Reissued in 2023, everything about Pharoah Sanders’ eponymous 1977 album is a gift. It’s a masterpiece of quiet mystique and joy that almost never was. Available for the first time since its original release, Pharaoh has been rejuvenated with the splendor of a monumental box set from Luaka Bop. It’s a tremendous archival achievement that casts new light on a crucial point of transition for Sanders…

You likely noted the inclusion of Nala Sinephro’s latest LP in our 2024 Year In Review, but here’s an opportunity to once again highlight her 2021 debut effort, Space 1.8. I spent a lot of time with this one in a snowed in cabin in Utah at the end of December of that year, and it’s since become something of a New Year’s tradition getting a lot of play in early January.

On The Room, 7-string guitarist Fabiano do Nascimento and saxophonist Sam Gendel team up for a bewitching duo record, crafting resplendent and airy golden hour jazz. With slithering, bossa nova grooves; earthy, Arcadian folk melodies; and a slow-burn, romantic mood, the album is a quietly mesmerizing affair…

The Purple Bird is more overtly country than the last few Bonnie “Prince” Billy albums, certainly more so than the droning, mesmeric Lungfish homage in Hear the Children Sing the Evidence from 2024 or even the campfire folk communal Keeping Secrets Will Destroy You from 2023. Of course, threads of rural traditions in country, bluegrass and shape not singing have always woven through Oldham’s work, so it’s not a dramatic departure. Still, this is an album made in Nashville with Nashville musicians and a celebrated Nashville producer, and the twang factor is high.

Released by Eremite Records at the end of 2022, Mondays at the Enfield Tennis Academy offers up four sidelong pieces recorded live in Los Angeles. Here, we get to eavesdrop on Parker, bassist Anna Buttterss, drummer Jay Bellerose and saxophonist Josh Johnson in full freedom flight. It’s an uncommonly intimate live recording — the players seem to be extremely at ease in this small club setting.

Fievel Is Glauque makes maximalist art-pop that leans into technicolor lounge stylings, brooding jazz-tinted exotica, and discordant prog-rock. A surrealist and fantastical brew, sweetened with a dollop of offbeat and romantic whimsy …

An upbeat departure from understated debut Fantasia, the brisk nine tracks of Hotel New Yuma are based around the concept of theme songs of a fictional variety show (the record’s namesake). In an ambitious effort to harken back to the midcentury age of Japanese films and television, tracks like the flashy single “I’m Falling For You” register as instant classics.

Alternating between acoustic folk and electric distortion, the dozen tracks that make up 444 feel aesthetically of a piece reminiscent of Jana Hunter and the early work of Lower Dens. High praise. Part of what’s remarkable about 444 is how often it cartwheels wildly, surely on the edge of disaster, and then sticks the landing. In short, Carolina Chauffe trusts their instincts, and it pays off.