Jazz / Soul / Funk

Kiyoshi Sugimoto, Ryo Kawasaki, Yoshiaki Masuo, and Masayuki Takayanagi. This classic album brings together musicians from different generations and with diverse musical styles, each fully showcasing their unique personalities and exceptional technique.

Nearly 48 hours of live improvised performance recorded at 1 venue over 12 months and 28 shows - culled, cut, rendered, and remixed into 19 potent pieces of organic beat music.

Happy Today, the third album from guitarist/bandleader Jeff Parker’s long-running ETA IVtet, was recorded live at Lodge Room in Los Angeles on August 20, 2025. This fresh entry into the IVtet’s catalog captures Parker and the band – including drummer Jay Bellerose, bassist Anna Butterss, and saxophonist Josh Johnson – on record outside of the now-shuttered Highland Park micro-club ETA for the first time.

The performance also captures a distinctly joyful night of togetherness set against the backdrop of dark times. “2025 was a very difficult year for me and my family,” Parker says. “Dealing with being displaced from the Eaton fires for eight months, and the kind of toll that that instability took on my family’s mental health and general outlook, coupled with Donald Trump being back in office and basically making life miserable for everyone… There was a lot of sadness and despair. But feeling the sense of community that we created with our concert, and later hearing the recording, seeing the beautiful footage that had been shot and the photographs of such joy to be back in that space and to be making music again: It was a very happy moment. So I called the record Happy Today. It’s meant to be a statement of joy.”

That joy and camaraderie found in communal space seems to be a major catalyst for the ETA IVtet’s music. The band’s audience is, somehow, an essential part of the formula. Case in point: the show at Lodge Room was actually meant to be the cherry on top of a weekend of studio sessions by the band. Those sessions were intended to be the next album released by the group, its first ever studio record. Upon listening back, though, it was clear to Parker that the Lodge Room performance was the recording that shined brightest and felt most true to the band’s spirit, harkening back to the weekly session the four musicians held at ETA for so many years.

ETA was undoubtedly more than just the namesake of the band. Part laboratory, part low-stakes proving ground, it’s where the language of the IVtet’s sound percolated and coalesced over the course of an almost mythical seven-year-long Monday night residency that yielded two critically-acclaimed records—2022’s Mondays at The Enfield Tennis Academy and 2024’s The Way Out of Easy—and an instantly recognizable group sound.

Happy Today is that sound—the IVtet's signature syntax built around long-form, minimalist improvisation—expanding confidently into a larger space while creating the same hypnotizing, deeply-tuned listening effect on visibly enraptured audiences. The album contains two sidelong pieces recorded as the band performed in the round at Lodge Room, surrounded by an audience of 400 or so deep listeners. (The venue, appropriately enough, sits on the same street and just a few hundred feet away from the storefront that used to be ETA.)

The drastic change in venue size, and this document in general, is representative of an expanding demand to experience this band live that has been surging for years, starting with the release of their debut album Mondays. For the subsequent, final year that ETA was open, there would typically be a line down the block on Monday evenings, with far more people trying to catch the show than the club could hold. Even if you could get inside the building, given the limited capacity, the IVtet was a difficult band to actually see play. Couple that with the fact that before the closure of the club in December 2023, the IVtet had never played outside of Los Angeles. Access to the live experience had been extremely limited, and that has seemed to feed a sense of mystery and allure around the band’s music for the many fans of Mondays and The Way Out of Easy.

On paper, the IVtet’s growing audience is something of a conundrum. After all, minimal longform improvisation is likely the precise antithesis of streaming-centered content culture. Despite that, at the show that produced Happy Today, as with any IVtet show, the audience willingly settles into and accepts the band’s pace as they iron out a story which digs deeply into every facet of an idea before investigating a new one. Here the attention economy feels lightyears away, the crowd instead surrendering to that old and very human penchant for listening. With open ears, the crowd stands ready for a big yarn, a long tale, and from the jump there seems to be a trust between performer and audience that mimics the trust between the musicians as they move from detail to detail.

“The band isn't afraid to explore static spaces,” says Parker. “It seems like the thing is to stay on one idea for a while. Really, for a long time. To kind of exhaust it. And then one person shifts and then the thing moves together.”

“Everybody is constantly dropping crumbs and you can take them or you can leave them,” agrees Bellerose. “There are these little hints, these little moments, and everybody's aware of them.”

“When it is time to change, it can change very quickly,” says Butterss. “If someone suggests a new idea, it can flip in an instant. Everyone's constantly ready to go with it if the moment calls for it.”

“Like Swimwear,” the side-length opener of Happy Today, contains a quintessential example of this distinct IVtet move. The track gets off the ground slowly but deliberately, ramping up tension over the course of its first ten minutes without a moment of harmonic dissonance. The band, rather, steadily pulls at the corners of the rhythm. Here each member steps forward and backward in the sonic space to build a gleefully disorienting group cadence, where the repetitions of the individual overlap in such a trancelike way that even soloistic breaks from Parker’s electric guitar or Johnson’s effected alto sax never manage to snap the tension wire. Bellerose works deep into the rhythmic fascia, employing all manner of auxiliary percussion—strewn across his kit, tucked into his shoe, or wrapped around his legs—all without a hint of novelty. Every micro-choice comes from a place of both curiosity and confidence.

And then the shift: just as the thing is about to come unglued Bellerose opts into a smooth, low-register downbeat groove that Butterss has been auditioning for the previous minute or so. Parker swiftly kicks into an organ-like drone while Johnson and Butterss stay the course. It’s a series of decisions that could go any number of ways depending on the night, like running water pushing into fresh geography, moving from tributary to mainstream, past the levee and into the floodplain. There is no set path; if it went a different direction it would still be the cumulative result of the same water flowing.

That is to say that there are no hard and fast rules to what the IVtet does. Defining the music, in fact, is something that the band takes special care not to do. Living in that mystery, it seems, helps to keep the path open, cleared to push into new and satisfying territory.

“For me, the thing to protect is just where it started from, which was freedom and openness,” says Bellerose. “In the early days of the band Jeff was recognizing how we were all communicating within the structure of playing standards. He's one of the greatest producers I've ever worked with because he has this vision. And a big part of producing is casting—putting the right people in the room. So these shifts, they're completely natural within these improvised pieces that we do because the foundation was there and Jeff knew it. He had already noticed the communication within the band, but wanted to really push it further.”

The key to Parker’s push lies in the generosity to step back, to allow each member an equal voice, and to de-center himself. What we hear on Happy Today is an egalitarian group sound by design, curious and intuitive.

“Everybody's listening in a way where it's not always like ‘I'm going to go with you’,” says Johnson. “But it's always ‘I hear you’. And sometimes it's ‘I hear you and I'm going to stay here and allow the tension of these two things to exist for a while before maybe joining you.’ But the thing that's cool is that everybody’s hearing it. Because of the time that we've spent together there’s a maturity to the listening—a very special version of deep listening.”

“The number of times that we've talked about the music is so few compared to the years and years of playing,” Johnson continues. “I think that's one of the really beautiful things about the band—how organically the way that we play together has come about and evolved over time. Definitely on brand for the music that the band makes too. Slowly evolving, long form development.”

“I learned how to improvise in this band,” reveals Butterss, astonishingly. “I didn't really play improvised music before. So my whole approach to improvisation has been shaped by playing with Jeff, Jay, and Josh. It is a band and it has its own language. I think you could drop the needle on any of the recordings and people would be able to say ‘that's the quartet.’ It's very distinctive and it's developed very organically. We have never talked about it, I don't think.”

“That's our band,” says Parker of “Like Swimwear,” almost with an outsider’s sense of fascination at the recording. He seems to feel the same enchantment and surprise that the audience does while listening, despite being a primary part of the process. “That's it. I mean, that's what the ETA Quartet does.”

It’s a blessing for this band to be so expertly documented in its naturally public, live context. The two sidelong improvisations from Lodge Room that make up Happy Today, as with the recordings that made up the IVtet’s first two albums, are beautifully rendered by engineer Bryce Gonzales—recorded and mixed live, direct to a Nagra tape machine utilizing a compact outboard rig that he built himself, specifically to record this band. Much like the thumbprint originality coming from the players themselves, Gonzales’ capture of the music is its own signature, his mixes a form of sound improvisation themselves.

A major addition to this particular presentation is the full album length film by Charlie Weinmann, documenting the band's performance of Happy Today at Lodge Room, which will be released in tandem with the album. A shadow-laden, almost noirlike capture of the band in its full sprawling glory, Weinmann’s camera makes the joyful reality of seeing the IVtet at work widely accessible for the first time.

With Happy Today the reach of Parker’s IVtet extends further than ever before, but the essential formula, if there is one, remains the same. The anchor seems to be in variations on an almost alchemical communication—a feeling of connection between band members, sure, but also between the band and the audience. It’s an ongoing trust exercise, born organically in the corner of a small room in Los Angeles and flowing outward at exactly its own natural pace. It’s social music with a clear ability to move those willing to listen. Happy Today is an invitation to become part of the exchange and experience the joy of deep listening.

On October 15th and 16th, 2020, drummer Daniel Villarreal was joined by guitarist Jeff Parker and bassist Anna Butterss for two afternoons of recording in the backyard of Chicali Outpost in Los Angeles. For all three musicians, it was the first ensemble recording session they’d done in-person since the pandemic locked the world down just seven months prior. Some choice moments from these sessions made it onto Villarreal’s critically-acclaimed 2022 album Panamá 77, but most of the music remained unreleased. Lados B is a deep dive into the high-level spontaneous music made by Villarreal, Parker, and Butterss across those two days in 2020. Villarreal is heard leading the group through various rhythmic modes and structures for improvisation – flow as informed by the Latin funk of Fania Records as it is by the otherworldly humanity trance of Brain Records – while Parker and Butterss draw on their extensive experience playing free together (as heard on Parker's recently-released Mondays at the Enfield Tennis Academy, and the LA side of Makaya McCraven's 2018 LP Universal Beings) to build harmonic buoys for their spontaneous melodicism. The result is a beautifully vivid illustration of context, creativity, and collective composition from a particularly rich moment in history.

This is fun. L.A. purveyor of beats and certified hip-hop aficionado Samiyam, of Stones Throw and Flyamsam (with FlyLo) fame has made an album dedicated to another passion of his: a love of Death Metal. Thus the new record was born, consisting of 13 tracks of heavy beats and even heavier metal tones. Far out.

By the early '70s, Milford Graves had more or less stopped gigging. Having learned his lesson the hard way in multiple-night runs like a legendary Slugs' residency with Albert Ayler, he knew that the level of energy that he put out during a performance would be difficult to sustain over the long haul. A concert was a kind of absolute ritual for him, after which he would be totally spent, emotionally and physically. Graves rarely left anything on the table. Any musical performance was an opportunity to present an amalgamated version of all the things he had learned. He was an innovator and a teacher at his core, and the concert venue was one of his first classroom settings. In March 1976, Verna Gillis invited Graves to perform on WBAI's Free Music Store radio show. For the date, he chose to present a trio lineup which he had been occasionally playing – featuring two saxophonists who were dedicated to the drummer's vision. Hugh Glover is almost exclusively known for his work with Graves, while Arthur Doyle would gain exposure later for an obscure record that he made two years later, Alabama Feeling, which would become a highly collectable item among free jazz enthusiasts. Originally released in 1977, Bäbi remains one of Graves' most seminal recordings. The music played by the trio was ecstatic. Extreme energy music, buoyant and joyful. It relied on Graves' new way of approaching the drum kit, in which he had opened up the bottoms of his skin-slackened toms and eliminated the snare. Graves' art was always unblemished by commercial interests, and this album is its finest mission statement. First-time vinyl reissue. Sourced from the original master tapes.

Comprised of ensemble and solo music recorded at church choir performances, during rehearsals, and at singers' homes, this album compiled by music researcher Dr. Jacqueline Cogdell DjeDje presents the listener with spiritually driven music gathered in several rural towns in southeast Georgia. Songs exhibit influences from traditional African and slave music, presenting deeper lyrical meanings about the role of Africans in America throughout the 18th and 19th centuries. Many songs feature audience involvement and vocal improvisations performed by a variety of age groups. Liner notes include a brief history of black religious music in America, as well as complete song texts.

it was recorded live at my first concert in new york city in the summer of 2022, right before i recorded iiyo iiyo iiyo and right after i recorded the doober with sam gendel and then Nothing with Louis Cole.

i think it is my most grooving record.

Endlessness is a deep dive into the cycle of existence. The 45-minute album delicately spans 10 tracks with a continuous arpeggio playing throughout, creating an expansive, mesmerising celebration of life cycles and rebirth. Following Sinephro’s critically acclaimed 2021 debut album Space 1.8, Endlessness further elevates her as a transcendent and multi-dimensional composer, beautifully morphing jazz, orchestral, and electronic music.

The album was composed, produced, arranged, and engineered by Sinephro. Performing on the album are Sheila Maurice-Grey, Morgan Simpson, James Mollison, Lyle Barton, Nubya Garcia, Natcyet Wakili, and Dwayne Kilvington, joined by Orchestrate’s 21 string players.

A few years ago, the saxophonist, keyboardist, synthesist and musical polymath Josh Johnson was still a fairly well-kept secret in the music world. He was constantly showing up alongside Jeff Parker, Marquis Hill, Jamire Williams, Carlos Niño, Makaya McCraven and others, but often in the shadows, always supporting.

Lately Johnson has been harder to miss. He has helped shape the sound of Parker’s renowned ETA IVtet; served as the producer of Meshell Ndegeocello’s Grammy-winning album, The Omnichord Real Book (2023); co-leads all-star creative ensembles like SML, the Openness Trio and a collective with Sam Wilkes and Gregory Uhlmann; and this year, as the producer of Flea’s Honora and the musical director of his band, appeared on The Tonight Show and NPR’s Tiny Desk. Still, Johnson has yet to bring his solo work fully into the spotlight.

On October 23, Animative, Johnson’s third album under his own name and his first for International Anthem/Nonesuch, arrives to turn up the wattage on his artistry. More than any release to date, Animative shows why musicians and a growing community of listeners know this Chicago native and longtime L.A. resident to be one of the most imaginative electroacoustic musicians today, not to mention one of the most stunningly versatile. On Animative, the harmonically rich, loops-inflected sound Johnson has been developing — first with a full band on 2020’s Freedom Exercise, then on 2024’s immersive solo album, Unusual Object — comes together in a life-affirming LP of lowkey improvised brilliance and technological ambition.

Animative erases any distinction between being a jazz record led by a saxophone player and an experimental electronics record by a solo artist. Effects and digital overlays are at work in more ways than the ear can track, even when what you hear first is an unaltered saxophone sound. Meanwhile, undiluted improvised brilliance on the saxophone seeps in at unexpected moments. Johnson puts sophisticated technologies to work on nearly every track, often using the saxophone to control a sampler or a drum machine, triggering changes in a loop or an effect. But it’s always in service of a feeling — working to escape the trap of mastery. “I'm looking to make it feel more human,” Johnson says.

When running his alto sax through a harmonizer, Johnson is often varying and altering the intervals as he goes, so that the harmonies don’t just move in parallel lines or a single key, but curl and swarm. He also sometimes adjusts the effects on individual notes within the harmonized sound. Listeners to the recent, effects-laden, overdubbed saxophone experiments of Sam Gendel, another Los Angeles saxophonist-producer (including with Wilkes), will note the distinctiveness of Johnson’s approach. Fans of Lea Bertucci, Travis Laplante, and other experimental reed players pushing the structures of solo work will find a similarly rich complement in Johnson’s blend of looping, effects and sax improvisation.

Johnson’s reserved and thoughtful nature made the album’s title something of a puzzler to his friends. “I said the name to a few people, and they were like, ‘Animated is not how I would describe you,’” he laughs. “But I'm really thinking about it from the perspective of causing animation, giving spirit, or connecting with spirit.” He thinks often of the lessons of Wayne Shorter, one of his teachers, who instilled in him a sense of reverence for the mystical, and emphasized the musician’s duty to “conjure and transport.” And as he put together Animative, Johnson also had in mind the West African philosopher Maladoma Somay’s writings, and the “non-Western ways of thinking about time and being” they propose. He was inspired too by Italo Calvino’s inventive, often-dreamlike short fiction. “The way he uses the vehicle of short story is so gorgeous,” Johnson said. “It influences the way I write.”

Animative’s first track, “Idiophone,” which he’d been workshopping through multiple versions in concerts leading up to the recording session, fundamentally reimagines the saxophone’s musical identity. “I’m really interested in putting the saxophone in a different role besides soloist,” Johnson says. “The saxophone is also the drum. ‘Idiophone’ is me wanting to access the feeling of a percussion ensemble.”

On “Aughts Hymnal,” he manipulates the horn to sound more like an organ. On “Strays,” extending the influence of Billy Strayhorn in a futuristic direction, he allows some of the harmonies felt by the listener to remain unplayed. “If you were to go in and analyze it, all those pieces aren’t fully there. But your ear is filling it in, because the feeling is there,” he says. “I’ve been thinking a lot about how, if I want them to be felt, that might mean making them less legible in a certain way, which actually puts the feeling first.”

While he has become deeply affiliated with the burgeoning L.A. jazz scene, Johnson still finds powerful inspiration in the legacy of his Chicago hometown. Of particular importance is the example set by Eddie Harris, who precedes him not only in the city’s saxophone lineage but also as a multi-instrumentalist, composer and 360-degree artistic thinker. “I’m inspired by him as a conceptualist, and somebody who navigates a lot of different spaces,” Johnson says. Among pianists, his pantheon is topped by another brilliant eccentric: Mal Waldron. “In music that is so often centering virtuosity,” Johnson says, Waldron demonstrated “a different way of existing.”

Like Harris, Johnson always leads with a strong musical concept, but he relies upon a collaborative community to execute it. The album’s personnel include Ben Lumsdaine on drums, Macie Stewart on violin, Marquis Hill on trumpet, and Paul Bryan on bass and co-producing the album with Johnson.

While working on “High Step,” a slightly churchy, slightly off-kilter groover, Johnson felt Meshell Ndegeocello’s bass would be a perfect fit. She performs as a guest on the track, occupying the bass chair — a supporting role she rarely plays.

“Mill” is a quieter tune that seems designed to warm up the memory banks—reminiscent of Aphex Twin or Joe Zawinul balladry, or more recently the work of Johnson’s frequent collaborator Jamire Williams—as a clean saxophone sound pairs with subtly processed lines in a mix of unison and harmony. Finally, the last note molders into silence.

/ / / /

Johnson spent his earliest years in Maryland before his family moved to the Chicago suburbs when he was young. He didn’t take to his piano lessons, finding that he was happier teaching himself. It was only after starting to play the saxophone at age eleven that he fell completely in love with music. Soon after, his parents bought him a stack of jazz records; the sound that caught his attention most was the saxophone of Lester Young.

“I was like, ‘This dude is talking to me,’” Johnson says. “That's what it felt like.” He was as fascinated by the intellect and swagger he heard inside Young’s playing as he was by the “vocal qualities” of the saxophone. “It can whisper, it can scream, it can be really textured. I was still playing piano and keyboards, but the saxophone was what captured me,” he says.

Johnson went on to earn a bachelor’s in music from Indiana University, making the nearly eight-hour round trip from Bloomington to Chicago on weekends to participate in his hometown jazz scene. After graduating, he spent a couple of years living and working in Chicago before attending grad school at the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz (now the Herbie Hancock Institute) in Los Angeles, studying under Shorter and Hancock.

He found himself surrounded by an L.A. jazz scene that was in bloom creatively and culturally. While Kamasi Washington and Terrace Martin’s careers filled the foreground, a vast network of musicians was intermingling jazz, ambient, dance music, hip-hop, minimalism, and more at venues around town. Before long, Johnson was near the center of nearly all of it. He was energized by the exchange between different music scenes and artistic disciplines in those years, particularly on gigs he played with Miguel Atwood-Ferguson, Mark de Clive-Lowe, and Jamire Williams.

“There was a lot going on, and a lot of places to play, and a lot of cross-pollination all coming about very organically,” he remembered. “I think that really encouraged me, because there were all these people just finding different ways to combine a lot of their interests. There was room to make a path.” Originally expecting to return to Chicago or head to New York after the Monk Institute, Johnson chose to stay put. “Part of what kept me in L.A. is that I felt like, ‘I'm interested in all these different things. If I was to move to New York right now, I might need to spend a long time just following this one path of the saxophone lineage.’”

One of L.A.’s headiest spaces in those years was ETA, the Highland Park bar where Jeff Parker’s ETA IVtet—which includes Johnson, bassist Anna Butterss, and drummer Jay Bellerose—played weekly. “I guess it's like any sort of long-running gig in that it sort of takes on a life of its own,” Johnson says. “In those early days, there were a lot of different people who would come in there: other musicians, but also visual artists and painters, dancers, skateboarders from the various tributaries of Jeff’s world, stuff like that. There was this beautiful kind of overlap.”

In the past decade-plus, Johnson has become an essential collaborator to Carlos Niño, Nate Mercereau, Louis Cole, aja monet, Gregory Uhlmann, Anna Butterss, Matthew Stevens, and Sam Wilkes, among others.

When not playing in a group led by someone else, Johnson has often gravitated toward co-led ensembles like SML (with Butterss, Uhlmann, Jeremiah Chiu, and Booker Stardrum), the Openness Trio (with Mercereau and Niño), or his collaborative trio with Uhlmann and Wilkes.

Meanwhile, he also maintains a connection to the leading Chicago musicians of his generation, continuing to play in bands led by Marquis Hill, Makaya McCraven, and Joel Ross.

In addition to his jazz bona fides, Johnson’s musical versatility has been informed by an impressive resume of pop music work, including with the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Harry Styles, Miley Cyrus, Chris Cohen, and Ezra Furman. Johnson served as musical director for Leon Bridges from 2018 to 2022, in which time he directed a performance with London’s Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, for which he arranged fourteen of Bridges’ songs.

For Johnson, every collaboration is a chance to connect and extend his practice. Much of the spirit of Animative has been informed by lessons he gleaned from recent work with Ndegeocello in particular. “We all have certain assumptions that we come into writing or making music with. Working with her, some of those things were broken down for me immediately,” Johnson says. “It opened me up to not just consider more of what’s coming in externally, but to also let more of the variety that's inside of me come out.”

A few years ago, the saxophonist, keyboardist, synthesist and musical polymath Josh Johnson was still a fairly well-kept secret in the music world. He was constantly showing up alongside Jeff Parker, Marquis Hill, Jamire Williams, Carlos Niño, Makaya McCraven and others, but often in the shadows, always supporting.

Lately Johnson has been harder to miss. He has helped shape the sound of Parker’s renowned ETA IVtet; served as the producer of Meshell Ndegeocello’s Grammy-winning album, The Omnichord Real Book (2023); co-leads all-star creative ensembles like SML, the Openness Trio and a collective with Sam Wilkes and Gregory Uhlmann; and this year, as the producer of Flea’s Honora and the musical director of his band, appeared on The Tonight Show and NPR’s Tiny Desk. Still, Johnson has yet to bring his solo work fully into the spotlight.

On October 23, Animative, Johnson’s third album under his own name and his first for International Anthem/Nonesuch, arrives to turn up the wattage on his artistry. More than any release to date, Animative shows why musicians and a growing community of listeners know this Chicago native and longtime L.A. resident to be one of the most imaginative electroacoustic musicians today, not to mention one of the most stunningly versatile. On Animative, the harmonically rich, loops-inflected sound Johnson has been developing — first with a full band on 2020’s Freedom Exercise, then on 2024’s immersive solo album, Unusual Object — comes together in a life-affirming LP of lowkey improvised brilliance and technological ambition.

Animative erases any distinction between being a jazz record led by a saxophone player and an experimental electronics record by a solo artist. Effects and digital overlays are at work in more ways than the ear can track, even when what you hear first is an unaltered saxophone sound. Meanwhile, undiluted improvised brilliance on the saxophone seeps in at unexpected moments. Johnson puts sophisticated technologies to work on nearly every track, often using the saxophone to control a sampler or a drum machine, triggering changes in a loop or an effect. But it’s always in service of a feeling — working to escape the trap of mastery. “I'm looking to make it feel more human,” Johnson says.

When running his alto sax through a harmonizer, Johnson is often varying and altering the intervals as he goes, so that the harmonies don’t just move in parallel lines or a single key, but curl and swarm. He also sometimes adjusts the effects on individual notes within the harmonized sound. Listeners to the recent, effects-laden, overdubbed saxophone experiments of Sam Gendel, another Los Angeles saxophonist-producer (including with Wilkes), will note the distinctiveness of Johnson’s approach. Fans of Lea Bertucci, Travis Laplante, and other experimental reed players pushing the structures of solo work will find a similarly rich complement in Johnson’s blend of looping, effects and sax improvisation.

Johnson’s reserved and thoughtful nature made the album’s title something of a puzzler to his friends. “I said the name to a few people, and they were like, ‘Animated is not how I would describe you,’” he laughs. “But I'm really thinking about it from the perspective of causing animation, giving spirit, or connecting with spirit.” He thinks often of the lessons of Wayne Shorter, one of his teachers, who instilled in him a sense of reverence for the mystical, and emphasized the musician’s duty to “conjure and transport.” And as he put together Animative, Johnson also had in mind the West African philosopher Maladoma Somay’s writings, and the “non-Western ways of thinking about time and being” they propose. He was inspired too by Italo Calvino’s inventive, often-dreamlike short fiction. “The way he uses the vehicle of short story is so gorgeous,” Johnson said. “It influences the way I write.”

Animative’s first track, “Idiophone,” which he’d been workshopping through multiple versions in concerts leading up to the recording session, fundamentally reimagines the saxophone’s musical identity. “I’m really interested in putting the saxophone in a different role besides soloist,” Johnson says. “The saxophone is also the drum. ‘Idiophone’ is me wanting to access the feeling of a percussion ensemble.”

On “Aughts Hymnal,” he manipulates the horn to sound more like an organ. On “Strays,” extending the influence of Billy Strayhorn in a futuristic direction, he allows some of the harmonies felt by the listener to remain unplayed. “If you were to go in and analyze it, all those pieces aren’t fully there. But your ear is filling it in, because the feeling is there,” he says. “I’ve been thinking a lot about how, if I want them to be felt, that might mean making them less legible in a certain way, which actually puts the feeling first.”

While he has become deeply affiliated with the burgeoning L.A. jazz scene, Johnson still finds powerful inspiration in the legacy of his Chicago hometown. Of particular importance is the example set by Eddie Harris, who precedes him not only in the city’s saxophone lineage but also as a multi-instrumentalist, composer and 360-degree artistic thinker. “I’m inspired by him as a conceptualist, and somebody who navigates a lot of different spaces,” Johnson says. Among pianists, his pantheon is topped by another brilliant eccentric: Mal Waldron. “In music that is so often centering virtuosity,” Johnson says, Waldron demonstrated “a different way of existing.”

Like Harris, Johnson always leads with a strong musical concept, but he relies upon a collaborative community to execute it. The album’s personnel include Ben Lumsdaine on drums, Macie Stewart on violin, Marquis Hill on trumpet, and Paul Bryan on bass and co-producing the album with Johnson.

While working on “High Step,” a slightly churchy, slightly off-kilter groover, Johnson felt Meshell Ndegeocello’s bass would be a perfect fit. She performs as a guest on the track, occupying the bass chair — a supporting role she rarely plays.

“Mill” is a quieter tune that seems designed to warm up the memory banks—reminiscent of Aphex Twin or Joe Zawinul balladry, or more recently the work of Johnson’s frequent collaborator Jamire Williams—as a clean saxophone sound pairs with subtly processed lines in a mix of unison and harmony. Finally, the last note molders into silence.

/ / / /

Johnson spent his earliest years in Maryland before his family moved to the Chicago suburbs when he was young. He didn’t take to his piano lessons, finding that he was happier teaching himself. It was only after starting to play the saxophone at age eleven that he fell completely in love with music. Soon after, his parents bought him a stack of jazz records; the sound that caught his attention most was the saxophone of Lester Young.

“I was like, ‘This dude is talking to me,’” Johnson says. “That's what it felt like.” He was as fascinated by the intellect and swagger he heard inside Young’s playing as he was by the “vocal qualities” of the saxophone. “It can whisper, it can scream, it can be really textured. I was still playing piano and keyboards, but the saxophone was what captured me,” he says.

Johnson went on to earn a bachelor’s in music from Indiana University, making the nearly eight-hour round trip from Bloomington to Chicago on weekends to participate in his hometown jazz scene. After graduating, he spent a couple of years living and working in Chicago before attending grad school at the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz (now the Herbie Hancock Institute) in Los Angeles, studying under Shorter and Hancock.

He found himself surrounded by an L.A. jazz scene that was in bloom creatively and culturally. While Kamasi Washington and Terrace Martin’s careers filled the foreground, a vast network of musicians was intermingling jazz, ambient, dance music, hip-hop, minimalism, and more at venues around town. Before long, Johnson was near the center of nearly all of it. He was energized by the exchange between different music scenes and artistic disciplines in those years, particularly on gigs he played with Miguel Atwood-Ferguson, Mark de Clive-Lowe, and Jamire Williams.

“There was a lot going on, and a lot of places to play, and a lot of cross-pollination all coming about very organically,” he remembered. “I think that really encouraged me, because there were all these people just finding different ways to combine a lot of their interests. There was room to make a path.” Originally expecting to return to Chicago or head to New York after the Monk Institute, Johnson chose to stay put. “Part of what kept me in L.A. is that I felt like, ‘I'm interested in all these different things. If I was to move to New York right now, I might need to spend a long time just following this one path of the saxophone lineage.’”

One of L.A.’s headiest spaces in those years was ETA, the Highland Park bar where Jeff Parker’s ETA IVtet—which includes Johnson, bassist Anna Butterss, and drummer Jay Bellerose—played weekly. “I guess it's like any sort of long-running gig in that it sort of takes on a life of its own,” Johnson says. “In those early days, there were a lot of different people who would come in there: other musicians, but also visual artists and painters, dancers, skateboarders from the various tributaries of Jeff’s world, stuff like that. There was this beautiful kind of overlap.”

In the past decade-plus, Johnson has become an essential collaborator to Carlos Niño, Nate Mercereau, Louis Cole, aja monet, Gregory Uhlmann, Anna Butterss, Matthew Stevens, and Sam Wilkes, among others.

When not playing in a group led by someone else, Johnson has often gravitated toward co-led ensembles like SML (with Butterss, Uhlmann, Jeremiah Chiu, and Booker Stardrum), the Openness Trio (with Mercereau and Niño), or his collaborative trio with Uhlmann and Wilkes.

Meanwhile, he also maintains a connection to the leading Chicago musicians of his generation, continuing to play in bands led by Marquis Hill, Makaya McCraven, and Joel Ross.

In addition to his jazz bona fides, Johnson’s musical versatility has been informed by an impressive resume of pop music work, including with the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Harry Styles, Miley Cyrus, Chris Cohen, and Ezra Furman. Johnson served as musical director for Leon Bridges from 2018 to 2022, in which time he directed a performance with London’s Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, for which he arranged fourteen of Bridges’ songs.

For Johnson, every collaboration is a chance to connect and extend his practice. Much of the spirit of Animative has been informed by lessons he gleaned from recent work with Ndegeocello in particular. “We all have certain assumptions that we come into writing or making music with. Working with her, some of those things were broken down for me immediately,” Johnson says. “It opened me up to not just consider more of what’s coming in externally, but to also let more of the variety that's inside of me come out.”

Marcos Valle JID003 is the third installation in the Jazz Is Dead catalog. This album features eight original songs by Adrian Younge, Ali Shaheed Muhammad, and Marcos Valle, one of Brazil’s most important musical icons. Marcos Valle JID003 uses Valle’s catalog as a production guide, resulting in an album of new recordings that crisscross Valle’s career long obsessions with samba, bossa, MPB and psychedelic funk. All songs produced by Adrian Younge & Ali Shaheed Muhammad. Recorded and mixed by Adrian Younge at Linear Labs, the preeminent analog studio of Los Angeles, CA.

Sep 11, 2026 (EST) CD LL020cd 617308054637 $6.00 TOTAL 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 Jazz Is Dead, 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.

Hailu Mergia is a one-man band. In 1985, master accordionist and veteran bandleader, arranger and keyboardist released the Hailu Mergia & His Classical Instrument cassette. In a nostalgic effort to bring back the vintage accordion sound of his youth, Hailu gave Ethiopian music a sonic makeover. He was already celebrated for his work with the groundbreaking Addis Ababa ethio-jazz and funk outfit Walias Band. With imagination and a visionary sense of the self-contained possibilities of modern music, he captured the popular sounds of the past using the modern tools of the day. Hailu Mergia weaves Moog and DX7 synthesizers, Rhodes electric piano and rhythm machine into the rich harmonic layering of his accordion, creating hauntingly psychedelic, elegantly arranged instrumentals. These tunes draw from famous traditional and modern Ethiopian songs, as Hailu brilliantly matches lush Amhara, Tigrinya and Oromo melodies with otherworldly flavors soaked in jazz and blues, synthesizing a futuristic landscape. He balances Ethiopian music's signature melodic shape with beautiful analog synth touches, floating upon clouds of hypnotically minimal rhythm tracks. Hailu Mergia was born in Debre Birhan, Showa Province, Ethiopia in 1938 (1946 in the European calendar) to parents Tewabech Ezineh and Mergia Lulessa, who were of Amhara and Oromo ancestry, respectively. His mother took him to Aynemisa, close to Addis, where he grew up from age 3 until he was 10 when they moved to the capital Addis Ababa. Hailu went to Shimelis Habte high school but dropped out before graduating. In 1952 (1960 in European calendar), he joined the army music department as a boy scout to support his mother. Mergia stayed in the army almost two years, learning how to read and write music. After Hailu left the army, he started singing in small bars as a freelance musician. He joined various pick-up bands, touring across the Ethiopian provinces as a singer and accordion player for almost a year. After the group broke up, he started performing in nightclubs like Addis Ababa, Patrice Lumumba, Asegedech Alamrew, Sombrero, Zula Club and others. At Zula Club he and his mates formed Walias Band and did something no other band in Ethiopian nightclub history had done: they started buying their own musical instruments. Until then the club owners were supplying the instruments and had the power to fire musicians at will. For the first time ever Walias Band signed a contract with the owner of Venus Club as a group thereby protecting themselves from club owners. Mergia and Walias Band went on to do gigs at hotels like Wabi Shebele and the Hilton. After playing almost eight years at the Hilton Hotel, Mergia and Walias Band came to the United States and toured widely in 1982-1983. Afterwards, some of of the band stayed in America while others went back to Addis. That was a heartbreaking time for the band. They considered themselves a family, and they knew they had broken new ground in the history of Addis nightclub musicians. They had helped make the Ashantis Band from Kenya famous in Addis. They were the first private band who played for state dinners at the palace for the Derg government (twice). And, they were the first private band to tour the USA. After the break-up of Walias Band, Mergia settled in the States and formed Zula Band with Moges Habte and Tamiru Ayele, playing in different restaurants and touring in the States and Europe. At that time, Mergia made a one-man band recording with accordion for the first time, mixing in Rhodes electric piano, Moog synthesizer and a rhythm machine. That was 1985. This recording was inspired by the early memories of his first instrument, the accordion. After the break-up of Zula Band in 1992, he quit performing and ran Soukous Club for seven years with his partners Moges and Tamiru. Nowadays he's making his living as a self-employed taxi driver at Dulles International Airport while continuing to record his music and practice as often as possible. The reissue of this recording brings back a moment when Ethiopian music was shifting from acoustic-based performances to recordings using more and more synthesized elements. While the results of that shift have their critics Hailu Mergia's initial experiments with solo instrumental music based on Ethiopian folk and popular music captures a singular feeling dripping in ambiance and very human emotional energy.

Hardly anyone outside Ethiopia seems to know Hailu Mergia & The Walias Band “Tezeta” exists. Within Ethiopia this tape has been impossible to find for decades. That’s about to change with this release, which makes available this epochal recording on LP, CD and Digital formats for the first time. From their genesis as members of the Venus club in-house band in the early 70s, Hailu Mergia and the Walias Band were at the forefront of the musical revolution during an era where modern instruments and foreign styles superseded the traditional fare to become the staple sound of Ethiopia. No one would argue that the Walias were the trailblazing powerhouse of modern Ethiopian music. They were the first band to form independently without affiliation to a theatre house, a club or a hotel; unprecedented and risky as they had to raise all funding for expenses by themselves including buying equipment. They were the first to release full instrumental albums, considered to be commercially unviable at the time. They opened their own recording studio, with band members Melake Gebre and Mahmoud Aman doubling as technical buffs during sessions. They were also the first independent band to tour abroad. In short, they were the pioneers every band tried to emulate; some more successfully than others. Odds are, any Ethiopian over the age of 35 who had access to TV or radio by the early 90s, will instantly recognize the sound of Walias. What is not a given is, how many would actually identify the band itself. Barely a day went by without hearing the Walias either in the background on radio or as an accompaniment to various programs on TV. This Tezeta album is the band’s second recording, released in 1975. Sourced by Awesome Tapes From Africa and expertly remastered by Jessica Thompson, its unique and funky renditions of standards and popular songs of the day are so quintessentially Walias, flavorful and evocative. Hailu’s melodic organ, unashamedly front and center in every track, makes even the complex pieces accessible. Profoundly engaging; it’s an immersive trip down memory lane for those of us getting reacquainted with it, while also an enthralling and gratifying experience for fresh ears. (text by Tessema Tadele)

The wait is over, Return To The 37th Chamber is El Michels Affair’s highly anticipated follow up to 2009's underground cult classic Enter the 37th Chamber. Churning out classic records since then for the likes of Lee Fields, The Arcs, The Shacks, and tons more, it is clear that EMA's signature sound is stronger & sharper than ever. This time, in addition to re-interpreting the Wu compositions for a live band, EMA pays homage to the production and sonic fog that makes a RZA beat so recognizable. Producer and bandleader Leon Michels recorded the album completely analog, sometimes hitting 6 generations of tape before it was ready for mixing, giving the Return to The 37th Chamber it’s own hazy sound. Adding to the unique fidelity, the record is laced with psychedelic flourishes, “John Carpenter” synths, heavy metal guitars, triumphant horns, and traditional Chinese instruments that make up for the lack of the Wu’s superlative vocals. From start to finish it’s a dark trip that walks the line between RZA’s timeless hip-hop aesthetic and the cinematic soul EMA has become known for. El Michels Affair tackles some classics like 4th Chamber and Wu Tang Aint Nuthin to Fuck Wit, as well as some deeper cuts like Ol Dirty Bastard’s Snakes, Raekwon’s Verbal Intercourse, and Shaolin Brew, Wu-Tang’s contribution to the St. Ide’s Hip Hop endorsement campaign from 1994. This time El Michels brings some of the Big Crown family along for the ride. Lee Fields handles vocal duties on Snakes and is joined by Shannon Wise of The Shacks for their version of Tearz, which pays as much homage to the Wendy Rene sample as it does to the Wu-Tang Clan. Lady Wray makes an appearance on the cover of Method Man’s hit, All I Need, lending her vocal prowess to what gave the Wu one of their biggest hits of all time. Interspersed throughout the record are some original interludes that are like the “rug that ties the room together,” giving Return To The 37th Chamber a cinematic narrative that makes it a proper El Michels Affair record and not just a collection of covers. The vinyl version of Return To The 37th Chamber is presented with 4 different hand painted covers. The originals were painted on two sewn together flour sacks in Accra, Ghana by Heavy J and Stoger, two artists who are legends in the Ghanaian Mobile Cinema scene and regular contributors to the Deadly Prey Gallery’s collection in Chicago. From the music to the presentation, this album is a perfect example of what can only be achieved through diversity. The end result is as much a kaleidoscope of influences and multiculturalism as the city it was recorded in. El Michels Affair is once again, “sounding out the city” that raised them, pulling elements of art and culture from across the country and around the globe to create an album truly unique in it’s own right.

Big Crown Records is proud to present the remastered vinyl reissue of the cult classic “Sounding Out The City” by El Michels Affair. Over 10 years ago, Leon Michels released his first full length record, Sounding Out The City. It was Michels’ first full length record under the moniker El Michels Affair. At the time, the budding retro soul scene consisted of mostly organ quartets a la The Meters and of course, Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings were in the early days of their ascent to world domination. Leon Michels, who was 18 when recording Sounding Out The City began, had just released Thunder Chicken, the first record by his high school band The Mighty Imperials. At the time of SOTC, Michels was just discovering early rocksteady, afrobeat, and 60’s garage rock, which inevitably crept its way into the songwriting. He purchased a Tascam 388, an 80’s 1/4″ reel to reel 8 track intended for home recordings, and began recording music in a 10×10 box with no windows that also doubled as his childhood bedroom. Along with fellow Mighty Imperials Nick Movshon, Homer Steinweiss, and Sean Solomon, and Michael Leonhart, Thomas Brenneck, and some of the musicians from The Dap Kings, Michels recorded the LP over a two year period. Upon it’s release, it received some rave reviews and the small deep funk community ate it up, but due to the lack luster promotion and distribution the rest of the world was slow to catch on to the instrumental gems featured on SOTC, which Michels appropriately labeled as “cinematic soul”. However, in 2005 it found it’s way into the hands of the people who were organizing a series of concerts for Scion that paired bands with MC’s. El Michels Affair was contacted about playing one show with Raekwon The Chef of Wu Tang Clan fame. The show was such a success it led to a tour, and then to another set of concerts that featured multiple members of the Wu-Tang Clan. This eventually led to the release of El Michels Affair’s second record, “Enter the 37th Chamber” which introduced them to a much larger audience and has been their most successful release to date. Michels has since gone on to produce and co-produce numerous records for powerhouse soul artists like Lee Fields. He shares songwriting credits with Adele, Jay-Z, Ghostface Killah, Aloe Blacc, and has played on records by Ray LaMontagne, Lana Del Rey, The Black Keys and Dr. John.

Big Crown Records is proud to present Adult Themes, the latest full length offering from El Michels Affair. This album takes the band’s “Cinematic Soul” aesthetic literally and sends the listener on a journey through a whirlwind of moods and energies. With their 2005 debut album Sounding Out The City, EMA spearheaded an instrumental funk / soul movement that inspired a slew of bands and even lead to the creation of a few independent record labels. El Michels has since lent his signature sound to artists from Adele to Dr John, Lana Del Rey to Aloe Blacc, and a who’s who list of others. In 2016 he co-founded Big Crown Records and has since produced the lion’s share of its output. A short stint as the touring band for Wu Tang Clan in 2007 led to the cult classics Enter The 37th Chamber (2009) and Return To The 37th Chamber (2017). Adult Themes marks the long awaited, highly anticipated return to an album of original compositions from El Michels Affair. In 2017 in between producing, playing, and recording on other artists’ records Leon Michels began creating compilations of short interludes intended to be sampled by hip hop producers. Some of these wound up becoming songs by Jay Z & Beyonce, Travis Scott, and Don Toliver. These minute-long snippets were inspired by the dense moody work of ‘60s composers like David Axelrod, and Francois de Roubaix, as well as Moondog’s brand of classical jazz. Michels was having so much fun creating these instrumental / orchestral nuggets that he decided to expand on some of the ideas and create what would become the soundtrack for a movie that has yet to be made, an imaginary film entitled “Adult Themes.” The album plays like the colors on an artists pallet. Songs like “Rubix” and “Villa” are densely orchestrated with the hard-hitting drums that El Michels Affair is known for. On “Life of Pablo”, Leon’s son makes his first appearance on record and intros a song with an epic arrangement and a moving mood. “Hipps” is a drum heavy ballad that could’ve easily fit on EMA’s debut record, Sounding Out the City. Other compositions like “The Difference” and “Kill The Lights” are bare, melodic mood pieces with sparse drums and sophisticated chord movement. All of these tunes come together to make perfect backgrounds for dialogue and action. One of the beautiful things about instrumental music is that the listener can decide what the narrative is. With Adult Themes El Michels Affair has created a “choose your own adventure” in musical form. クレジット

A longtime favorite at our shop, El Michels Affair—New York-based instrumental funk/soul band renowned for their unique “cinematic soul” sound and a flagship act of the esteemed Big Crown Records—returns with a brand new album, featuring none other than Shintaro Sakamoto as a guest! Rooted in funk and soul yet infused with a breezy, urban summer feel, this exquisite release blossoms into a light and airy indie pop-soul masterpiece. A refreshing soundscape full of timeless musical elegance, perfect for strolling through sun-drenched city streets.

Big Crown Records is proud to present Dave Guy’s debut album Ruby. Having lent his talents both on stage and in the studio to artists like Amy Winehouse, Lizzo, Pharrell, and Sharon Jones to currently playing every night on The Tonight Show as a member of The Roots, Dave steps out on his own with a jazz record that is both unique and modern. Ruby mixes his musical influences with the energies of the city that raised him, capturing different moods and inviting the listener into the world as Dave Guy sees and feels it. Recorded in Queens at The Legendary Diamond Mine, the album is produced by Homer Steinweiss and Nick Movshon and features musical contributions from Leon Michels, Marco Benevento, Claire Cottrill, and more. Ruby instantly sits with the classics as an album that is fully realized and not simply a collection of songs. Lead single “7th Heaven” opens the album with an anthemic energy as Dave’s horn lines soar over thundering drums, ethereal vocals, and dancing piano. Keeping the energy high, “Footwork” is a Latin inspired number that is sure to soundtrack many a dance floor from SoHo to Harlem. The synth intro of “Pinky Ring” cleanses your palate for the mood shift when the track drops. Deep bass tones underline the impeccable drumming and Dave effortlessly finds the pocket wasting no notes as the verses and choruses trade off. The record leans into spiritual jazz vibes on “Diamond Encore” with a dark and deep almost “Axelrodish” rhythm track then picks the energy back up with the stomper “Still Standing”. “Dave Wants You” has a bop all its own with an unorthodox drum pattern that Dave anchors with his trumpet hits. The otherworldly arrangement of “Drony Boy” puts the production on a pedestal. The first intro almost serves as an intermission on the album while the second intro sets up the neck snapping track that is about to drop. A menacing guitar signals the builds and the whole thing is juxtaposed by Dave’s beautiful trumpet riffs. “Quesodillas” & “Green Door” begin the autumn of the album with their mellow & intimate energy and “Ruby’s Rubies”, the album’s closer is the perfect ending to the journey.

Australia’s world-renowned cinematic soul outfit Surprise Chef return with new album Superb. A record that represents a change in their creative approach and turns up the heat in their music. Trading in their meticulous writing and recording techniques for a looser and less planned approach with the intentions of bringing more levity to the process, and it comes through in spades. The high caliber musicianship is still front and center, but they push their sound into a more energetic and fun place on this album.

Album opener “Sleep Dreams” is the closest thing to a Surprise Chef tune one would come to expect, but then lead single “Bully Ball” comes on and you get the picture that they came to kick in the door on this one. The song’s gritty drums thunder through the speakers and get covered with percussion, keys, bass, and guitar chanks that stay in the pocket and bring the funk with them. The band pushes the boundaries of arrangement with tunes like “Body Slam” that starts off like a sweet soul track then pulls a 180, turning dark and haunting, centering on a sound they created by tucking a timpani into a bathroom two doors down from the mixing board. That same sense of experimentation comes up again on “Fare Evader” where they pepper another neck breaking rhythm track with synth notes that sound like robot sound effects from a 70s sci-fi film. The fellas turn up the tempo for the dance with tunes like “Consulate Case” and “Tag Dag”; the former pulling influence from afro-funk and the latter from jazz-funk. They take us deep into the beautiful world of Surprise Chef ballads on “Websites” and double down on their abilities to make beautiful and ethereal tracks with “Dreamer’s Disease”.

With their new album Superb, their new approach, and plans to tour the world, we are about to see Surprise Chef take the step from the underground’s most beloved to a household name and we are definitely here for it. 

Big Crown Records is proud to present the sophomore full-length from Les Imprimés, Fading Forward. Spearheaded by self-taught multi-instrumentalist and producer Morten Martens, the album explores mortality, escapism, and a myriad of experiences associated with love.

Martens made a tremendous impression with his highly acclaimed 2023 debut Rêverie and has since cultivated a diehard fanbase whose demographics are as wide-ranging as the influences that shape his music. He mixes tones from ’60s and ’70s soul with arrangement nods to doo-wop records, takes drum energy from hip-hop, and covers the whole thing with vocal stylings drawn from ’90s and 2000s alternative. But it is Martens’ lyrics, emotion, and delivery that truly bring everything together and help him stand out from his peers. There’s an infectiousness and pop sensibility in the writing, executed with the utmost class and taste, giving Les Imprimés the rare quality of immediate attraction that only deepens with repeat listens.

Hailing from Kristiansand, Norway, Martens plays nearly every instrument on Fading Forward, produces and arranges the album, and of course sings. “It’s soul music, but I don’t exactly have the soul voice,” Morten explains humbly. “But I do it my own way, in a way that’s mine.”

Album opener “You & I” is Morten’s homage to his partner, who sticks it out “through the chaos and the blunders” with him. Punchy drums and cascading pianos make this one a proper two-stepper and an anthem for those lucky enough to find someone who understands them and helps them through the parts of life where they need it most. “Again & Again” slows the pace and deals with the heavier side of love and life, as Martens professes his resilience through the mishaps, heartbreak, and letdowns of love affairs gone wrong. “Untainted Love” brings the sweet side of new love center stage with a tune that plays on the title of the Gloria Jones classic. “Get Lost” leans into the metaphysical with an invitation to leave reality behind and spend time with Les Imprimés, where there’s room to dream. “Only Love” is built over a gritty drum break, with a chorus that is simple yet profound, and an arrangement that gives it the energy of a mantra. The album turns to the dancefloor on “With You,” an uptempo, uplifting tune about a fleeting encounter that leaves you pining for more. Martens longs for her, but joyfully—as if simply remembering that such a connection is possible is exactly what he needed. Martens is joined by guest vocalist Ama Li on “Miss the Days,” a slow-burning ballad that reckons back to simpler times when love felt easier. Fading Forward closes on a wholly somber note with “Paradise,” a tune that wishes freedom and peace to a friend who passed away.

In the small town of Kristiansand, Norway, there is a huge talent who spent much of his life laying low and playing in the background. Signing to New York’s Big Crown Records inspired Morten Martens to begin sharing his own music. The response to his debut Rêverie pushed him out of the studio and onto the stage, serving as inspiration to push his artistry to new heights—heights that are fully realized on Fading Forward.

El Michels Affair's limited edition 7-inch single Anticipate b/w Indifference features two tracks from their latest album 24 Hr Sports. With guest appearances by Clairo and Shintaro Sakamoto, the release blends vintage soul with a modern sensibility.

While we await their sophomore full-length, Di Hotel Malibu, Thee Marloes treat us to a show-stopping two-sider. The A-side, “Under the Silver Moon,” is a stone-cold two-stepper that captures both the bitter and the sweet of long-distance love, set against a breezy musical backdrop. The musicianship and production pull you in from the first snare hit, while frontwoman Natassya Sianturi’s honeyed vocals conjure vivid imagery through metaphor and prose. On the B-side, “Through the Changes” reveals the most tender side of the band’s sound. Both powerful and delicate, the song reflects on how we imagine - and grapple with - what comes after death. Natassya yearns for company and conversation with a love who has passed, at times recalling shared memories, at others questioning the act of continuing to speak to and think about them. Her delivery is so intimate it’s impossible not to feel every word, as the band provides the perfect, understated backing.