Friends and colleagues since the late ’70s, Evan Parker and John Zorn are two of contemporary music’s most uncompromising saxophone innovators, and here they collaborate on a surprising and long overdue studio project.
Recorded in New York and Britain from 2025 to 2026 Those Landings is an achingly beautiful exploration of modern reed music with an ambient touch from two radical musical philosophers who use the saxophone as a sound source.
Rather than focusing on traditional jazz forms, Parker and Zorn treat the saxophone as a source of texture, atmosphere and sound itself, creating music that feels exploratory, intimate and unexpectedly beautiful. A long-overdue collaboration between two of contemporary…
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Since Quicksand‘s return in the late 2010’s they’ve sporadically made records that not only capture the power and passion of their initial work, but have expanded the band’s reach into new, even more exciting territory. By adding more melody and space to their sound, while occasionally easing back on the dynamic crunch of the guitars and pummeling power of the drums, they’ve opened things up and given singer Walter Schreifels a more dynamic background for his sometimes screamed, sometimes crooned vocals.
2021’s Distant Populations exhibited these changes in their early phases, 2026’s Bring on the Psychics is the full fruition of their efforts. Most of the album has the explosiveness of a pile of TNT with a lit fuse — the opening trio of songs…
Swapmeet is a collective of four singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalists (Venus O’Broin, Maxwell Elphick, Jack Medlyn, and Josh Doherty) from Adelaide, Australia, who had experience in other bands before coming together around the time they graduated from high school. They enjoyed a steady rise throughout the early 2020s, from a band that made records as birthday gifts for friends to becoming a touring act and being named Best Emerging Artist at SXSW Sydney. On the strength of their 2024 debut EP, they became the first international act to be signed to Los Angeles indie label Winspear, home of similarly heartfelt, overcast acts like villagerrr, Slow Pulp, and runo plum. Their debut album, Mount Zero‘s understated mix of lo-fi, Midwest emo, and dreamy…
Anyone looking for an excellent recording of Handel’s masterpiece can find it here. The Irish Baroque Orchestra, led by Peter Whelan, aims to bring the magic and drama of the first performance of this piece, which took place in Dublin in 1742. The orchestra members perform on period instruments, lending the sound a warm, glowing quality throughout. The chorus is relatively small by the standards of many Messiah recordings, in keeping with Handel’s lean yet first-rate forces for the premiere. As a result, individual lines stand out with unusual clarity, aided by excellent recording quality. In addition, the diction across the ensemble is exemplary, such as in “His Yoke is Easy” and the brief “The Lord Gave the Word,” where the chorus dispatches Handel’s plentiful…
Aaron Lee Tasjan’s version of outsider-ism began as a 13-year-old, when his family moved from California to Ohio. It turned out to be the first of many times he’s used music to bridge a gap between folks who seemingly had little in common, and it’s one of the stories found on his latest album, Get Over It, Underdog. For this record, though, music nearly abandoned Tasjan, returning just when he needed it most.
That Ohio story, “Ballad of an East Canton Lowlife,” falls smack-dab in the middle of Get Over It, Underdog, but serves to reintroduce us to Tasjan a bit, even a half-dozen albums in, as, well, a bit of a teenage misfit – “Born a white boy/I don’t know why/I was raised up to never even try” – even as he knows, as he proves a moment later…
There’s a moment on ‘Cruise Ship Designer’, one of the more playful tracks on Dry Cleaning’s third album, where it seems like singer Florence Shaw is finally getting something off her chest, something that might be deeply relevant to the band’s creative process. It’s a declaration that she makes just as the song clangs to a standstill, almost obscured by the grinding guitars: “I make sure there are hidden messages in my work,” she states boldly.
Ever since the London four-piece released their debut EP Sweet Princess in 2019, there has been a temptation to approach Dry Cleaning’s records as a puzzling cryptic crossword or surreal Wordle cut-up, turning each song into a breadcrumb trail (as their distant spoken-word ancestors Slint might have it). “It’s a Tokyo bouncy…
…features three remix bonus tracks.
The Charlatans are one of those bands with little following in the United States but a massive fanbase in the UK. The rare American who happens upon them is likely searching for artists associated with Oasis or Blur before digging into Inspiral Carpets, Manic Street Preachers, or Ocean Colour Scene. That’s how far we are removed from the Cheshire band, now boasting 14 albums, 22 top 40 singles, and three number one albums.
Despite our collective ignorance, the Charlatans have returned after an eight-year hiatus with a certain amount of fanfare. The band, which features Tim Burgess (vocals), Martin Blunt (bass), Mark Collins (guitar), Tony Rogers (keyboards), and Pete Salisbury (drums), entered the studio with…
Like another of the year’s biggest pop records, Olivia Rodrigo’s You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love, the second full-length from the self-proclaimed “emotional junglist” Nia Archives is an album of two halves. The first documents its protagonist falling in love at breakneck speed; the second, the whiplash of sudden heartbreak. Unlike Rodrigo, Archives didn’t grow up starring on Disney Channel, a predestined route to success, but in Bradford, cutting her teeth on early 00s pirate radio, dancehall and landfill indie.
More than most major artists, Archives has carved out her own path. After leaving home at just 16 to move into a youth hostel in Manchester, she started teaching herself to make beats; eventually, she uprooted to Hackney and studied…
Newly remastered and now with a previously unreleased bonus track, “Hammer and Nails”.
Laura Cantrell knows and loves good music too well to be a purist, and while her first two albums, Not the Tremblin’ Kind and When the Roses Bloom Again, were firmly grounded in her great fondness for country music, she expands her boundaries a bit on her third set (and first for Matador), Humming by the Flowered Vine. While the feel of Humming by the Flowered Vine isn’t radically different than her previous work, the sound and arrangements offer some new wrinkles, with producer J.D. Foster and a superb cast of musicians edging Cantrell into an inventive pop direction. The pensive love song “14th Street,” a strong but sorrowful reading of “And Still,”…
There is nothing ordinary about Fantastic Negrito. From his given Christian name of Xavier Dphrepaulezz to his career revitalization as a roots artist combining blues, soul, funk, and rock along with album titles ‘Have You Lost Your Mind Yet?’ and ‘Please Don’t Be Dead’ (3 nabbed GRAMMY’S), Negrito avoids following any existing blueprint.
That’s especially apparent when listening to Fantastic Negrito Alive, released July 17 via Storefront Records. Compiled from a recent tour’s most earth-quivering performances, this is the epitome of how a concert album should sound. Its 13 tracks veer way off-course from their studio versions, feeding off the audience’s energy, which then ramps up his own. His eclectic nature is fully exposed for this generous hour and…
Everything I Ever Saw continues The Menzingers’ tradition of heartfelt storytelling through their signature Americana punk rock style. It’s an album built on consistency rather than reinvention, leaning heavily into the formula of impassioned vocals and steady rock riffs that has made the band so beloved.
The use of Shin Noguchi’s street photography for the artwork immediately stamps the album with a recognisable personality, the same intriguing, sombre vulnerability that is present across most of their album covers is undeniable here. In fact, it is one of their strongest artwork choices, second only to 2017’s After the Party, and it feels like an intentional reference to their most popular album. Many of the tracks follow suit,…
On June 17, 1976, the formidable Relayer lineup of YES – Jon Anderson, Steve Howe, Chris Squire, Alan White, and Patrick Moraz – performed in front of a capacity crowd at Roosevelt Stadium in Jersey City, NJ. The quintet was captured mid-tour during a live broadcast on New York’s WNEW-FM. While the performance has remained one of the band’s most popular bootlegs for decades, this release marks its first official appearance.
The recording finds the band at a creative peak during the “Solo Albums Tour.” Following the success of Relayer (1974), the members spent 1975 recording five individual solo projects; this 1976 tour was the first time these new arrangements were integrated into the live set. The performance balances full-band epics…
“I’m living with a knife in my side/I’m gonna take it for a joy ride,” Gracie Abrams sings three songs into her new album. This isn’t the first time the word “knife” appears on Daughter from Hell, nor is it the last. She’ll reference knives four different times across the album, and that’s not even including the stunning piano ballad “The Knife.” For Abrams, these blades are a tool to describe her pain – the way they twist, cut to the bone, and even linger a while. And on Daughter From Hell, you’d almost think she likes it. “They’re daring me to pull it out,” she sings. “I’ll probably keep it for a lifetime.”
Expectations are high for Daughter From Hell, out this Friday via Interscope. And that’s not just because it’s Abrams’ third…
There was a fusty, claustrophobic aura surrounding Cardiacs’ 1988 debut album, A Little Man And A House And The Whole World Window. Released 14 months later, On Land And In The Sea captured them basking in psychedelic sunshine. Less a transformation than a giddy blossoming, it showcased their self-created world of imagination, wonder and squint-eyed eccentricity.
Leader and chief songwriter Tim Smith may or may not have been thrilled by an increasing amount of attention from the music mainstream, momentary approval from Steve Wright on Radio 1 included, but his music spoke only of feverish, mischievous delight. The primitive, angular clatter of Cardiacs’ earliest efforts had grown into something bigger and more ambitious.
The deluxe edition features 15 additional tracks: rare remixes, live versions and instrumentals.
On their sixth album, the increasingly prolific neo-psych outfit Portugal. The Man look to the past for inspiration on In the Mountain in the Cloud. The album represents a breakthrough for the band on a couple of levels, the most obvious of which is their signing to major-label Atlantic, which comes as a big step up after years of quietly working their way through the indie circuit. The other is the less tangible artistic breakthrough. With such a rigorous release schedule, Portugal. The Man has been a band that listeners have been able to watch hone their craft step by step, slowly tinkering and adjusting things and growing into a band that’s not only hit their stride, but is in full…
…includes three bonus tracks: a previously unreleased alternate mix of “Dogtown”, “I Don’t Know Why” (Demo) and “Walking on Thin Ice”.
Born in the shadow of incredible grief, Yoko Ono’s fifth solo album, Season of Glass, holds a specific place in her greater body of work, its vivid expressions of a spectrum of painfully raw feelings frozen in place by tragedy. Released in 1981, Season of Glass arrived just months after Ono watched her husband John Lennon be murdered as they were returning home from a recording session. Infamously, a photograph of Lennon’s blood-spattered glasses served as the cover art for the album, a creative choice Ono fought for against pushback from label executives who felt it would horrify the record-buying public.
True to its name, (the best & the rest of) New Order will include both the 1994 hits set (the best of) New Order and its 1995 follow-up (the rest of) New Order. The former featured their biggest hits up to 1993’s Republic and new mixes of songs like “Bizarre Love Triangle,” “True Faith” and ‘Round & Round,” while the latter collected 10 mostly recent remixes, including a handful of exclusive tracks. For this new package, those discs will be augmented by a further two CDs of remixes and bonus tracks, including the versions exclusive to U.S. and cassette pressings of (the best of) New Order and plenty more period remixes, including many which were only ever on vinyl and even a few unreleased cuts, including the first focus track: a vintage mix of Republic track…
Wafer-thin mint? You might think, after the excavations of 2013’s Fisherman’s Box, that Mike Scott had trawled the ocean floor of the Fisherman’s Blues sessions. But, as expansive as it was, the box was restricted to a chronological inspection of Scott’s evolution in the years 1986-1988. Back then, thanks to an early digital process involving Betamax tape, the recording never stopped. Enough was never enough.
The shorthand version of the Fisherman’s Blues story recounts a voyage from the epic rock of Scott’s Big Music toward the sweet pipings of Irish trad. In fact, the music was more cosmopolitan than that, absorbing influences from all over. Fisherman’s Box included a disc on which the Memphis Sanctified Singers rubbed…
Along with the lucky hundreds in attendance at north London’s Unit 58 and the car park of Leeds’ Brudenell Social Club, NME first heard Yard Act’s new album in May. At these free last-minute gigs, the Leeds quartet surprised fans by playing ‘You’re Gonna Need a Little Music’ from top to bottom – instantly after it was announced. A power move that perhaps indicates the confidence they harness, now three albums in, but one that also mirrors the approach that birthed it: four live musicians under one roof at their most instinctive.
Following the bitty writing process that characterised their Mercury Prize-nominated debut album ‘The Overload’ (2022) and its playful successor ‘Where’s My Utopia?’ (2024), Yard Act assembled their own studio space in…
At 79, Lenny Kaye isn’t the oldest artist to make a debut album (that honour goes to Sun Ra Arkestra’s Marshall Allen at a sprightly 100 years old) but Kaye may be the individual with the most varied musical reach to take his sweet time in producing a solo album.
By the time he took up the role for which he is best known, as Patti Smith’s guitar-wielding co-pilot, he had already dabbled in the college fraternity gig circuit (where he first covered “Gloria”), released protest song “Crazy Like a Fox” (using the alias Link Cromwell), forged a career as a music writer for august journals Rolling Stone, Jazz & Pop, Crawdaddy and Melody Maker, and was there or thereabouts when Creem editor Dave Marsh first coined the term “punk rock”.