Ocelot. Ocelot. A program of carefully assembled small-group jazz and improv, Ocelot, the eponymous debut from the new trio Ocelot, features playing and composing by British-born reedist Yuma Uesaka, Vancouver pianist Cat Toren, and American percussionist Colin Hinton. Throughout, the near-gossamer sheen of[...] Read more

Recordings Ken Waxman Issue 139

Naoto Kawate. Three Guitar Tunes. The faintest hints of the 1960s hit parade radiate off these three beautiful instrumental pieces for electric guitar by the Japanese composer Naoto Kawate. We are reminded, at arm’s length, of the optimistic twang of the Ventures or the crisp strummed chords of the Archies. But there[...] Read more

Recordings Kurt Newman Issue 139

Insides. Soft Bonds. Simon Reynolds’s well-known essay on post-rock was published in the U.K. magazine The Wire in May 1994. Though today the genre tag tends to connote a particular sound, in the context of Reynolds’s piece, post-rock was more of a tenuous label for a diverse bunch of curious bands[...] Read more

Recordings Nick Storring Issue 139

Godspeed You! Black Emperor. G_d’s Pee AT STATE’S END! Epic multi-part compositions, long crescendos, drones and field recordings, gloomy moods giving way to cathartic orchestral climaxes—yes, it’s another Godspeed You! Black Emperor album. There are now more post-reunion albums than pre-hiatus ones, and the recent output has taken[...] Read more

Recordings Daniel Glassman Issue 139

Dániel Péter Biró. Mishpatim (Laws). “You must not carry false rumours.” These words from the Book of Exodus are the first to be heard in Dániel Péter Biró’s large-scale cycle of works, Mishpatim (Laws), composed between 2003 and 2016 and released on two CDs on the German new-music label[...] Read more

Recordings Jonathan Goldman Issue 139

Endlings. Human Form. Endlings is the duo of John Dieterich—best known as a guitarist for the bent-rock outfit Deerhoof—and composer, artist, and performer Raven Chacon. Much of their new album Human Form feels damaged and sweet in equal measure, its peculiar sonics tumbling all over you like an[...] Read more

Recordings Nick Storring Issue 139

Joseph Shabason. The Fellowship. On the first track of Joseph Shabason’s third solo album, The Fellowship, the voice of a child emerges from a sepia-toned gloom, repeating in various speak-singing phrasings, “Did you get a good picture?”   Legacy, intergenerational interdependence, and our[...] Read more

Recordings Tom Beedham Issue 139

Lara Solnicki. The One and The Other. The One and the Other; a title both rigorously specific and philosophically general, deftly fits Lara Solnicki’s third album. Built with equal measures of poetic craft, classical vocal training, and a jazz-infused exploration of form and improvisation, the seven tracks are a journey[...] Read more

Recordings Tova Kardonne Issue 139

Hearth. Melt. Hearth is hot. The embodied listening in this quartet of pan-European improvisers is palpable. This is engaging improv, in which clear intention drives artful exploration. Abstract instrumental language revolves with choreographed clarity around a conceptual centre. Melt, which was recorded[...] Read more

Recordings Jennifer Thiessen

Leanne Betasamosake Simpson. Theory of Ice. Leanne Betasamosake Simpson is a prodigiously talented Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg singer-songwriter, teacher, and author who explores decolonization and Indigenous resurgence in her fiction and nonfiction books, poetry, and music. For her fourth album, Theory of Ice, Simpson reworked some of her[...] Read more

Recordings Mary Dickie Issue 139

Future Perfect. Drone On. Montreal-based interdisciplinary artists Julia Dyck and Amanda Harvey join forces as Future Perfect on Drone On, a live recording that functions as a sonic treatise on ecoacoustics and the phenomenology of sound. The piece, originally performed by the duo in 2019 as part of a month-long[...] Read more

Recordings Griffin Martell Issue 139