Don’t you just love an album with a fascinating back story? Well, this album has one and is quite different to the norm because of it. Laura Veirs is a singer-songwriter, based in Portland, Oregon, but that’s by no means the full story. Veirs is also an author, writing a book; Libba: The Magnificent Musical Life of Elizabeth Cotten, published in 2018 it was aimed at children. It tells the story of Cotten, an influential musician, a self-taught left-handed guitar player, who played a right-handed guitar upside down, and developed a style of playing which has influenced many players since. Veirs is a long-term fan of Cotten’s work. Additionally in 2018, she launched a weekly podcast with tales of working musicians who are also parents; the podcast…
Archive for October 28th, 2025
In her latest album, Sounding Line, pianist Carmen Staaf probes different lineups and approaches, reimagining the music of pianists Mary Lou Williams and Thelonious Monk as intimate ‘conversations’. Inspired by their friendship and shared musical sensibilities, Staaf revisits two Monk pieces and three Williams gems — respectful but never slavish — while adding two of her own.
Duets with the incomparable trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire bookend the album. Williams’ “Scorpio” is stripped down to a six-beat piano bass figure over which Akinmusire unfurls his rich lyricism and unmistakable tone before the duo slides seamlessly into a 4/4 blues. The closer, Staaf’s “The Water Wheel” conjures magic. There’s nowhere to hide in a piano/trumpet duet and yet…
Groove of ESSR III marks the next chapter in highlighting the musical heritage trapped behind the Iron Curtain during the Soviet occupation.
The tracklist curated by Henrik Ehte and Ingvar Kassuk spans recordings from 1971–1983 by Estonian artists, most of whom were born under a foreign regime after the war. Nevertheless, they had relatives in the West and antennas tuned in to Finnish radio signals. In a closed-off world, they had the courage to explore the groove without borders.
Many performers and songwriters became the most sought-after players throughout all of Soviet Russia, not because they blindly followed the communist party’s canon. On the contrary, the sheer brilliance of their compositions,…
As a musical curator, Coco Maria has an ear for color. The third compilation in her Club Coco series, Coco Maria Presents: New Dimensions in Latin Music, offers a broad and brightly-hued sonic palette of sounds from across the global Latin diaspora and beyond. Born in Saltillo, Mexico, and now based in Amsterdam after stints in Berlin and London, Coco María is well acquainted with the vastness of the scene, whose titular dimensions she explores here.
She serves us a sampler that leans into the more playful possibilities of eclecticism, presenting the cutting edge with a sense of fun so often missing from visions of the avant-garde. What Coco knows — and shares with us in her virtual club — is that experimentation is better when…
To listen to a new release from Geneva-based label Bongo Joe is to have a twofold reaction. On the one hand, the Bongo Joe catalog is so eclectic that each new direction it takes is a surprise. On the other hand, the albums that come out of it tend to be so good that it seems only logical for the latest interesting release to be a Bongo Joe production. An inarticulate harmony and a tasteful eclecticism hold their discography together.
Now, the imprint celebrates its first full decade with a vivid compilation that makes the extent of the Bongo Joe palette clear. In 23 tracks, 2015-2025: Les Disques Bongo Joe – 10 Years of Sonic Explorations tells the story its subtitle promises, moving through space and time with an ear for quality. It’s unquestionably…
Jane Inc. began as both a product of lockdowns and a statement of liberation. The pandemic-spawned project has allowed its CEO — Toronto-based artist Carlyn Bezic — to present a more stylistically promiscuous, lyrically provocative identity separate from her collaborative pursuits in the U.S. Girls universe, reinventing this seasoned indie axe-slinger as an all-seeing art-pop auteur equally enamored with electro-disco and bossa nova, like a DIY Madonna who never left the Danceteria. But the euphoric feeling of self-discovery captured on Jane Inc.’s first two albums — 2021’s Number One and 2022’s Faster Than I Can Take — was offset by anxieties over the horrors outside her window and life in their aftermath. “I can’t square the calm/And the eerie…
Banjoists Steve Martin and Alison Brown have called up a boatload of friends to guest on their album. The list includes Jackson Browne, Vince Gill, the Indigo Girls, Tim O’Brien, Jason Mraz, and Della Mae. They open with a banjo duet, ‘Friend of Mine,’ which has a timeless quality to it. The instruments sparkle, and they mesh together so that in places it sounds like a single player.
From there, the album quickly goes off piste with songs like the Bossa Nova-influenced ‘Michael’, which features Aoife O’Donovan and Sarah Jarosz. ‘Dear Time’ with Jackson Browne and Jeff Hanna highlights Martin’s comment that “with the banjo, there are so many styles you can work with, but Alison and I both have an ear for its more melodic, melancholy aspect.”
Suzie True are a fan’s band. Named after a line in a song by 1990s Memphis punks the Oblivians and self-described as “if the Powerpuff Girls formed a Blink-182 cover band,” they’re proud pop culture junkies. References abound — usually as shorthand for insecurities (“Collecting hearts like Pokémon/She’s such a ch-ch-cherry bomb!”) or objects of affection (“Dancing like it’s 1987/And you say I’m just like heaven”), almost always as outlets for escapism. These are songs for slamming your bedroom door because nobody understands, for pretending you’re in a music video even though you’re just driving around your hometown — with the windows down and the radio cranked all the way up, you can hardly tell the difference. The band’s embrace of youthful…
Growing up, Gabi Gamberg’s yard was lined with buttery-yellow daffodils. Even now, as the seasons shift and the bounty of springtime subsides, Gamberg’s daffodils are unremitting, living in infamy in the form of their stage name, Daffo. It’s no wonder Gamberg chose a name that signals their youth’s germination — their career charts the trajectory of an artist from their impetus, one willing to parse through the knots of adolescence and search for coherence. The Daffo presented on 2023’s Pest EP had a penchant for killing spiders, but at twenty-one, they look now with more compassion toward the unwanted pests of their earlier music. With indie-rock hits like “Good God” and “Poor Madeline,” Daffo put down roots that flowered into their debut…
Brooddark (Yaroslav Gavrilyuk) releases his second album on Cryo Chamber this year, following an excellent collaboration with Tsarewitch. On Overvoltage, he employs some of the same sounds – dense drones, roughly-hewn textures, and a wealth of background elements, from sculpted static to broken percussion and rhythmic lines. Chromatic sweeping takes thick chords up or down a few notes in pitch, providing a dramatic feel.
Indeed, these pieces are quintessentially cinematic. Described as “futuristic and industrial” in the liner notes, there is a strong science fiction theme with dark overtones. One can easily envision the spaceships being infiltrated by alien life forms.
After starting off in a more busy and unconventional direction, Brooddark brings…
I have never read a more accurate review of an album in my whole life. Bravo