Although they live in different parts of the United States, the musicians who comprise Esthesis Quartet have found common ground in their love of improvised music and their willingness to take creative risks. On their newest album, Time Zones, the band once again pushes the musical envelope with seven original compositions that explore a range … Continue reading Time Zones

77 Talking Heads meets Parliament/Funkadelic/Bootsy Collins/Gang of Four(Solid Gold) via Yoko Ono/Deborah Evans-Stickland, with the sensibility of Slates Grotesque era Fall/James White and the Blacks/Arto Lindsay and an utter disregard for prevailing trends and fashions - thankfully. They are called Neon Kittens and they are a breath of fresh air in a currently mundane music … Continue reading No Drugs Required

Long-running experimental post-punk/doom outfit Anatomy of Habit release their fourth album, Black Openings, on February 24th. The follow-up to their 2021-22 album, Even If It Takes A Lifetime, was recorded with Sanford Parker, who has been working with the band in the studio for over a decade, including on their 2014 Relapse Records-issued Ciphers + … Continue reading Black Openings

It seems inevitable that pianist-composer Satoko Fujii and guitarist-composer Otomo Yoshihide, two of the most influential and critically acclaimed figures in Japanese new music, should record together. The surprising thing is it took so long. Their new duo album, Perpetual Motion (Ayler Records, release date: February 9, 2023), is their first performance together, despite the … Continue reading Perpetual Motion

Leap Day should be predictable – it comes around like clockwork after all, once every four years. But it always seems to spring out of nowhere, an odd quadrennial anomaly that realigns the calendar and the clock. The Leap Day Trio does something similar. After nearly three decades of playing together, drummer Matt Wilson and … Continue reading Live At The Cafe Bohemia

“Ghost Music” is the latest album from ex-pat Australian experimental/folk/psych/indie/noir musician Michael Plater. The follow-up to “An Alchemical Gathering,” his 2022 split release with Enclosed and Silent Order, “Ghost Music,” takes inspiration from Australia’s dark history and the myths, folklore, and legends of Michael’s current adopted home in Cornwall, drawing together a phantasmagorical assemblage of … Continue reading Ghost Music

In this inspired collaboration with conductor and baroque violinist Stefano Montanari, Italian reedman Gianluigi Trovesi extends the line of musical enquiry posited on his Prufumo di violetta album. Supported by a cast of players well-versed in the ancient sounds of period instruments and the art of historical performance practice, Trovesi looks anew at music of … Continue reading Stravaganze Consonanti

The Bobo Stenson Trio’s ability of covering far-reaching idioms and wide-ranging repertoire within the scope of their personal diction has become both hallmark and custom, inspiring The New York Times to say the pianist “makes sublime piano-trio records without over-playing. It's pulsating, lumpy with long improvised phrases; it's alive.” Charting an equally subtle and idiosyncratic … Continue reading Sphere

Ralph Alessi’s fourth appearance as a leader for ECM follows a singular album run that’s been met with nothing but praise from The New York Times to The Guardian. The latter lauded Ralph’s previous recording Imaginary Friends (2019) for its “elegant balance of poignant, playful original compositions and gracefully probing improv” and declared it “his … Continue reading It’s Always Now

Bandleader, composer, educator and saxophonist extraordinaire Diego Rivera aspires to greater heights and unleashes the transcendent power of "Love and Peace" on his fourth release for Posi-Tone Records. With a program of exciting original compositions and a few heart-felt covers, the session swings swiftly into action and shines with bright moments from the get go. … Continue reading Love & Peace