MUSIC

A sequel to last year's sublime 'Spectral Evolution', 'Traveling Light' is a suite of weightless, uncannily beautiful jazz standards, transformed into orchestral drones and electronic chirps by Toral and his virtual band. It's flawless material that draws a clear line from Billie Holiday through Clara Rockmore, Fripp & Eno and Alvin Lucier to MBV and Gastr del Sol and beyond. Unmissable gear, from one of the scene's unassailable legends. Culture never emerges from a vacuum. It accumulates and evolves, building on what occurred before and gleaning influence from what happened nearby; the more cultural threads converge, the more complex, nuanced and developed the resulting braids become. Toral acknowledged this fact quite brazenly on last year's 'Spectral Evolution', bringing over a decade of impenetrable off-world experimentation to a halt and shoving his bare hands into the creative soil that inspired iconic tomes like 1995's 'Loveless'-inspired masterpiece 'Wave Field' and the meditative Éliane Radigue-cum-Rhys Chatham 'Violence of Discovery And Calm of Acceptance'. Taking a dip in the pool of concepts that eddy underneath rock music's labyrinth of caverns, he referenced Duke Ellington and George Gershwin, turning vintage progressions into idiosyncratic contemporary gestures. And on 'Traveling Light' that basic theme is expanded again; here, Toral takes six recognizable early 20th century standards and applies a very similar treatment, augmenting them with additional "canonical jazz sounds" from clarinetist José Bruno Parrinha, tenor saxophonist Rodrigo Amado, flügelhorn player Yaw Tembe and flautist Clara Saleiro. Playing guitar and bass with his self-built ensemble of electronic devices (that includes a modified theremin), Toral lets his influences float even closer to the surface here, picking out familiar jazz and exotica flourishes, early electronic echoes and organ-esque polyphonic sustained tones that stretch across hundreds of years of musical history. On opener 'Easy Living', a Ralph Rainger composition from 1937 that's been recorded by Billie Holiday, Bill Evans and Rahsaan Roland Kirk, among others, the original chord sequence is slackened by Toral's sustained guitar tones and sine waves, but not blurred completely into impressions. This time around we're treated to more tangible shapes: Toral's cheeky, expertly rendered riffs, horizontal exotica-inspired rhythmelodic chimes, intimate woodwind breaths that pull us back to the '30s and squealing pitches that can't help but remind us of Clara Rockmore's Robert Moog-produced milestone 'The Art of the Theremin'. It feels like being chucked in the American cultural petri dish while new organisms mutate around you - everything's recognisable somehow but novel, peculiar. Lovingly valve saturated strums, bent by Toral's whammy, introduce 'Body and Soul' (a 1930 standard that's best known for being recorded by Frank Sinatra) before they're met by alien chirps from his arsenal of generators. But it's the willowy harmonies that buoy this one, echoing the haunted choral drones that prop up centuries of European sacred music. Toral's very specific with his references; when Amado's tenor moans whisper around the dense polyphonic hums, there's a tacit acknowledgement of the enduring influence of African American spirituals and gospel on folk, blues, jazz, country, rock 'n roll and R&B. The album's most affecting segment comes at the conclusion though, with 'My Funny Valentine' and 'God Bless the Child', easily two of the most conspicuous compositions of the era. On both, Toral hovers between clarity and abstraction, overlaying bone-dry fingerpicked improvisations on the former that scrape over Chicago's musical timeline, from "hot jazz" to post-rock, and finishing the album with Fennesz-like distortions that crack and dissolve into Saleiro's levitational flute tones. It's astonishing stuff, honestly - maybe not as immediately startling as 'Spectral Evolution', but refined, polished and concentrated in every way. You're unlikely to find a more moving set this year, that's for sure.

Antigone is a chilling look at our already-alternate reality, coming from inside Eiko Isibashi’s own head. Her band brings a wide array of sounds and moods, shading pop, funk and jazz, ambient, electronic and musique concrète in a bittersweet latticework. Interlocking her new songs in seamless long-play flow with the compositional ambitions of her acclaimed soundtrack work, Eiko’s expressions are epic and intimate. 2025 will never be the same!<iframe style="border: 0; width: 350px; height: 406px;" src="https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=507708664/size=large/bgcol=ffffff/linkcol=333333/artwork=none/transparent=true/" seamless><a href="https://eikoishibashi.bandcamp.com/album/antigone">Antigone by Eiko Ishibashi</a></iframe>

Harnessing the chaos born from endless jams in a remote, rented farmhouse, the album dives deeper into their punk approach to jazz, while opening up space for long-nurtured fascinations with electronic textures and cinematic oddities. Their third album, it features previous singles feely, and bamboo.

The title was pulled from a bank of favourite names after the band saw Ez’s artwork; a quirky world of three cell-like flats housing absurd creatures. 'frank dean and andrew' nods to the anonymous, everyday passersby whose lives quietly unfold in the background of a nondescript town.

Pulling back the curtain on its creation further, the band reveals, “The album was recorded at the end of a year of extreme highs and lows. The tensions play out in the music in weird ways... the feeling of the music is very particular, and peculiar. Most UK Jazz music can end up too arranged and neat, or generally optimistic in mood, whereas this album goes the other way in all aspects.”

At the album's core, the glitchy, late-night focus track red in tokyo features Chinese-Vietnamese-British rapper Jianbo, whose grimey, distorted flows cut through growling guitar riffs and a dragging, drill-like drum line. “It’s a weird, grimey anger with a touch of no-wave and post-punk,” the band explains, “Hari’s bass ended up sounding like a Japanese Koto”. The intensity is fitting, as Jianbo recounts a tense moment in Tokyo that left him “seeing red.”

Shifting through moods, the second track oscillates to life with a dubby bassline and bursts of distant, animalistic commotion, like a flock scattering after a disturbance. With unsettling keys and guitar, the instrumental upends the familiar contours of jazz and leaves a lingering unease as part of what the band calls the album’s “weird, off-key” side. Equally unexpected, the title, horticulturalists nightmare (birds), taps into the surreal fear lurking in the pulsing soundscape.

That freeform, borderless creativity carries into grilly, where the keys lay out the pace and mood. “The tempo and the ambience frame the track to be like a dance tune, but with a darkness from Burial-type ambiences and pulsing drill-style delays,” the band notes. As horn layers clear the haze, the jam’s raw energy and feeling come together as a transportive piece.

Taking a dip into the melancholic, toucan opens with a whir and solemn, ceremonial horns, underpinned by a mellow harmony that moves into far-off, choral-like overlays. Opening with a similarly dystopian eeriness is location, the band’s favourite. From the heavy slump of the drums to the three-piece horns of Dan, Akers, and Jonny, which counterpoint each other in a sea of reverb. The tune is named after a Playboi Carti song of the same name, inspired by the opening synth movement.

The title track, frank dean and andrew, flickers with a bittersweet nostalgia, capturing for Ebi Soda, a modern sense of indifference, a stay-at-home, it-is-what-it-is kind of resignation. It mirrors the mood of the figures on the album artwork: sitting alone in flats, suspended in quiet isolation. Lou’s chords, Hari’s chordal bass, and Sam’s laid-back tempo lay down a "loose, Midwest, emo undercurrent, a tone that runs deep in much of the hyperpop" the band had been absorbing. Will vocalises through the trombone, making it sound as though someone is singing down a crackling phone line. A flugelhorn overdub adds more warmth to the track’s slow-burning atmosphere, with trombone and sax joining the mix in the second half.

Closing the album is insectoid creatures are infesting the land, beginning as a dissonant, scattered hellscape of wailing improvisations, freewheeling robotic noise, and buckling delays that eventually rupture into a cinematic scape, giving way to an ascending sequence of hopeful, mood-settling melodies.

As a whole, the album’s character arises from stylising with production and mixing. The approach fluctuates between focusing on ambience and reverb, drawing from UK dubstep influences like Zomby, Burial, and Joe Armon-Jones’ collaborations with Maxwell Owin, and embracing the raw, grainy DIY ‘mixtape’ sound, inspired by artists like Athletic Progression, Yameii Online, and Playboi Carti.

Harnessing the chaos born from endless jams in a remote, rented farmhouse, the album dives deeper into their punk approach to jazz, while opening up space for long-nurtured fascinations with electronic textures and cinematic oddities. Their third album, it features previous singles feely, and bamboo.

The title was pulled from a bank of favourite names after the band saw Ez’s artwork; a quirky world of three cell-like flats housing absurd creatures. 'frank dean and andrew' nods to the anonymous, everyday passersby whose lives quietly unfold in the background of a nondescript town.

Pulling back the curtain on its creation further, the band reveals, “The album was recorded at the end of a year of extreme highs and lows. The tensions play out in the music in weird ways... the feeling of the music is very particular, and peculiar. Most UK Jazz music can end up too arranged and neat, or generally optimistic in mood, whereas this album goes the other way in all aspects.”

At the album's core, the glitchy, late-night focus track red in tokyo features Chinese-Vietnamese-British rapper Jianbo, whose grimey, distorted flows cut through growling guitar riffs and a dragging, drill-like drum line. “It’s a weird, grimey anger with a touch of no-wave and post-punk,” the band explains, “Hari’s bass ended up sounding like a Japanese Koto”. The intensity is fitting, as Jianbo recounts a tense moment in Tokyo that left him “seeing red.”

Shifting through moods, the second track oscillates to life with a dubby bassline and bursts of distant, animalistic commotion, like a flock scattering after a disturbance. With unsettling keys and guitar, the instrumental upends the familiar contours of jazz and leaves a lingering unease as part of what the band calls the album’s “weird, off-key” side. Equally unexpected, the title, horticulturalists nightmare (birds), taps into the surreal fear lurking in the pulsing soundscape.

That freeform, borderless creativity carries into grilly, where the keys lay out the pace and mood. “The tempo and the ambience frame the track to be like a dance tune, but with a darkness from Burial-type ambiences and pulsing drill-style delays,” the band notes. As horn layers clear the haze, the jam’s raw energy and feeling come together as a transportive piece.

Taking a dip into the melancholic, toucan opens with a whir and solemn, ceremonial horns, underpinned by a mellow harmony that moves into far-off, choral-like overlays. Opening with a similarly dystopian eeriness is location, the band’s favourite. From the heavy slump of the drums to the three-piece horns of Dan, Akers, and Jonny, which counterpoint each other in a sea of reverb. The tune is named after a Playboi Carti song of the same name, inspired by the opening synth movement.

The title track, frank dean and andrew, flickers with a bittersweet nostalgia, capturing for Ebi Soda, a modern sense of indifference, a stay-at-home, it-is-what-it-is kind of resignation. It mirrors the mood of the figures on the album artwork: sitting alone in flats, suspended in quiet isolation. Lou’s chords, Hari’s chordal bass, and Sam’s laid-back tempo lay down a "loose, Midwest, emo undercurrent, a tone that runs deep in much of the hyperpop" the band had been absorbing. Will vocalises through the trombone, making it sound as though someone is singing down a crackling phone line. A flugelhorn overdub adds more warmth to the track’s slow-burning atmosphere, with trombone and sax joining the mix in the second half.

Closing the album is insectoid creatures are infesting the land, beginning as a dissonant, scattered hellscape of wailing improvisations, freewheeling robotic noise, and buckling delays that eventually rupture into a cinematic scape, giving way to an ascending sequence of hopeful, mood-settling melodies.

As a whole, the album’s character arises from stylising with production and mixing. The approach fluctuates between focusing on ambience and reverb, drawing from UK dubstep influences like Zomby, Burial, and Joe Armon-Jones’ collaborations with Maxwell Owin, and embracing the raw, grainy DIY ‘mixtape’ sound, inspired by artists like Athletic Progression, Yameii Online, and Playboi Carti.

“No second-guessing, no overthinking. The way I want to live my life is by doing the things that are important to me, and I think everyone should live that way,” says Mei Semones of her strengthened self-assurance. Through continuously honing in on her signature fusion of indie rock, bossa nova, jazz and chamber pop in a way that highlights her technical prowess on guitar, the 24-year-old Brooklyn-based songwriter and guitarist is quickly establishing herself as an innovative musical force. Since the release of her acclaimed 2024 Kabutomushi EP, a series of lushly orchestrated reflections on love in its many stages, Mei has gone on to tour extensively across the US, cultivate a dedicated following, and write and record her highly anticipated debut album, Animaru. Inspired by the Japanese pronunciation of the word “animal” in Japanese, Animaru is the embodiment of Mei’s deeper trust in her instincts – a collection of musically impressive tracks that see Mei sounding more adventurous, more vulnerable and more confident than ever before.

Mei’s newfound assertiveness comes in part from her experiences in the past year, as 2024 was a transformative year for the Mei Semones band. They shared bills with the likes of Liana Flores, Elephant Gym and Kara Jackson, among others, and Mei transitioned to doing music full-time. Amidst the frequent touring, Mei and her five-piece band recorded the album in the summer of 2024 at Ashlawn Recording Company, a farm studio in Connecticut operated by their friend Charles Dahlke. To these sessions, she brought a batch of tracks that, not unlike Kabutomushi, are sophisticated declarations of non-romantic love: love of life (“Dumb Feeling”), love of family (“Zarigani”), love of music and her guitar (“Tora Moyo”). Animaru exemplifies Mei’s enchantingly wide range as a songwriter and musician, including some of the most challenging and most straightforward songs Mei has ever written.

Though her music might inherently evoke feelings of romance and softness, the crux of the album lies in Mei and her band’s skillful balance of tension and release. Often within individual tracks, there will be moments of pared-back acoustic guitar adorned by Mei’s infectious vocalizations that, in a moment’s notice, transform into orchestral swells of sweeping strings and complex guitar rhythms. Album opener “Dumb Feeling” is a prime example, a bossa/samba blend complete with indie rock sensibilities in the choruses as Mei details her contentment with her life in New York City. Mei actively seeks out musical challenges throughout Animaru, like on “I can do what I want,” the album’s most technically ambitious track. But she still manages to make the quickly cascading guitar harmonics and odd meters sound like a breeze to play, her breathy, lilting voice cutting through the track’s energetic dynamics. It epitomizes the album as a whole – she sings of doing things her own way, on her own terms, in hopes of inspiring others to make the same active switch in their own lives.

The simpler moments on Animaru are equally as captivating as when Mei is shredding on guitar or her bandmates are carrying out an intricate arrangement. “Donguri,” a stripped-down jazz duo performance between acoustic guitar and upright bass, is the simplest song Mei has ever written, brought to life by Mei sweetly chronicling (mostly in Japanese) what she imagines life would be like as a woodland creature living in the forest. The album’s penultimate track also encompasses themes relating to the titular “animaru.” Translating to “crayfish,” the bright, effervescent “Zarigani” is a nostalgic expression of love for her twin sister, with Mei singing “We’ll always have each other / I love you like my guitar / I love you like no other.” Family is one of the primary loves of Mei’s life, with her mom, Seiko Semones, making all of her album and single artwork. Despite Animaru being a statement of Mei’s autonomy and confidence at this point in her life, it's the various loves that she surrounds herself with – her family, her friends, her band, her music – that empower her to do things her own way. 

Mei Semones’ sweetly evocative blend of jazz, bossa nova and math-y indie rock is not only a way for her to find solace in her favorite genres, but is an intuitive means of catharsis. “Blending everything that I like together and trying to make something new – that's what feels most natural to me,” says the 23-year-old Brooklyn-based singer-songwriter and guitarist. “It’s what feels most true to who I am as an artist.” ‘Tsukino’, Mei’s debut, self-released EP, is being released physically for the first time ever on Bayonet Records! The EP will be released by itself on CD & Tape formats, and will be included in a vinyl pressing on the B-side of Semones’ landmark EP, ‘Kebutomushi’! Plinking guitar tones and asymmetrical time signatures exemplify Semones’ forays into angular indie rock more now than ever before. Originally from Ann Arbor, Michigan, Semones began playing music at a young age, starting out on piano at age four before moving to electric guitar at age eleven. After playing jazz guitar in high school, she went on to study guitar performance with a jazz focus at Berklee College of Music. College is where she met her current bandmates, including string players Noah Leong and Claudius Agrippa, whose respective viola and violin add softness and multidimensionality to Mei’s intricate guitar work. After releasing a slew of singles and an EP in 2022, coinciding with her move to New York City, Mei and her band have since gone on to collaborate with post-bossa balladeer John Roseboro and embark on their first-ever tour with the melodic rock outfit Raavi. Semones chronicles infatuation, devotion, and vulnerability in her songs, complete with sweeping strings, virtuosic guitar-playing and heartfelt lyrics sung in both English and Japanese, that have all become part of her sonic trademark: ornately catchy, genre-fusing compositions serving as the backdrop to tender lyrics touching on the universalities of human emotion.

The studio at 122 West Loveland Avenue was not an unfamiliar space for Steve Okonski, the leader of his eponymous trio Okonski. Ever since the Colemine label set up shop in Loveland, Ohio it has been a host to a number of groups passing through town, including Durand Jones and the Indications who all of this trio’s members have connections to. After setting aside some time in winter of 2020, Okonski, trained initially as a classical pianist, invited Michael Isvara “Ish” Montgomery and Aaron Frazer to work on an album that was initially planned to be beat driven and fully composed trio instrumentals. After finishing this first session with some improvisations, a second week was booked in the summer of 2021 to try and capture some more of that spontaneous energy. During this session, the tracks were all improvised and recorded live to a Tascam 388 during several late nights at the Colemine HQ. They were structured to allow the group’s collective intuition to fully shape the melodies and arcs of the music. The album opens with Runner Up, where a triumphant yet melancholic melody in the piano leads to a more reserved B-section driven by the drums and bass of Frazer and Montgomery. As you journey through the remainder of the album you are met with a plethora of evoked and explored emotions. The calmness one has walking down a moonlit street after midnight, the connection one has for a person who comes into their world for just a moment or a lifetime, and the nerves and catharsis one feels when starting upon a new, unknown journey. Magnolia closes with Sunday, a track that was recorded late into the night at the close of their first recording session. Without the spontaneity of Sunday, the remainder of Magnolia would likely have never come to fruition. Magnolia was composed from the heart and from the spirit of those in the studio those late nights in Loveland. It is the culmination of an emotional and artistic release that was not afforded or recognized before the band sat at their instruments, and because of that it is introspective, meditative, spiritual, and new.

Lindsay Olsen aka Salami Rose Joe Louis is a genre traveller multi-instrumentalist female producer and a signee to Flying Lotus's Brainfeeder label. She returns with her most personal album to date on April 25th, 2025.

Delightfully raw and heartfelt, ‘Lorings’ is a collection of songs that find SRJL displaying her vulnerability through a playful and sonically explorative lens. “I was hoping to bypass the distillation process of overthinking outside perception,” she says. “Each song feels like a significant section of my personality has been carved out and put on a platter for public consumption, which is a devastating thought [haha].”

This record she made almost entirely autonomously on her trusty Roland MV8800 workstation. For a couple of songs, SRJL invited a handful of exceptionally talented friends to collaborate: guitarist/producer Flanafi (with whom Olsen partnered for the collaborative album ‘Sarah’ in 2024); Omari Jazz (Black Decelerant); Luke Titus and Sergio Machado Plim.

Lead single “Inside” was born of a tumultuous chapter in Olsen’s life – one that she hopes never to repeat. Floating atop gently revolving Polybrute arpeggios, it’s a sombre but incredibly beautiful and powerful song. “My hope, by putting this song first on the record – and making it the first single – is that some of the songs that follow have more levity and hope, leaving this heaviness behind,” she surmises.

Elsewhere on ‘Lorings’, Olsen addresses themes of imposter syndrome, falling in love, heartbreak, the idea of family and parenthood, superficiality, her frustrations with the music industry (“I dunno the way… For I cannot play… The game”). She does revisit more familiar tropes too as exemplified by “Motorway (feat. Flanafi)”. “I feel like the world is being confronted with an enormous lack of humanity at the moment and it feels impossible to comprehend how people can be so cruel,” she declares. 

Elaenia is a dazzling score which puts Shepherd in the spotlight as a composer who has produced an album that bridges the gap between his rapturous dance music and formative classical roots that draws upon everything Shepherd has done to date. Growing up in Manchester - he started out as a chorister at an early age - Shepherd eventually arrived in London for university, where he spent the next five years engineering Elaenia, all the while DJing in cities across the globe and working towards his PhD in neuroscience. An album that draws inspiration from classical, jazz, electronic music, soul and even Brazilian popular music, Elaenia - named after the bird of the same name - is the epitome of the forward-thinking Floating Points vision in 2015.

Musically, the mesmerising ebbs and flows of Elaenia span moments of light and dark; rigidity and freedom; elegance and chaos. The lush, euphoric enlightenment of ‘Silhouettes (I, II & III)’ - a three-part composition that acts as a testament to those early days Shepherd spent playing in various ensembles, complete with an immensely tight rhythm section that ends up providing a cathartic, blissful release. Elsewhere, Shepherd’s knack for masterful late night sets bare fruition to the hypnotic, electronic pulse of ‘Argenté’, which leads into final track 'Peroration Six' - a track with one of the biggest tension-and-release moments in music this year.

Shepherd - the ensemblist, the producer and scientist - even built a harmonograph from scratch to create the artwork for Elaenia, the end result created by using it and 2 fibre optic cables of 0.5 and 1.5mm diameters, which were connected to light sources responding to bass drum and white noise percussive sounds from the album track ‘For Marmish’.

Like his contemporaries Caribou and Four Tet, Shepherd has nurtured the Floating Points name into one renowned for ambitious and forward-thinking DJ sets, having performed all over the world at events and clubs such as Output NYC, Trouw, Sonar, Unit in Tokyo, Panorama Bar and, of course, Nuits Sonores (which lent its name to his seminal track from summer 2014) as well as the much missed Plastic People, where he held a residency for five years. Elaenia also features a huge variety of contributors, including drums from Tom Skinner and Leo Taylor plus vocals from Rahel Debebe-Dessalegne, Layla Rutherford and Shepherd himself. Elsewhere there's Susumu Mukai taking up bass, Qian Wu and Edward Benton sporting violins, Matthew Kettle on the viola, Alex Reeve on guitar and Joe Zeitlin on the cello.

Indonesian duo KUNTARI make music that's so distinctive, they had to devise their own genre: primal-core. On 'MUTU BETON', multi-instrumentalist Tesla Manaf and percussionist Rio Abror dialog with both history and their tropical surroundings in Bandung, West Java's mountainous capital. Using the cornet and hulusi, a free reed instrument made from a bottle gourd and bamboo pipes, Manaf echoes the bellows of local elephants, orangutans and rhinos, grazing Abror's ancestral Indonesian rhythms with potent overdriven riffs and evocative microtonal chimes. It's music that's profoundly atmospheric and simultaneously raw, recorded live to fully encapsulate the dynamic and deeply human interaction between the two seasoned players. There are elements of sludge metal, noise and post-hardcore, references to traditional folk music and jazz, and gestures towards sound art, 20th century minimalism and dark ambient, but what KUNTARI do is completely idiosyncratic - it's hardly surprising it needed a similarly unique categorization.

Manaf started KUNTARI as a solo project, debuting in 2020 with 'Black Shirt Attracts More Feather' and animating his nimble instrumental improvisations with bold electronic processes and booming synthetic drums. And by the time he recorded 2022's acclaimed 'Last Boy Picked', his approach had evolved significantly; prioritizing organic sounds, he played prepared cornet and piano, bringing in additional percussionists to help devise a ritualistic rhythm section. Abror was one of those performers, and ended up sticking around, playing on 2023's furious 'LARYNX/STRIDULA', the stylistic precursor for 'MUTU BETON'. At this stage, the duo have racked up a litany of accolades and collaborated with a spectrum of like-minded artists, from noise deity Keiji Haino to fellow Indonesian free-thinker Rully Shabara, who's best known for his work with Senyawa and avant-garde supergroup OSMIUM. 'MUTU BETON' plays like a lap of honor, showcasing their most kinetic and most feral recordings to date.

On 'Parai', a two-part composition made for Singapore-based artist Priyageetha Dia's multimedia installation LAMENT H.E.A.T, KUNTARI surround loose, rattling polyrhythms with blood-curdling, animalistic calls and industrial strength chugs from Manaf's prepared guitar. The artwork honors indentured laborers forced to extract rubber in Southeast Asia, and KUNTARI's response is an incisive critique of colonialism, celebrating the region's ancient rhythmic forms and sharpening their edges as they barrel into the future. Upsetting the logic of academic American minimalism, KUNTARI disrupt winding Reichian xylophone, glockenspiel and marimba repetitions on 'Kerak Terusi', wielding swinging ceremonial thuds from Manaf's Rebana, a cow skin drum that often accompanies Indonesian Islamic rituals.

They confront local sonorities even more directly on 'Miamch', a commission the duo made for Yogyakarta's Festival Kebudayaan, dueling on saron, a single-octave metallophone, and a Javanese gamelan set, and don't just follow the expected path. The familiarity is soon replaced with eccentricity as eerie resonances and reverberations sweep across the rhythmelodic patterns. Rough-edged technoid patterns are bent into new shapes on the abrasive 'Paniscus', and on 'Bessing', KUNTARI do their best to recreate the singular atmosphere of a local trance ritual, interrupting howling spirit voices and jangling chimes with blackened, grindcore-inspired riffs. KUNTARI surpass even their own high standards with 'MUTU BETON', folding history and geography in on itself and suggesting a trailblazing Indonesian cultural movement that's not restricted by highbrow Western conventions. It's not just automation and technology that drives progression, it's interaction and observation. And there's nothing more primal, or revolutionary, than that.

International Anthem is proud to present 'Step on Step', a double LP collection of home recordings marking the de-facto eponymous debut album by enigmatic producer, arranger, and composer Charles Stepney (1931-1976). The music that makes up Step on Step was created by Stepney alone, in the basement of his home on the Southside of Chicago, sometime in the late 1960s and early 1970s, before his untimely death in 1976. A Chicago born and bred arranger, producer, multi-instrumentalist and songwriter, Stepney is known for his work with Earth, Wind & Fire, Deniece Williams, and Ramsey Lewis, and as a staff producer for Chess Records in the 1960s, where he was an essential creative force behind seminal recordings by Rotary Connection, Minnie Riperton, Marlena Shaw, Muddy Waters, Howlin Wolf, Terry Callier, The Dells, The Emotions, and many more. In the decades since his passing, the presence of his name in liner notes and on vinyl labels has become a seal of quality for record collectors, music historians, and aficionados, while his sound has been used by countless samplers in the hip-hop world including Kanye West, A Tribe Called Quest, The Fugees, MF Doom, and Madlib. But in comparison to the post-mortem renown of his sound, or the music he created and the artists he supported while he was alive, Stepney is a greatly underappreciated figure… a genius relegated to the shadows. One of the signature elements of his “baroque soul” sound is the epic, expansive, orchestral expression of his horn and string arrangements (in many cases brought to life by members of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra), as heard on Minnie Riperton’s “Les Fleurs,” or Marlena Shaw’s “California Soul,” or Terry Callier’s “What Color Is Love.” Hence making it even more special that his de-facto debut LP Step on Step, which sees its first wide release nearly five decades after his death, is a collection of stripped-down 4-track tape recordings featuring Stepney, alone, performing all instruments with minimal means. It is, as said by Chicago culture historian (and author of Step on Step liner notes) Ayana Contreras, “the uncut funk,” an unprecedented depiction of an imbued composer imagining and conceiving music (some of which would eventually become massive studio productions) in its primal state. Step on Step features 23 tracks, most of which are original compositions by Stepney that were never again recorded by him or any other artist. It also features prototypical, seedling-style demos of Stepney compositions for Earth, Wind & Fire, including “That’s The Way of The World,” “Imagination,” and “On Your Face,” as well as the original version of “Black Gold,” which would eventually be recorded by Rotary Connection (as “I Am The Black Gold of The Sun,” with lyrics by Richard Rudolph). And in addition to the wordless croons of Stepney original and early single “Daddy’s Diddies,” Stepney’s actual voice is heard on a couple occasions across the album, testing microphones and inputs on his tape machine. All of the otherwise unrecorded, previously unnamed original compositions contained on Step on Step were given their titles by Stepney’s daughters Eibur, Charlene, and Chanté Stepney, whose voices are also heard throughout the album, telling stories and sharing memories about their father. The Stepney Sisters, who produced this album over many years, have long been engaged in efforts to celebrate their father’s legacy and bring his work into brighter light. They’ve cherished the tape reels left behind by their father in the basement of their home, transferring the audio on multiple occasions, and originally compiling the recordings for an ultra-limited CD on their own DIY label (The Charles Stepney Masters) in the early 2010s. “We always talk about how we were trying to develop this and would go to different people and they would go ‘what is this raw stuff…’ It was just the first level of something that became something really great,” says Chanté. “To get this type of intimate look into an artist’s process is really unknown and unheard of… so I just really appreciate the opportunity to give this. I am very happy for my Dad that we’re able to share this with the world in this way, with this amount of respect.” This new double LP collection on International Anthem presents “a genuine, beautiful, deeply emotional and personal effort by three women to reconnect with their father and validate their own memories of his passion and brilliance,” says label co-founder Scott McNiece. And it’s a long-overdue fulfillment of Stepney’s unsatiated plan to release a solo album – which he once vowed to his daughters that he would do, and that he would name it: “Step on Step.”

Ben LaMar Gay’s de facto debut album, 'Downtown Castles Can Never Block The Sun', was our attempt to introduce the legendary Chicago composer / improviser / renaissance man to the rest of the world with a compilation of tracks from 7 albums he made over 7 years (though he hadn’t yet made the effort to actually release). The material showcases Gay’s penchant for genre-hopping – from Steve Reich-ian soundscape voyages to Don Cherry-esque polyrhythm treks to Jorge Ben-style vocal-and-string earworms – while keeping his singular musical voice in focus.

In the years since its release, this long OOP collection has become a touchstone, foreshadowing the breadth and scope of Gay’s output since. The songs-between-the-songs warped Soul Americana madness and beauty of 'Open Arms To Open Us', the unhinged long form freedom of 'Certain Reveries' – each fresh mode would defy expectation if without the context established by Downtown Castles. To quote our OG announcement of the album: “to call it ‘eclectic’ would only scratch the surface. This music is everything.”

The IA11 Edition of this LP comes with an IARC2025 obi strip plus a 4-page insert booklet featuring new (old) photos and new liner notes by musician (and longtime BLG friend/collaborator) Gira Dahnee.

Utopia is a tale of juxtaposition. On one hand, the music paints an idyllic and dynamic soundscape. Lead single "Højder" springs with bright, twinkling keys - part wurlitzer, part piano - balanced by a warm, sauntering bassline that has the feel of a tango. Others, like "Tusmørke" lean more into the jazz lane, a sultry nighttime tune sizzling with violins and dubbed out keys.

On the other hand, Utopia was by no means made under ideal circumstances. The duo battled constant technical difficulties - exploding reel-to-reel machines, a mixing board that constantly broke down - as if haunted by the malfunctioning gear. On top of that, Bremer was going through a divorce, which made recording a struggle at times.

Nonetheless, Utopia encapsulates what Bremer/McCoy do best: kaleidoscopic instrumental music, touching a multiverse of genre that evokes passion and promotes contemplation from the listener.

Ambarchi, Berthling and Werliin share a fascination with rhythm and the myriad of ways it can subdivide within the beat. Using aspects of jazz, world and experimental musics, each tune settles into a deep groove, digging itself via continuous minimal adjustments into an ever-deeper, eternal groove.

An utterly unique guitar/bass/drums triad: the guitar sounds like anything but a guitar; bass and drums simultaneously insistent and relaxed. Telephathic group-think opens a window to fresh fields of fusion: funk-jazz heads, polyrhythmic skeletons, ambient pastorals, post-kraut drones and shimmering soundtrack reveries. A music of sustained tension and deep atmosphere, marked by subtle, shifting dynamics playing out in an open sound field.

Quickly following on from last year's 'Ghosted II', the third Reichian kraut-jazz session from Oren Ambarchi and his long-time collaborators loosens the screws a little, inviting in Americana, dream pop and blues influences and zeroing in on the tiny details.

Ambarchi, bassist Johan Berthling and percussionist Andreas Werliin are familiar with each other at this stage to fully let rip. 'Ghosted III' is their third recorded set in four years, and although they're still led by the jazz-taught instincts that guided their subtle, minimalist-inspired folk-jazz-rock debut, they've unclenched their muscles and let rip this time around. There's a new-found, liberating slackness to opener (and lead single) 'Yek', where Ambarchi daubs his chiming guitar notes over Werliin's jerky rhythms and Berthling's unraveled bassline. Catching the desert dust at first, it hardens into a Tangerine Dream-cum-Philip Glass nu-new age shimmer before it comes to a close. And 'Do' pulls back the bluster even further, reducing Weliin's drums to a faint patter, and filling the gaps with Ambarchi's cosmic pad-like guitars. After the 'TNT'-era Tortoise in dub Leslie-powered euphoria of 'Seh', the trio get back into the groove with 'Chahar', pulling Ambarchi's fictile notes into an orbit of ratcheting drums and repeating bass plucks that concludes with a splatter of xenharmonic guitar tones.

They venture into Americana territory on the long, plodding 'Panj', padding the low end with Ambarchi's swirling organ-esque tones that transform into concertina-ing zaps, and the best is saved for last - 'Shesh' is a dream-pop/post-rock melter that's among the best tracks Ambarchi, Berthling and Werliin have recorded, falling somewhere between Labradford and Talk Talk. Gorgeous.

"Sametou Sawtan translates from the Arabic to “I Heard A Voice”. Spooky or spiritual, however one reads the phrase, it speaks to the ability of sound and language to cause pause, steal attention, and open us to the moment. Likewise, the music of SANAM blurs tender frenzies and fire-scorched ballads, collapsing free-flowing rock and jazz frameworks into deeply rooted Arabic tradition. To hear them in full flight is to be held in the present and reorientated towards an open horizon.

The record processes feelings of distance and dislocation. Whether in the yearning ballad “Goblin” or the slow-burning, autotune-doused freakout of “Habibon”, Sametou Sawtan captures the striving for stable ground in a world seldom capable of offering it. It rides the mesmerizing intensity of the SANAM live experience while affording their music nuance, depth, and tremendous dynamic range.

Like their debut, lyrics for many tracks are borrowed, words placed into new contexts to process the present. “Hamam” reinterprets an Egyptian folk song. In “Hadikat Al Ams”, the cracked hard-rock stomp propels text by contemporary Lebanese writer Paul Shaoul. And both “Sayl Damei” and the title track use poems by twelfth century Iranian poet and groundbreaking mathematician Omar Khayyam."

Sam Gendel and Antonia Cytrynowicz didn’t set out to make a record – it just happened. LIVE A LITTLE, a collection of songs resulting from one late summer afternoon in Gendel’s Los Angeles home, is less an album and more a moment. The ten tracks here were recorded mostly in one sitting, fully improvised, in the order in which they appear. It was the first and last time the songs have been played – a snapshot of an idea, an artifact of inspiration, at once both a beginning and an end. At the time of recording, Cytrynowicz was only eleven years old. The younger sister of Gendel’s significant other and creative partner Marcella, Cytrynowicz is an artist in her own way. She has no formal musical training, but is the product of a creative family and is someone who makes art the way many kids do – in the purest way, simply because they are moved to. On LIVE A LITTLE, she spontaneously crafted all the melodies and lyrics on the spot as Gendel played alongside her. Cytrynowicz’s musicality is sophisticated, strange, and other-worldly, and the resulting record is experimental jazz colliding with some sort of fantasy universe. Because of that, LIVE A LITTLE is a stand-out amidst Gendel’s extensive and varied catalog. Over the years, the multi-instrumentalist has been known for his prolific musical output as both a sought-after collaborator and as a solo artist. During 2021 alone he collaborated with Vampire Weekend, Maggie Rogers, Moses Sumney, Laurie Anderson, and Mach Hommy, as well as released Notes With Attachments with Blake Mills & legendary bassist Pino Palladino. In the same year he also released the 52-track Fresh Bread, as well as the follow-up to the acclaimed Music for Saxophone & Bass Guitar with Sam Wilkes. Then Mouthfeel / Serene, AE-30, Valley Fever Original Score, and singles “Isfahan” and “Neon Blue.” LIVE A LITTLE, though, exists on its own island. For one, the majority of Gendel’s work under his own name skews instrumental, but here the playfulness of his saxophone and nylon-string guitar work alongside the twinkle of Cytrynowicz’s voice. It’s the sound of unapologetic imagination running amok – and really, more than anything, the sound of having fun. Cytrynowicz is the ideal collaborator for Gendel, who throughout his career has remained largely unconcerned with the pageantry and presentation of the music business, instead focused solely on the music-making itself. Here, he found the purest sort of writing partner – he admires Cytrynowicz’ “supreme openness,” explaining: “Whatever is happening, she’s there with you. We really meet right where we are. She’s all ears, I’m all ears. I don’t even know how to explain what it is. It just works out somehow.” Gendel remembers first being impressed by her musicality one day while they were gathered in the backyard at her family’s home; she improvised a strange and fully-formed little composition. The melody struck Gendel - he pulled out his iPhone and had her sing into it, then later orchestrated an ornate, fully fleshed out world around the voice memo. It came easily and simply. The subsequent LIVE A LITTLE session unfolded naturally, too – no discussion, no plan, no ambition – just “let it rip.” They started when it felt right and ended when it felt finished, once the flow of ideas dissipated. Then they put it away without discussion and moved on to the next activity. For a week afterward, Gendel tinkered with the live recording, adding a part or three on top of the initial session, sculpting it into its final product; a moment of raw creativity condensed into a polished little stone. Then he brought it back to Cytrynowicz, who hadn’t heard it since that summer afternoon, and was floored by hearing what they had created. LIVE A LITTLE is a series of “what ifs” cascading into one another, off-kilter and experimental, a kaleidoscope of spontaneity and imagination. It’s a sweet distillation of the musical present, of daring to follow through on an impulse – what happens when a project is helmed by someone who doesn’t have time for second thoughts or self-doubt. “That’s why she and I can make music I think, because I don’t think I ever deviated from that approach - or at least, I hope I didn’t,” Gendel says. “I really think that’s the best way that works for me musically – that ‘no mind’ sort of thing.” And here they both decisively follow that intuition, chronicling the way an idea blossoms and moves through you. The moment is the thing, and LIVE A LITTLE just happens to capture it.

Where everything Numero begins. Three guys in a purple Saturn station wagon drove down to Columbus, Ohio, and came back to Chicago with a lost label—the rest is history. In the early ’70s, Bill Moss’ Capsoul imprint could barely break wind in the larger music marketplace, and yet today the label’s output can stand shoulder-to-shoulder with any classic soul of its era. Isolated in central Ohio and lacking the funds to back them, groups like the Four Mints and Johnson, Hawkins, Tatum & Durr might’ve easily withstood ten rounds against the Temptations, Smokey, or Otis. The scrappy Capsoul writing team of Dean Francis, Jeff Smith, and Norman Whiteside would’ve gone blow-for-hook-filled-blow with any Gamble & Huff or Holland/Dozier/Holland cared to throw at them. From Bill Moss’ civil rights meditation “Sock It To ‘Em Soul Brother” to Marion Black’s future hit about the future “Who Knows” to Kool Blues bounding “I’m Gonna Keep on Loving You,” Eccentric Soul: The Capsoul Label remains dollar-for-dollar the best soul compilation of its century and the perfect primer for anyone piqued by the Eccentric Soul series.

Originally released in 1973, Dzyan’s second album "Time Machine" marked a shift from vocal prog-rock to a unique blend of jazz, ethnic, and acid-rock influences. Showcasing virtuosic musicianship, it stands as a pioneering work in German rock, ahead of its time. Originally released in 1973 on famous German label Bacillus, Dzyan’s 2nd album “Time Machine” showed a “new” Dzyan line-up consisting of guitar player Eddy Marron (also playing a lot of other string instruments), bass genius, band founder and “mastermind” Reinhard Karwatky and drummer Peter Giger. Produced by Peter Hauke and recorded and mixed by great engineer Dieter Dierks the trio performed on Time Machine a new sound mutating away from vocal-prog-rock of the first album to explore further jazz and ethnic tonalities with far more space-out and exotic improvisations to an unusual hybrid of acid-rock with serious jazz chops approaching “Mahavishnuland”. Time Machine offers virtuous and unorthodox musicianship with a high and very own esthetic quality. Existing in a no-man’s land between jazz and rock, and as a pre-cursor to the post-rock crowd of the ‘90s, Time Machine was well ahead of its time. A highlight in German rock history.

King of the house swingers (and shufflers, jackers, buckers) kicks off his bloodlines whitelabel series with two long sides of sweaty jams that act as a counterpart of sorts to that recent BLOOD LIVE tape, sniping groove-riding killers for the canny DJs.

The near half hour session portrays MJB deep in the flow in a way that seamlessly elides and blurs distinctions of his signature, jazz-taught and tracky studio and DJ tekkerz with mesmerising finesse.

Side A is a real killer, chopping out 15 minutes in transitional flux between multiple elements and nailing the in-the-blend, 3rd track effect as it snakes from salsoul hustle to a purring Motor City mode and riff-riding Prescription vibes.

Side B yokes back to big-boned, pendulous and tracky business glazed with glyding keys and pumping bass echoing Norm Talley, and switching up half way to a ruggeder offbeat tipping a cap at Theo.

オリジナルは10万円以上で取引される事もある骨董的な希少盤！Wolfgang Daunerの某作に負けず劣らず凄いジャケをしています。Eberhard WeberやWolfgang Daunerといった実に豪華な面々を起用したJoki Freund Sextetが1964年に〈CBS〉に残した欧州コンテンポラリー・ジャズ/ポスト・バップの幻の名盤『Yogi Jazz』が〈Tiger Bay〉よりアナログ・リイシュー。Eberhard WeberとKarl Theodor Geierをベースに、Peter Baumeisterをドラムに、Wolfgang Daunerをピアノに迎え、1963年11月20日にフランクフルトで録音された、欧州ジャズ作品でも人気の高い一枚にして長く失われていた金字塔的名作！

Sonor Music Editions proudly presents this restored issue of Maestro Sandro Brugnolini's Overground. This elusive masterpiece in library music captures the most impressive work, alongside Underground (1970), of the Italian composer and alto sax player.

Sandro Brugnolini was a prominent member of the Modern Jazz Gang, a famous Italian jazz group, during the 1950s and 60s, which also included Amedeo Tommasi, Cicci Santucci, and Enzo Scoppa. The group was active from 1956 to 1965 and produced some remarkable albums such as Miles Before And After (1960) and the original soundtrack from Gli Arcangeli (1962), which featured the renowned American jazz singer, Helen Merrill. Subsequently, he recorded many of the genre's most iconic releases, including Feelings (1974), albeit uncredited, and ventured into Psychedelic Lounge Funk and Progressive Jazz Beat tunes.

Overground was released on Sincro Edizioni Musicali in 1970 as the soundtrack to Enrico Moscatelli and Mario Rigoni's documentary Persuasione, commissioned by Ente Provinciale Per Il Turismo Di Trento, a local tourism board in Italy, with music composed by Sandro Brugnolini and Luigi Malatesta featuring some of the best musicians in Italy at the time like Angelo Baroncini and Silvano Chimenti on guitars, Giorgio Carnini on piano and organ, Enzo Restuccia on drums, and Giovanni Tommaso on bass and effects. The music spans from underground Psychedelic Prog. Rock with swirling organs, trippy effects, and distorted fuzz guitars to sophisticated Lounge grooves with Avant-garde orchestrations.

The music has been transferred and remastered from the original master tapes. It has been lacquer cut in stereo by Jukka Sarapää at Timmion Cutting and packed in a thick cardboard sleeve featuring a fully restored painting by Umberto Mastroianni licensed by Centro Studi dell’Opera di Umberto Mastroianni.

Internationally acclaimed harpist Alina Bzhezhinska and Ibiza-based producer Tulshi announce their collaborative album ‘Whispers of Rain’

The album delves into the architecture of memory and human emotion, using rain as a central metaphor for life’s cycles: the cleansing of loss, the blossoming of renewal and the profound inner strength cultivated in moments of serene introspection. To celebrate the release, Alina will be hosting a listening party at Brilliant Corners, London on Monday 23rd June, followed by an album launch show at The Vortex, London on Monday 7th July. The live performance will feature Tulshi, Tony Kofi & Ni Maxine.

With album singles “Whispers of Rain” and “Across the Sea”, this LP expands on the pair’s seamless fusion of organic and electronic elements. Alina’s expressive harp, deeply rooted in jazz and classical traditions intertwines with Tulshi’s inventive production, drawing from ambient deep tech and dub-inflected electronica.

“Journey Home”, is a poignant meditation on closure and self-discovery. It mirrors the arc of the album, bringing the listener full circle, both thematically and sonically. Reflective and expansive, the track captures the emotional weight of returning to a place that has changed, while questioning if home is truly a destination or a state of being.

Born from a shared creative vision on the tranquil side of Ibiza, ‘Whispers of Rain’ was shaped by the island's natural beauty and a deep connection to the life that surrounds us. After years of travel, both Alina and Tulshi found inspiration here, turning movement into stillness. In 2022 Alina and Tulshi were introduced by a mutual friend, their first session was entirely unplanned, an afternoon of spontaneous improvisation in Tulshi’s home studio in Ibiza. “It was a beautiful sunny day and my three-year-old was playing outside while Alina and I jammed inside,” Tulshi recalls. “Her harp was running through granular effects and large reverbs and the result was “Child’s Play”, you can even hear the children’s voices in the background if you listen closely.”

That improvisational energy became the foundation of the album. Tulshi initially experimented with house beats but ultimately stripped everything back to allow Alina’s harp to lead the way. “I always say as a producer, you have to sit back and let the music tell you what it wants to be,” he explains. Alina adds, “I loved the way Tulshi felt the music, we instantly had a strong creative connection. Our collaboration was built on trust, we each understood how to complement the other’s sound without overpowering it.” Their process was supple, allowing the compositions to evolve organically into a body of work that feels deeply personal, yet universally resonant.

The album’s narrative deepens with tracks like “Nomad’s Nocturne” which introduces darker, restless energy, reflecting themes of displacement and the uncertainty of movement, with Alina’s bold harp clusters and Tulshi’s live tabla guiding the piece. “Whispers of Rain” emerged from a moment of sunlit rain in Ibiza, where Alina and Tulshi found themselves in a state of pure flow, translating the rhythm of falling droplets into sound. “Warm Days, Cold Nights” juxtaposes earthy folk and blues tones with a brooding synth pad, expressing the emotional contrasts of a traveller’s path; “Starling” dissolves the boundaries between harp and synth, creating a soaring, immersive soundscape; “Across the Sea” explores the bittersweet experience of finding a new home while feeling the pull of what’s been left behind. Tulshi’s glitch-infused production mimics the fizz and crackle beneath ocean waves, as Alina’s fluid glissandi mirrors the movement of the tide.