Time Zones

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

No Drugs Required

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

Black Openings

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

So Far Away

‘So Far Away’ is the first single by Port, a group formed by Kathryn Way (former singer, songwriter and saxophonist with Manchester indie pioneers Dislocation Dance) and Michael James Pollard. The title track builds from a simple string motif with Kathryn’s beautifully distinctive vocals floating in with a melancholy air leading us through to a … Continue reading So Far Away

Aversion/Inversion

On the back of last year’s epic ‘How Sounds Can Fight Shadows’, we are treated to two mixes of Filed Fangs’ bite #8 called ‘Introvert Aversion’. The heavier second mix, called ‘Introvert Inversion’, is a reflective, angry and sensitive, powerful electronic piece. Layers of Boz’s guitar enter, leave and weave through the electronic sounds programmed … Continue reading Aversion/Inversion

Perpetual Motion

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

Live At The Cafe Bohemia

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

“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

Stravaganze Consonanti

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

Sphere

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