music. Their trajectory took a transformative turn in late 2023 at Villa Karo in Grand-Popo, Benin, upon encountering Ghana-based Togolese vocalist Queen Djenny Djella. Her captivating charisma ignited an instant cross-continental synergy, elevating the group's sonic exploration to an international stage.

Music Is My Truth is a striking, soul-stirring collaboration that combines traditional rhythmic roots with contemporary improvisation - seamlessly fusing Prospekt’s trademark Northern melancholia and psychedelic jazz with Djella’s deeply expressive, tender vocal presence.

Across nine dynamic tracks, the album shifts gracefully from deep, hypnotic journeys. The key tracks traverse a wide stylistic spectrum: "Akheron" merges avant-garde psychedelic jazz with brooding afro-blues, while "Mama Africa" and "Bon Bon Bon" radiate infectious West African highlife, afrobeat, and soul. Meanwhile, "Tango Akheron" weaves melancholy tango motifs into hypnotic, a dub-infused roots groove. Halme’s progressive arrangements, built on lush keys, soaring brass, and earth-bound rhythm sections, provide a fertile backdrop for Djella’s commanding vocals.

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Convergence

HAMAD SADEGHI

Released 1 May 2026

Australian Broadcasting Corporation

****-

AUSTRALIA

A climate conscious, electro-folk debut weaving archaic instruments and ambient electronica into a tantalizing, neo-primitive soundscape.

His previous solo album Empty Voices (2024) - one of our "Albums of the Year" - sought "to define a new form of beauty and to present a forgotten love through music". Seven of Sadeghi's compositions, written for an octet of some of Australia's most searching musicians was released this month, on ABC Records as the album "Comfortable".

Written for tar, voice, percussion, and string trio, Convergence draws on both contemporary and classical Persian poetry, placing the voice at the centre of an expressive and deeply nuanced musical landscape. The work reflects a dialogue across time - where centuries-old poetic traditions resonate alongside modern perspectives.

At its core, Convergence is an exploration of two musical worlds in motion. It moves passionately between Persian and Western classical languages, allowing each to inform and transform the other. Intricate modal systems, rich ornamentation, and improvisatory gestures meet the structural depth and textural range of Western classical writing, resulting in a sound that is both refined and emotionally immediate.

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Hamed Sadeghi Official