Category: ESSENTIAL NEW MUSIC

Essential New Music: Edith Frost’s “In Space”
Nearly 20 years separate In Space from Edith Frost’s last LP, It’s A Game. Where’s she been? Living life, moving

Essential New Music: Joe Chambers / Kevin Diehl / Chad Taylor’s “Onilu”
In a time when it’s hard to know just who and what to believe, Onilu shows how easy it can

Essential New Music: Gunn-Truscinski Duo’s “Flam”
Sand City, the Gunn-Truscinski Duo’s debut album, was the culmination of a half-dozen years of occasionally public and frequently private

Essential New Music: The Drip Edges’ “Kicking The Tires On The Clown Car”
Drip Edges singer/songwriter/guitarist Jeremy Scott—formerly of the Reigning Sound—is an avowed Bob Mould disciple, and that’s clearly evident as the

Essential New Music: Steven R. Smith’s “Triecade”
With Triecade, Steven R. Smith marks 30 years of mostly solitary music-making. Formerly a member of Thuja and Mirza (both

Essential New Music: Damon Locks’ “List Of Demands”
Some might say that List Of Demands sounds like it was ripped from today’s headlines, but given the way things

Essential New Music: Lars-Göran Ulander’s “Öppet Två”
In the liner notes to Öppet Två, Swedish reeds player Mats Gustafsson describes a moment in 1982 that gave focus

Essential New Music: The ‘Fronts’ “Mamo Waves”
“I am not guilty of insanity/My brain was taken in a brain robbery.” So sings one of the pseudonymous members

Essential New Music: Sun Ra’s “Lights On A Satellite: Live At The Left Bank”
Le Sony’r Ra, the philosopher/composer/musician/poet known to the world as Sun Ra, died in 1993. Recordings from across his career

Essential New Music: Ingebrigt Håker Flaten’s “(Exit) Knarr—Live At Artacts ’22”
While it may be a stretch to say that bassist Ingebrigt Håker Flaten has been a citizen of the world,

Essential New Music: Samuel Blaser / Marc Ducret / Peter Bruun’s “Dark Was The Night, Cold Was The Ground”
Everest. Kilimanjaro. Fuji. Some mountains just have to be climbed, no matter what. Blind Willie Johnson’s “Dark Was The Night,

Essential New Music: Simon Joyner’s “Coyote Butterfly”
Not everything that Simon Joyner sings is autobiographical, but it’s always true. The Omaha-based singer and guitarist has spent the

Essential New Music: Tashi Dorji’s “We Will Be Wherever The Fires Are Lit”
Instrumental music has its limits as a way of advocating for social change, and Tashi Dorji knows this. But he

Essential New Music: Cleared’s “Hexa”
Cleared is a Chicago duo with fixed personnel but a morphing modus operandi. When Michael Vallera and Steven Hess started