Category: ESSENTIAL NEW MUSIC
![Essential New Music: 番長 Taste's "I Dipped My Comb In Shochu And Ran It Through The Hair Of The Night"](https://magnetmagazine.com/wp-content/plugins/pt-content-views-pro/public/assets/images/lazy_image.png)
Essential New Music: 番長 Taste’s “I Dipped My Comb In Shochu And Ran It Through The Hair Of The Night”
Let’s start with the album title. It looks luxuriant enough to apply to a Jon Hassell LP with an accompanying,
![Essential New Music: Joshua Massad & Dylan Aycock's "Two Improvisations"](https://magnetmagazine.com/wp-content/plugins/pt-content-views-pro/public/assets/images/lazy_image.png)
Essential New Music: Joshua Massad & Dylan Aycock’s “Two Improvisations”
The raga is a platonic ideal for the guitarists who founded the “Takoma school” and those who have followed in
![Essential New Music: Vampire Weekend's "Only God Was Above Us"](https://magnetmagazine.com/wp-content/plugins/pt-content-views-pro/public/assets/images/lazy_image.png)
Essential New Music: Vampire Weekend’s “Only God Was Above Us”
The first word on the new Vampire Weekend album is “fuck.” You heard it here first. (Unless you read that
![Essential New Music: Alice Coltrane's "The Carnegie Hall Concert"](https://magnetmagazine.com/wp-content/plugins/pt-content-views-pro/public/assets/images/lazy_image.png)
Essential New Music: Alice Coltrane’s “The Carnegie Hall Concert”
The Carnegie Hall Concert inaugurates The Year Of Alice, a series of concerts, exhibits and publications celebrating the legacy of
![Essential New Music: Rob Mazurek Exploding Star Orchestra/Small Unit's "Spectral Fiction"](https://magnetmagazine.com/wp-content/plugins/pt-content-views-pro/public/assets/images/lazy_image.png)
Essential New Music: Rob Mazurek Exploding Star Orchestra/Small Unit’s “Spectral Fiction”
On March 24 of last year, Rob Mazurek’s Exploding Star Orchestra used Chicago’s Adler Planetarium as a launch pad for
![Essential New Music: Star City Survivor's "Wilderness"](https://magnetmagazine.com/wp-content/plugins/pt-content-views-pro/public/assets/images/lazy_image.png)
Essential New Music: Star City Survivor’s “Wilderness”
The members of this guitar/drums duo live in North Carolina’s Triangle, a conglomeration of metropolitan areas that contains three major
![Essential New Music: Alastair Galbraith's "Talisman"](https://magnetmagazine.com/wp-content/plugins/pt-content-views-pro/public/assets/images/lazy_image.png)
Essential New Music: Alastair Galbraith’s “Talisman”
Full disclosure: The album under consideration and I go way back. My old micro-label put one of its songs on
![Essential New Music: Concepción Huerta's "The Earth Has Memory"](https://magnetmagazine.com/wp-content/plugins/pt-content-views-pro/public/assets/images/lazy_image.png)
Essential New Music: Concepción Huerta’s “The Earth Has Memory”
Sound’s a funny thing. You can feel its vibrations, but you’ll never put your hands on them. Concepción Huerta exploits
![Essential New Music: Itasca's "Imitation Of War"](https://magnetmagazine.com/wp-content/plugins/pt-content-views-pro/public/assets/images/lazy_image.png)
Essential New Music: Itasca’s “Imitation Of War”
When Kayla Cohen spoke to MAGNET in 2016, she gave this explanation for selecting the name Itasca: “The word means
![Essential New Music: Krise's "Svartsymra"](https://magnetmagazine.com/wp-content/plugins/pt-content-views-pro/public/assets/images/lazy_image.png)
Essential New Music: Krise’s “Svartsymra”
The name of Norwegian quartet Krise translates as “Crisis,” and the title of its debut LP, Svartsymra, could be rendered
![Essential New Music: Die Enttäuschung's "Die Komplette Enttäuschung"](https://magnetmagazine.com/wp-content/plugins/pt-content-views-pro/public/assets/images/lazy_image.png)
Essential New Music: Die Enttäuschung’s “Die Komplette Enttäuschung”
If you set about explaining Die Enttäuschung in its native language, you might fairly plead, “Es ist kompliziert.” Not because
![Essential New Music: Elena Setién's "Moonlit Reveries"](https://magnetmagazine.com/wp-content/plugins/pt-content-views-pro/public/assets/images/lazy_image.png)
Essential New Music: Elena Setién’s “Moonlit Reveries”
Elena Setién started making her last album, Unfamiliar Minds, just as COVID shut things down, and the stuckness of that time manifested
![Essential New Music: Mariano Rodriguez's "Exodo"](https://magnetmagazine.com/wp-content/plugins/pt-content-views-pro/public/assets/images/lazy_image.png)
Essential New Music: Mariano Rodriguez’s “Exodo”
Mariano Rodriguez is a far-southern representative of the Takoma school of acoustic-guitar playing. Based in Bariloche, Argentina, he’s been recording
![Essential New Music: Thinking Fellers Union Local 282's "These Things Remain Unassigned"](https://magnetmagazine.com/wp-content/plugins/pt-content-views-pro/public/assets/images/lazy_image.png)
Essential New Music: Thinking Fellers Union Local 282’s “These Things Remain Unassigned”
Some albums are like photo portraits, artfully arranged to catch their good side from the right angle and retouched so