MUSIC

Latency presents R&B outsider Zsela who joins forces with Daniel Aged (Frank Ocean, Kelela) and film composer Taul Katz on 4 Dreams, a billowing ambient-neoclassical hallucination originally commissioned for the exhibition Seven Heavenly Senses at Hôtel de la Marine, Paris. 4 Dreams consists of four tracks that each unfold as embracive harmonies of cinematic strings, FM synths, muggy bass drones, and Zsela’s soulful vocals. Even though 4 Dreams moves in a different direction than the debut Big For You (Mexican Summer, 2024), the inspiration of soul, jazz and R&B still shines through on the album, as Zsela’s humming vocals, with its jazz-inspired key changes, keep you intrigued. For this release, alongside critically acclaimed producer Daniel Aged and composer Taul Katz, Zsela steps confidently into the field of instrumental composition. This exploration of instrumental and ambient composition can be seen as a continuation of themes previously explored in her collaborations with UK-based artist Actress on the songs 'Angel’s Pharmacy' and 'Remembrance' from the album Karma & Desire (Ninja Tune, 2020). 4 Dreams bears the same atmospheric neo-classical attributes as recent releases by Nala Sinephro, Malibu, Mary Lattimore, and even draws on the legacy of spiritual jazz legends such as Alice Coltrane and Dorothy Ashby. The cover art is a detail of a painting by American visual artist Naudline Pierre, whose practice revolves around appropriating iconography from art history to create her own mythology and dreamlike narratives.

Primordial Mind forms the mysteries and intensity of inner life into eight mandalic instrumentals where Mas Aya and Khôra, artists who share 15 years of music making, orchestrate an inspired, prismatic palette of percussive and melodic sources. Each composition presented stages a vigorous meshwork of colours and textures, contrasting riveting polyrhythms with towering arrangements for flutes, synths, and processed acoustic instruments. Tendencies which the artists trace in their solo practices are amplified, blended, and refracted sublimely in unison, serving as energetic portals to collective awareness. Combining trans-ethnic scaling alongside a heady brew of rhythmic influences and advanced electronic processing, the recordings on this album operate with a tactility that vaults between free jazz, dub, raga, ambient, and ritual music. Assimilated powers of primal drum patterning and psychoactive, ceremonial melodies, invoke fourth world adjacencies with the work of Don Cherry, Jon Hassell, Popol Vuh et al. There is an alchemical, Buddhist/Taoist/Hindu inflection that guides the record’s narrative, formed through dialogue between the artists over lifelong shared interest in spiritual modalities generally and the tantric approaches of the global east in particular. The album title is derived from an unexcelled esoteric work known as the Kalachakra (Wheel of Time or Time Cycles) Tantra and its associated commentary the Ornament of Stainless Light which detail forms of inner and outer transubstantiation within its complex cosmology and metaphysiology. Mas Aya is the moniker of Brandon Miguel Valdivia, acclaimed Nicaraguan-Canadian composer, producer, and musician whose electronic and jazz inspired works creatively interlace Colombian, Cuban, and a wide array of traditional music. Khôra is the name of the occult entity that uses multi-instrumentalist, producer, and writer Matthew Ramolo to pronounce itself. Returning to Marionette following 2024's monumental Gestures of Perception, Primordial Mind reinforces the rigorous and magical approach to creation which defines Khôra’s two decades of sonic output. Brandon and Matthew met back in 2011 and the pair toured around eastern Europe with Toronto band Picastro in 2013, also performing as a duo with Brandon contributing drums to Khôra's opening sets. After a short spate composing and playing in the ensemble Bespoken together, they continued to discover shared inspiration in psych/art rock, jazz, experimental and electronic music, providing a fertile soil for friendship and collaboration resulting in their collaged, field-recorded album Tangled Roots in 2017. Mythic and talismanic, the duo's Marionette debut weaves a luminous tapestry of organic pulses, offering itself as a support for resonant meditation and a motor for lucid action and intuition.

Never released outside South Africa since its original release in 1974, Outernational Sounds presents one of the most sought-after international jazz exclusives ever to appear on South Africa's famous Gallo imprint: the funky, spiritual and outward bound Habiba. Limited, fully licensed vinyl reissue of a lost modal classic by renowned pianist Kirk Lightsey and Black Jazz stalwart Rudolph Johnson. As the archives of South Africa's premier record labels steadily give up the treasures that were hidden in the darkness of the apartheid era, the incredible heritage of South African jazz is gradually finding an international audience. And while most of the laurels are naturally for South Africa's own overlooked musicians, the South African discography contains a few sparkling, nearly unknown jazz sessions by visiting players. Habiba is the greatest of them -- a raw, impassioned set led by bop pianist Kirk Lightsey, who had been a regular sideman for Chet Baker and Sonny Stitt, and saxophonist Rudolph Johnson, a key player at the storied West Coast indie Black Jazz. Visits to the apartheid state by respected Black musicians were hardly a common occurrence during apartheid's darkest years -- so how did a crew of crack American jazz players end up in the Gallo studios? The story starts with the now almost forgotten crooner, Lovelace Watkins. Sometimes billed as "the Black Sinatra", the Detroit-born Watkins sang standards, show tunes and ballroom classics on the Las Vegas circuit. In his 1970s heyday he was a huge star in the UK and in southern Africa, where he toured regularly. In 1974 he hired a jazz big band to accompany him on a tour of South Africa -- and among their number were Lightsey and Johnson, as well as Mastersounds bassist Monk Montgomery, West Coast trombonist Al Hall Jr., and Marshall Royal, musical director of the Count Basie band. The tour was a huge success, and during downtime from performing, members of Watkin's group independently record no fewer than three albums. Two of these LPs appeared on the IRC label, billed as the Mallory-Hall Band -- the third, on the more prestigious Gallo, was Habiba. Three tracks deep, the album is a heavy-duty excursion into post-Coltrane spiritual modernism, ranging from the modal, cerebral intensity of the side-long title track "Habiba", to the downhome breakbeat groove of "There It Is", and the dark glitter of minor key waltz "Fresh Air". Long one of the most desired global jazz LPs, and never before available outside South Africa, Habiba is a forgotten masterpiece of its era.

アルバムについて Strut Records proudly presents the first definitive expanded reissue of Somewhere Over The Rainbow, Sun Ra’s 1977 session recorded at the Bluebird in Bloomington, Indiana, presented across three Vinyl LPs or as a two CD set. The Arkestra were at the peak of their powers in 1977, releasing revered albums like The Soul Vibration Of Man and My Favorite Things with Arkestra regulars Marshall Allen, Danny Ray Thompson, Michael Ray and Luqman Ali among the core musicians. Ra also continued his touring in Europe with historic gigs in Italy. During this period, Arkestra live performances were often loosely structured into thematic blocks that moved from reflections on jazz history to cosmic “space narrative” sections featuring collective chants, extended Africa/Egypt-inspired grooves and selections from the Great American Songbook. This recording brings in all of these features with re imagined versions of standards like ‘Take The “A” Train’, ‘St. Louis Blues’ and title track ‘Over The Rainbow’ alongside rarely recorded Ra compositions like ‘Make Another Mistake’ and ‘Amen Meni Many Amens’. Ra conducted improvisations to guide the listener seamlessly from one musical scene to the next. As Sun Ra himself described it: “It’s like a party—we enjoy ourselves and everybody’s invited to enjoy it with us.” The original version of Somewhere Over the Rainbow assembled a handful of clearly delineated tracks drawn from the flow of two complete concert recordings, re-arranged out of sequence. Strut’s new edition restores previously excised material and preserves more of the natural transitions between pieces, offering a fuller glimpse into the distinctive aesthetic of Sun Ra and his Arkestra. This definitive reissue is pressed across two CDs, or three vinyl LPs housed in a triple gatefold sleeve, newly remastered by Technology Works from the original source tapes and features extensive new liner notes by Chris Cutler alongside video stills from the original concert.

"Remnants" is an album marked by the ambiguity of presence and absence. The pieces, recorded using minimal equipment in what Suzuki describes as a ritual-like atmosphere, began as a way of processing the loss of her father in 2019. But beyond this, they also come to speak to the ways in which loss changes our relationship with someone, and our experiences of the world. Indeed, the experience of loss is not marked merely by a single event, but is instead a process that unfolds over time. Despite the other's absence, a particular location, the smell of a certain brand of tobacco, a look on a friend's face - traces such as these are enough to bring about a renewed presence. It is through these subtle traces and remnants, encountered over time, that we come to understand loss as not only the acceptance of absence, but the recognition of a continued presence. As Suzuki says, "this is not a solo album." Its creation was instead shaped by an ongoing dialogue, the continued elaboration of a complex and ambivalent relationship. At once melancholic, warm, and embracing, it is this ambiguity, these subtle traces, that Suzuki’s compositions speak to. These are not merely the sounds of mourning, but instead have been shaped by the evolving dialectic of presence and absence into something far more subtle and haunting. (Zefan Sramek, 2026)

Based in the North of England. Ancient Infinity Orchestra is a joyous large ensemble that has communal music-making at the heart of everything they do. And that includes the melodies that flow out of their new album It’s Always About Love which blossom with uplifting improvised contributions that circle around bandleader Ozzy Moysey’s beautiful compositions; generous sonic gifts of healing and repair.

The 15-member Spiritual Jazz ensemble has a distinctive line-up: two double basses, harp, saxophones, clarinets, violin, viola, cello, oboe, flutes, mandolin, congas, piano, drum kit, with bells, shakers and other percussion instruments scattered on the floor of live sets and recording sessions, ready for members to use whenever the spirit takes them. This orchestration, and the overlap between membership and friendship, gives Ancient Infinity Orchestra a sound that is at once expansive and intimate, earthy, and cosmic, constantly shifting yet grounded in shared intention.

Ancient Infinity Orchestra can be described as melody-driven improvised music, made by people who are deep into different types of traditional music, including folk, jazz and classical. “The tunes are a vessel,” he says, “with everyone doing their thing. It exists so that my friends can be musically fulfilled.”

“There is a need for love and connectedness. You pour the love you have into the music and people listening can feel it”

Matthew Halsall unveils new band and announces ‘Salute to the Sun’ his new album on Gondwana Records Composer, trumpeter, producer, DJ and founder of Gondwana Records, Matthew Halsall has always worn many hats. But at the heart of everything that he does Halsall is first and foremost an artist and a musician. A trumpeter whose unflashy, soulful playing radiates a thoughtful beauty and a composer and band-leader who has created his own rich sound world. A sound that draws on the heritage of British jazz, the spiritual jazz of Alice Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders, as well as world music and electronica influences, and even modern art and architecture, to create something uniquely his own. A music that is rooted in Northern England but draws on global inspirations. Salute to the Sun is his first album as a leader since Into Forever (2015) and marks the debut of his new band. A hand-picked ensemble featuring some of Manchester’s finest young musicians: Matt Cliffe flute & saxophone, Maddie Herbert harp, Liviu Gheorghe piano, Alan Taylor drums and Jack McCarthy percussion as well as long-time Halsall collaborator, bassist, Gavin Barras who has been at the heart of Halsall’s bands for over a decade. For Matthew it was important to have a band based locally and able, pre-Covid, to meet and play each week, and who also performed a sold-out monthly basement session at Yes in Manchester. The album draws energy from these sessions and inspiration from themes and ideas that have inspired Halsall through the years (on albums such as Oneness, Fletcher Moss Park and When the World Was One) ideas of ecology, the environment and harmony with nature. “I feel Salute to the Sun is a positive earthy album. I wanted to create something playful but also quite primitive, earthy and organic that connected to the sounds in nature. I was listening to lush ambient field recordings of tropical environments such as jungles and rainforests and found myself drawn to percussive atmospheric sounds which replicated what I was hearing (bells / shakers / chimes / rain sticks) and I started to experiment with more wooden percussive instruments such as kalimba and marimba”. Salute to the Sun features lush wholly improvised tunes inspired by ambient rainforest and jungle field recordings, deeply soulful tunes built around hypnotic harp and kalimba patterns, deep Strata-East inspired spiritual jazz grooves and some of Halsall’s most beautiful playing and inspiring healing melodies yet recorded. The album was recorded at the band’s weekly sessions, using Halsall’s own recording set-up, giving the recordings a relaxed vibe and unforced energy that really lets the music breath. The album is also very much a family affair as Halsall’s brother Daniel Halsall, artistic director of Gondwana Records, was an important presence at the sessions and co-produced the album. It is also his memorable artwork that adorns the cover of Salute to the Sun, an album beautifully designed by legendary designer Ian Anderson of The Designers Republic, who also created the covers for the recent archival releases Oneness, Sending My Love and Colour Yes and is one of Halsall’s favourite designers. Together Daniel Halsall and Ian Anderson have designed all of Matthew’s seven albums to date, so it felt extra-special to bring them together for, Salute to the Sun, an album that Halsall was determined to present in the very best way possible. The album was mixed with another long-time collaborator, George Atkins at 80 Hertz in Manchester, who works tirelessly with Halsall to perfect the sound and was mastered by noted engineer Peter Beckmann who brings an added depth to the sound specially around the bass notes as well as Halsall’s trumpet. The magnificent double vinyl was cut as a Half Speed master by Barry Grint at Alchemy Mastering for the best possible analogue experience. The result is arguably Halsall’s most beautiful and complete recording to date, playful, charming and imbued with the warmth of the sun and the energy of life.

Alice Coltrane Turiyasangitananda’s devotion to spirituality was the central purpose of the final four decades of her life, an often-overlooked awakening that largely took shape during her four-year marriage to John Coltrane and after his 1967 death. By 1983, Alice had established the 48-acre Sai Anantam Ashram outside of Los Angeles. She quietly began recording music from the ashram, releasing it within her spiritual community in the form of private press cassette tapes. On May 5, Luaka Bop will release the first-ever compilation of recordings from this period, making these songs available to the wider public for the first time. Entitled ‘World Spirituality Classics, Volume 1: The Ecstatic Music of Alice Coltrane Turiyasangitananda,’ the release is the first installment in a planned series of spiritual music from around the globe; curated, compiled and distributed by Luaka Bop.
This powerful, largely unheard body of work finds Alice singing for the first time in her recorded catalog, which dates back to 1963 and includes appearances on six John Coltrane albums, alongside Charlie Haden and McCoy Tyner, and 14 albums as bandleader starting with her Impulse! debut in 1967 with ‘A Monastic Trio.’ The songs featured on the Luaka Bop release have been culled from the four cassettes that Alice recorded and released between 1982 and 1995: ‘Turiya Sings,’ ‘Divine Songs,’ ‘Infinite Chants,’ and ‘Glorious Chants.’ The digital, cassette and CD release will feature eight songs. The double-vinyl edition features two additional songs, “Krishna Japaye” from 1990’s ‘Infinite Chants, and the previously unreleased “Rama Katha” from a separate ‘Turiya Sings’ recording session.
Luaka Bop teamed with Alice’s children to find the original master tapes in the Coltrane archive. The recordings were prepared for re-mastering by the legendary engineer Baker Bigsby (Ornette Coleman, Sun Ra, John Coltrane), who had overseen the original sessions in the 80s and 90s. The compilation showcases a diverse array of recordings in addition to Alice’s first vocal work: solo performances on her harp, small ensembles, and a 24-piece vocal choir. The release is dotted with eastern percussion, synthesizers, organs and strings, making for a mesmerizing, even otherworldly, listen. Alice was inspired by Vedic devotional songs from India and Nepal, adding her own music sensibility to the mix with original melodies and sophisticated song structures. She never lost her ability to draw from the bebop, blues and old-time spirituals of her Detroit youth, fusing a Western upbringing with Eastern classicism. In all, these recordings amount to a largely untold chapter in the life story of Alice Coltrane Turiyasangitananda.
In addition to the recordings, GRAMMY-winning music historian Ashley Kahn has written extensive liner notes on the collection. The package also includes a series of interviews with those who knew Alice best, conducted by Dublab’s Mark “Frosty” McNeill, and an as-told-to interview between musician Surya Botofasina (who was raised on Alice’s ashram) and journalist Andy Beta. 2017 marks what would have been Alice’s 80th year of life, as well as the 10th anniversary of her passing. Alice will be celebrated at events throughout the United States, Europe and South America in the coming year. With this in mind, the time is right to bring this meaningful piece of Turiyasangitananda’s legacy into focus.

Bassist, composer and producer Shay Hazan returns with his third solo album, ‘When It Rains It Pours’, on Batov Records. Following the critical success of ‘Reclusive Ritual’ and ‘Wusul’ وصول, Hazan takes a bold step forward, shifting from the guimbri-led sound that established his reputation to a broader palette of bass, guitar, and synth-driven compositions.

Where his earlier work foregrounded the raw, earthy textures of Gnawa tradition, ‘When It Rains It Pours’ reflects Hazan’s evolution as a producer and multi-instrumentalist. Across eleven tracks, Hazan deepens his exploration of layered grooves, spiritual melodies, and experimental textures, resulting in his most expansive and personal statement to date.

The album’s title embodies Hazan’s experience of being tested by life when multiple challenges arrived at once - musically, personally, and physically. A painful period in which he was unable to play double bass or guimbri due to joint issues became the spark for rediscovering the electric bass, reconnecting him with an instrument he had set aside on personal projects for years. The record documents this transition, capturing the tension between struggle and renewal.

The opening track,“Kolot”, was born from a half-forgotten session with Ethiopian saxophonist and vocalist Abate Berihune, re-emerging years later as something entirely new. Originally intended as a quintet jazz piece, Hazan uncovered Berihune’s extraordinary vocal take, wordless but deeply resonant, and built the track around it. “Kolot” means voices, and here Berihune’s voice transcends language, channeling pure expression.

“4-8” is a classic Afrobeat framework twisted with Middle Eastern inflections. Hazan plays nearly every instrument, except for live drums and saxophone, crafting a propulsive, hypnotic piece that nods to Fela Kuti while expanding the tradition into new terrain.

“Embrace” is perhaps Hazan’s most vulnerable composition to date, featuring his own vocals alongside guimbri and keyboards. The piece speaks to embracing pain, fear, and anxiety rather than pushing them aside, a mantra woven into its circular, meditative groove.

“It Pours” is an uptempo, electronically-charged piece that blurs the line between organic and synthetic. Hazan recorded percussion, then sampled and re-layered it, creating a sound that is simultaneously tactile and machine-like. The result is a restless, dance-driven track that pushes Hazan’s sound into new territory.

Unlike his previous guimbri-focused albums, Hazan’s approach here highlights his growth as a studio craftsman. Sampling, layering, and textural exploration sit at the core, without losing the immediacy of live musicianship. Longtime collaborators including saxophonist Eyal Netzer, trumpeter Roy Zuzovsky, and drummer Shahar Haziza, help ground the record in ensemble interplay, even as it pushes further into electronic and producer-led territory.

The album’s gestation was shaped by encounters and inspirations stretching far beyond Tel Aviv. Hazan draws influence from Malawian one-man-band Gasper Nali, the spiritual openness of his recording sessions with legendary drummer Hamid Drake, and years of improvisational collaborations across jazz and global traditions.

‘When It Rains It Pours’ captures Shay Hazan at a turning point: confronting physical and personal limitations, yet finding new creative channels in response. By leaning into bass, guitar, and studio experimentation, Hazan has crafted an album that feels at once urgent, meditative, and transformative, a body of work that situates him firmly among today’s most adventurous voices in spiritual jazz and beyond.

アルバムについて Tete Mbambisa + 3 featuring Basil Coetzee. The ultimate blend of African groove with American modal grace. One of the all-time great albums of modern South African jazz. New generation flat transfer of the original archival tapes with artwork reproduced from Hargreaves Ntukwana's original ink drawing. "The sound that Tete Mbambisa carved in this period was wholly acoustic and is a style that now is often loosely labelled spiritual jazz, a sound that alludes to deep African textures and rhythms balanced with clear nods to American hard bop and modal jazz, sometimes edging toward free improvisation with echoes of John Coltrane and Pharaoh Sanders. The music is often centred around a fulcrum of trance-like vamps with repeated motifs that allow for extended pieces that create a hypnotic effect. The tracks here are warm, expansive and display a wonderful fluency with Mbambisa's piano subtly weaving throughout, leaving plenty of space for the band: Zulu Bidi on bass, Monty Weber on drums and saxophonist/flautist Basil Coetzee." – Tony Higgins (for Eating Standing Records)

Paris, 1978. Don Cherry walks into a French studio with a suitcase full of instruments nobody expected and meets Ustad Ahmed Latif Khan for the first time. No rehearsal, no plan, just two musicians who recognize each other immediately as kindred spirits. What happens next is one of Cherry's best efforts - an album only hardcore fans know about, recorded in Paris, released only in France in 1981, disappeared, and now back again in a special edition that demands attention. This is what "world music" should have been before the term got watered down into airport lounge background noise.

Don Cherry - the man who stood next to Ornette Coleman in Los Angeles and New York, playing trumpet and cornet through the birth of Free Jazz, that final structural revolution of American improvisation based on melody rather than harmony. But Cherry never stopped there. He had a voracious musical appetite and boundless imagination that pulled him toward India, Brazil, Africa, Indonesia, China - not as a tourist collecting sounds, but with deep personal engagement. His commitment ran deeper than novelty. This wasn't about exotic decoration. This was about a global vision of art and the human condition.

Ustad Ahmed Latif Khan - Delhi gharana lineage, new generation tabla master who extended what his predecessors had built, gained recognition as a soloist, ventured onto the international scene. Irregular rhythmic patterns, highly syncopated, rich in variety and originality. The kind of percussionist who could grasp Cherry's intentions immediately, warm up his fingers at astonishing speed, tune Cherry's entire diverse instrument collection - concert piano, Hammond B3 organ, chromatic orchestral timpani - with perfect pitch and no hesitation.

They had never met before the recording session. But they recognized each other immediately. Calm, focused, full of laughter. Cherry knew what he wanted to create. Latif posed no challenge - he was the answer. The result is an incredible mixture of jazz and Indian music that doesn't feel like mixture at all - it feels like the music that was always supposed to exist when these two worlds met at the right moment with the right people. Not fusion for fusion's sake. Not "exotic instruments" as decoration. This is two masters speaking the same language for the first time and realizing they'd been having the same conversation in different rooms for years.

Recorded 1978 in Paris. Released only in France in 1981. Disappeared. Forgotten except by those who knew. First reissued by Honest Jon's years ago. Now back in special edition format because some records refuse to stay buried.

Essential for anyone who thinks Don Cherry's best work ended with Ornette, or that "world music" has to choose between authenticity and imagination. This is both. This is neither. This is what happens when boundaries dissolve because they were never really there.

The MerKaBa Brotherhood are Roman Norfleet (The Cosmic Tones Research Trio, Be Present Art Group) and Andre Raiah (Brown Calvin of Brown Calculus) The duo draw from esoteric texts, sacred imagery, and mystic thought, shaping sound into space, tone, and pulse. It's a spare and almost geometric record featuring Sax, keyboard and percussion. The album turns sound into a working language - textures as diagrams and melodies as signals. There is much to be learned and even more to be unlearned.

Riding the ripples of their debut single “Escalator” (which BBC’s Gilles Peterson called “a winner,” and Supreme Standards’ Tina Edwards likened to “Radiohead on a Jazz trip”), Chicago collective Resavoir return with their first full length effort. The self-titled album presents a juicy suite of elegantly-orchestrated lo-fi jazz instrumentals germinated from home recording experiments by the group’s producer/arranger Will Miller.

Applying a compositional approach attributable to his experience producing hip-hop beats as much as his studies at Oberlin Conservatory, Miller built melodic sketches on foundations of samples & loops before bringing pieces to the group for collective development. After integrating recordings of the full band into his home-produced impressions (not unlike IARC predecessors Jeff Parker and Makaya McCraven), he over-dubbed another dozen friends into the mix (including Brandee Younger, Sen Morimoto, Carter Lang, Knox Fortune and Macie Stewart) before finalizing the arrangements.

In Miller’s modest editing room, Resavoir grew from experiment into epic opus recalling the lush, psychedelic soul jazz orchestrations of David Axelrod & Charles Stepney… but in the sampled-laden style of Yesterday’s New Quintet, Broadcast, or Thundercat, with a lyrical affinity for minimalism & texturalism, like trumpeter/composers Jon Hassell & Justin Walter.

‘i,i’ is Bon Iver’s most expansive, joyful and generous album to date. If 'For Emma, Forever Ago’ was the crisp, heart-strung isolation of a northern Winter; ‘Bon Iver’ the rise and whirr of burgeoning Spring; and '22, A Million', a blistering, "crazy energy" Summer record, ‘i,i’ completes the cycle: a fall record; Autumn-colored, ruminative, steeped. The autumn of Bon Iver is a celebration of self acceptance and gratitude, bolstered by community and delivering the bounty of an infinite American music.The sales and accolades are well-known - multiple Gold albums, multiple Grammys, chart-topping collaborations and festival headlines. But even more significantly, with each release Bon Iver quietly shifts the state of modern music. From the boundaries of folk, to the rules of autotune, to production work for others, Bon Iver’s fingerprint finds its way across the mainstream every time. Vernon has always been a master collaborator, and on ‘i,i’ that desire becomes maximal, with guests ranging from Moses Sumney and Bruce Hornsby to Wye Oak’s Jenn Wasner and the Brooklyn Youth Chorus. Here, the music - and band, and themes, and creative space - are bigger than ever.

22, A Million is part love letter, part final resting place of two decades of searching for self-understanding like a religion. And the inner-resolution of maybe never finding that understanding. The album's 10 poly-fi recordings are a collection of sacred moments, love's torment and salvation, contexts of intense memories, signs that you can pin meaning onto or disregard as coincidence. If Bon Iver, Bon Iver built a habitat rooted in physical spaces, then 22, A Million is the letting go of that attachment to a place.

After nearly two years, Okonski returns with Entrance Music — an album that finds the trio at the height of their improvisational prowess and celebrating the spontaneous and meditative. On the heels of 2023’s debut Magnolia, pianist and leader Steve Okonski has reconvened long-time musical collaborators (Durand Jones and the Indications bandmate Aaron Frazer on drums and bassist Michael Isvara “Ish” Montgomery) for another session in the spirit of artists like the Bad Plus, Gerald Clayton, and The Breathing Effect. Ultimately Entrance Music serves as an invitation to early hours, where songs linger in the doorway, announcing their presence before returning to the air, in a meticulous drift into the next.

Recorded over a five day session, Entrance Music was one of the first albums committed to tape at Portage Lounge, Terry Cole’s studio in Loveland, OH. “It was a new setup, but with Terry behind the dials it was very familiar,” says Okonski. “I can’t emphasize enough how much Terry feels like a fourth member [of the band] because of the space he’s curating, the energy he is bringing, and the production ideas.” The energy and sound created with the Colemine labelhead at the helm makes for a listening experience equally at home with ECM or Stones Throw catalogs.

From the rippling notes of the pastoral opener, “October,” Entrance Music is lush with anticipation, both band and listener feeling the tension in the tranquility — where the interplay of jazz improvisation and boom bap beats never shortchanges the musicianship but the talent is ever in service of the song.

While the band does not play together as often as they would like, not much time is needed for the three to lock in. Montgomery’s bass opening to “Passing Through” bends and moves with a singular meditative grace before piano and percussion joins the daylight filling a room with breath and light. If Magnolia resonated with last calls and late nights, Entrance Music counters with early mornings and first cups of coffee.

Whereas much of the debut resonates with his time in New York, Entrance Music “feels a little less ‘on the streets at 2 A.M.’ and a little more nature-based…a little more ethereal,” says Okonski. “It’s definitely age, environment, and family — all of that does come through in the music.” <iframe style="border: 0; width: 350px; height: 439px;" src="https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=3410800866/size=large/bgcol=ffffff/linkcol=333333/artwork=none/transparent=true/" seamless><a href="https://okonski.bandcamp.com/album/entrance-music">Entrance Music by Okonski</a></iframe>

Sortilège is the new album from esteemed producer and DJ Preservation and ascendant talent Gabe ‘’Nandez. The two artists first linked on Aethiopes, Preservation’s 2022 collaboration with billy woods, where Nandez was featured alongside Boldy James on one of the album’s standout tracks. “Sauvage” became the catalyst for Sortilège, as the New Orleans-based producer and New York-based rapper gradually began exchanging ideas—first long distance, then in February 2024, when Nandez flew to New Orleans for two weeks, ready to work.

“It was smooth, very synergetic,” ‘Nandez explains. “We listened to mad music—Boot Camp Clik, Scaramanga, Cuban Linx—and I was asking questions about all types of shit, trying to soak up game and history, which I did.”

The two also bonded over their shared francophone ancestry: Preservation is half French and ‘Nandez is half Malian. These connections made their way into the music as well, via both aesthetics and sample sources, and that sort of exchange courses through Sortilège, bridging the generational, geographical, and cultural gaps between the two artists with a record that feels a world unto itself. Esoteric, yet blunt and uncomplicated as a fistfight, Sortilège erases the line between urbane and urban. It’s a movie in a lucid dream, A Clockwork Négritude projected against the wall of a construction site. Mixed-use residential.

Tracing this arc, fellow travelers Armand Hammer, Koncept Jack$on, Ze Nkoma Mpaga Ni Ngoko, and billy woods all make appearances. Oh, and there are drums everywhere: drums that will rattle a hooptie and drums that whisper threats. Somehow, over the course of 14 tracks, Preservation seems to find his way to every instrument imaginable—yet each beat has room to breathe. Amidst this breakbeat symphony, ‘Nandez’s unmistakable baritone glides purposefully, ever forward, a bristling warship in troubled waters. Every time the bass thumps, ‘Nandez counterpunches. This is a record for heavyweight speakers and clunky headphones.

Sortilège can be translated as either:

Magical / Supernatural: Act of witchcraft, magical spell, charm, or curse.

Figurative / Literary: Symbolic enchantment, inexplicable fascination, often caused by a person, work of art, or an atmosphere.

We like to think it names the force at work within and between these songs.

MUST!!!!! Blank Forms, a curatorial platform and non-profit organization dedicated to the presentation and preservation of experimental performance, is proud to announce the arrival of its latest collection of works by Catherine Christer Hennix and Masayuki Takayanagi. Don Cherry (1936-1995), a pioneer of free jazz as the right-hand man of Ornette Coleman, and his wife, Swedish visual artist/designer Moki Cherry (1943-2009), have been attracting attention for their collaborations with Coltrane. Don's music, Moki's art, and the family's life in the Swedish countryside of Tågarp were integrated into one comprehensive entity in the miraculous reissue of Organic Music Theatre. This reissue features the historic premiere of the piece at the 1972 Festival de Chateauvallon in Chateauvallon, southern France, mastered from tapes recorded during a live broadcast on public television. It is a mastered reissue of a tape recorded live on public television. The performance marked the beginning of a communal and "mystical" period that would culminate in soundtracks and other works. Performing in this outdoor amphitheater were such luminaries as Moki Cherry, Christer Bothén, Gérard "Doudou" Gouirand, and Naná Vasconcelos, as well as Swedish friends who accompanied them on their trip to France, and Copenhagen Christiania A dozen or so adults and children participated, including Swedish friends who accompanied me on my trip to France and Det Lilla Circus (The Little Circus), a Danish puppet theater based in Copenhagen Christiania. It was truly a breathtaking sound world!

The Boy and the Tree was composed after a visit to Yakushima Island, an outstandingly beautiful world heritage site off the southern tip of Japan, scored by a deep, lush and ancient ravine, home of the ancient 7000-year old ‘Jōmon Sugi’. Tree. Also the inspiration for Miyazaki's epic anime Princess Mononoke, a conflict between the rampant greed and destructive force of humanity, and the stoic, mysterious fragility of nature. This fleeting immersion in nature lent the album a profound introspection and mystery, and the its twelve tracks unfold in dream sequence, each drifting seamlessly into the next while still managing to steer the listener in myriad directions, from eerie butoh atmospheres, to ebullient raga, to desolate, cavernous chanson. The Boy And The Tree is definitely one of, if not the most, visually evocative and cinematic Yokota releases.

Music From Memory returns with their penultimate release of 2016, this time bringing together a compilation of works by the Italian composer and musician Roberto Musci. While studying guitar and saxophone in his hometown of Milan, Musci developed a deep fascination for non-western music and set out to travel across India, Asia and Africa, which he would do extensively between 1974-1985. During his many journeys Roberto would become deeply embedded in each unique world of rhythms, scales and approaches to making and performing music. Throughout this period of travel he would make many field recordings as well as collect and study many traditional and indigenous instruments that he would then later combine with synthesizers and electronics on his return to Italy.

Combining personal documents of music and sounds deeply connected to the history and cultures of those lands, with his own explorations and experiments with cutting edge sound technology Roberto Musci would develop through his music a very unique and at times wholly mystical space, where ancient and modern would evolve into a new musical language.

As well as making his own music, during the 1980’s and 1990’s Roberto would also regularly broadcast radio shows of experimental and indigenous music on Italian radio stations such as Rai and Radio Popolare. Deeply connected to the arts he would also compose and perform numerous pieces of music for theatre, dance and performance art pieces as well as soundtracks for film and television.

‘Tower of Silence’ brings together a double LP of material from Roberto Musci’s solo recordings commencing with the Loa of Music sessions from 1984 up until later very recent works. The compilation also includes a number of collaborative pieces, many performed and written in collaboration with Giovanni Venosa, such as material taken from their ‘Water Messages On Desert Sand’, which as an album was Grammy-nominated in in the UK in 1987. A unique and at times intensely mesmerising musical world ‘Tower of Silence’ offers an introduction to the work of a unique and visionary artist.

The first ever reissue of Juju’s powerful 1973 album for Strata-East, ‘A Message From Mozambique’.

The roots of Juju started in San Francisco after Plunky had met his musical mentor, Zulu musician Ndikho Xaba, helping to form his band Ndikho and The Natives. Three members of The Natives (Plunky, bassist Ken Shabala and vibes / flute player Lon Moshe) then joined Marvin X’s theatrical production The Resurrection Of The Dead, joining local musicians Al-Hammel Rasul (keyboards), Babatunde Lea (percussion) and Jalango Ngoma (timbales).

When the production ended, the six musicians formed Juju. “We had high-energy rehearsals that lasted for hours and, as a band, we became powerful and began gigging around the Bay Area,” remembers Plunky. Although oriented towards Black Nationalism, the band fed off the Bay Area’s culturally diverse communities as Plunky shaped an inclusive worldview based on collective political, social and artistic activities. During this time, the Soledad Brothers case and Angela Davis were prominent and the band supported Professor Davis and the cause.

Juju’s music matched the fire of their activism. “As a band, we blew, pounded and stroked our instruments like there was no tomorrow, like our life’s work was wrapped up in each session. We approached our performances like religious rites and the music mesmerised, informed and awakened people.” The band’s first album, A Message From Mozambique, was intentionally political. While the anti-war movement focused on Vietnam, Juju looked towards wars being waged in South Africa, Angola and Mozambique over issues of white supremacy and control of natural resources. A second album, ‘Chapter Two: Nia’ would follow before the birth of Oneness Of Juju during the mid-‘70s.

This definitive reissue is fully remastered by The Carvery from the original tapes and features original artwork and a new interview with Juju bandleader James “Plunky” Branch. 

Flur is the trio of Austrian-Ethiopian harpist Miriam Adefris, British saxophonist Isaac Robertson, and percussionist Dillon Harrison. Formed after years of playing in various configurations around London’s Goldsmiths scene and collaborating with artists such as Ganavya, Floating Points, Gal Go, and Shabaka, the group crystallised during sessions at Riverside Recording Studios and a South Bermondsey warehouse.

Plunge captures their debut outing—a fluid, exploratory collection that moves between composed sections and spontaneous improvisation. Drawing on free jazz, ambient, and contemporary classical influences, their sound recalls Alice Coltrane, Ambrose Akinmusire, Kaija Saariaho, Azimuth, and Angel Bat Dawid, balancing intimacy with vastness through a distinctive instrumental palette of harp, sax, and percussion.

Released on Latency, home to records by Nidia & Valentina, Emahoy Tsege-Mariam Gebru, goat (jp), Tarta Relena, and Moritz Von Oswald, Plunge continues the label’s commitment to exploratory and genre-defying music. The album features cover art by New York-based, Ethiopian-American artist Julie Mehretu, whose abstract, multi-layered cartographies echo the trio’s entangled, searching sound.

Saxophonist, flautist Chip Wickham takes us to Cloud 10 with his most soulful and lyrical album to date Chip Wickham is a jazz musician and producer who divides his time between Spain, UK and the Middle-East and who has made a name for himself with a series of beautifully crafted solo albums that draw equally on the hard swinging spiritual jazz of Roland Kirk, Yusef Lateef and Sahih Shihab, alongside the music of British jazz legends such as Tubby Hayes and Harold McNair and the more contemporary sounds of Jazzanova, Kyoto Jazz Massive and Robert Glasper. Originally from Brighton, Chip studied in Manchester and became involved in the 00's UK jazz, soul. trip-hop and funk scenes, working with the likes of The Pharcyde, The New Mastersounds and Nightmares On Wax as well as playing with Matthew Halsall's Gondwana Orchestra. And his relationship with Gondwana Records goes right back to the very beginning as he played on Halsall's 2008 debut Sending My Love. Cloud 10 is his debut album for Gondwana Records (following a 12" of Lonnie Liston Smith covers in May) and it is a wonderful, timeless, lyrical, slice of hard-hitting, soulful, spiritual jazz and modal hard-bop with a distinctly UK flavour - driven by Chip's deftly funky flute work and hard-hitting tenor. Underpinned by Chip's restless energy and driven by his desire to connect with the listener on a deeper level. "My albums are my legacy. Each one is a statement to the world of music and my contribution to its growth, its energy and ultimately it's history." Cloud 10 features pianist Phil Wilkinson, vibes player Ton Risco, bassist Sneaky and drummer Jon Scott (all veterans of previous albums) together with harpist Amanda Whiting and percussionist Jack McCarthy whom Chip met touring in the Gondwana Orchestra, and rising star Irish trumpeter Eoin Grace who also doubles on flugel horn. The album was recorded at the legendary all analogue Estudios Brazil in Madrid, with the band spending a week at Chip's house in the mountains just outside the city, eating and drinking together, listening to music till the small hours and recording all day. It was a magical time and the positivity seeped into the recording. "It was a beautiful week of pure music and joy, I think you can hear it in the recording and that's the inspiration for the title: Cloud 10 is a place of a great happiness, way out beyond Cloud 9!" And it is that purity, energy and joy, that makes Cloud 10 such a life-affirming recording and makes Chip the perfect addition to the Gondwana Records family. Lean in, you'll be on Cloud 10 too!

“Bells” is the celebrated set that overjoyed the audience at New York’s Town Hall on May 1st, 1965. It’s a ferocious, twenty-minute romp containing excellent group improvisation and Ayler's signature military-themed melodies. The performance marks an important shift in Albert’s music: towards blurring the lines between composition and improvisation. It is also the debut recording of Charles Tyler. Reissued on 180 gram transparent vinyl with screenprinted Bells logo on the blank side. クレジット