Out of print on vinyl since 1977, Bennie Maupin’s solo debut, The Jewel in the Lotus, makes its welcome return to the format this month via ECM’s Luminessence reissue series. A counterpoint to the playful funk of Hancock’s Headhunters, The Jewel in the Lotus swings the pendulum well beyond Mwansishi’s heady explorations into more earthy, deeply spiritual turf.
A true headphone journey and an aural balm for a world that’s spinning a bit too fast.
New Zealand’s cosmic jazz ensemble The Circling Sun comes forth with Orbits, the sequel to 2023’s Spirits and, like it, deftly serves up Yusef Lateef vibes on a platter. The group has all the irreverence and joy that makes spiritual jazz so compelling versus its more competitive, virtuosity-obsessed co-genres—especially when delivered by a group this numerous (an undectet!), you can almost hear the musicians having fun.
2024 heralded the 50th anniversary of this seminal dub record – one of the first of its kind – and it’s no exaggeration to say this release from Jamaican producer Keith Hudson remains one of the genre’s high-water marks. Recorded in a nascent scene, Pick A Dub‘s edges are rough, but the riddims are pure and shot straight from the heart boasting a simplicity and honesty that is nothing short of enchanting.
If there exists a more perfect reggae album than Rastafari to symbolize the rejuvenating, re-energizing power of spring we have yet to hear it. Turning 50 this year, this is far more than sound-system music, this is reggae as art form.
I’ll Be Waving As You Drive Away is the culmination of Hayden Pedigo’s Motor Trilogy, an album cycle documenting an unintended journey of becoming that has seen the guitarist step firmly into his own as a both player and composer, evolving from fingerpicking wunderkind to one of the foremost ambassadors of modern guitar soli. Pedigo sounds assured and perfectly at home here, his lithe picking at once deliberate and full of surprises, augmented with delicately arranged electric guitar, pedal steel, synth, and strings that imbue each micro-narrative with a pastoral psychedelicism.
If you’re wondering where to head after Dadawah and Heart of the Congos, this ain’t a bad next step. Man from Higher Heights is a roots reggae jammer shrouded in mystery. It’s potent brew of reverent nyabinghi rhythms, synth, brass, and sinuous fuzz guitar will elevate you above the heat and humid murk to your own higher heights.
When it comes to Stereolab, the fact that nobody else can make music quite like them should be justification enough for their return. Instant Holograms on Metal Film is a record for the faithful: stately, relaxed, flush with rhythmic and instrumental detail. To slip inside is to rejoin our previously scheduled program with minimum interruption.
From the archives of Micron Music, Every Mouth Must Be Fed: 1973-1976. A toppermost three year overview of the Kingston, Jamaica based label, the roots collection highlights selects from the likes of Joe Higgs, U Roy, I Roy, Tommy McCook, Junior Byles, King Tubby and others, featuring an effortless array of early reggae and dub.
Cameron Knowler is one of the latest young guns to distinguish himself in the ever evolving world of guitar soli, most readily apparent via his 2025 long-player, CRK, released earlier this year by the eveready Worried Songs. As we noted in our review, Knowler is indebted to his instrument’s history; his playing steadfast, concise, and open to the possibility of the unexpected. For this installment of the Lagniappe Sessions Knowler pays tribute to genre godhead John Fahey, Norman Blake, David Nape and Elizabeth Cotton.
Freeform transmissions from Radio Free Aquarium Drunkard on dublab. Airing every third Sunday of the month, RFAD on dublab features the pairing of Tyler Wilcox’s Doom and Gloom from the Tomb and Chad DePasquale’s New Happy Gathering. This month, Chad kicks it off with some languid summertime folk & woozy dream pop, and Tyler follows with some singer-songwriter-ish zones. Sunday, 4-6pm PT.
Welcome to Pastiche Beach. Chopped and spliced, 50 minutes of artists paying tribute to and/or lovingly ripping off Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys. Justin made this in 2018 as gratis promo for guests when the Gold Diggers boutique hotel opened in East Hollywood. We pressed 500 copies to vinyl, each side a full uninterrupted track. The bootleg wax is long out of print, so in honor of Wilson’s life and legacy we’re sharing the digital version here for first time. Sail on, sailor.
Recorded in June 1971 and released the following month, Sociedade da Grã-Ordem Kavernista can be seen as the Frank Zappa’s Freak Out! to Tropicália ou Panis et Circencis’s Sgt Pepper. More subversive and more experimental than the tropicalist manifesto that had served as one of its main inspirations, the collective album was cursed from the get-go, condemned to premature oblivion by a mix of promotional faux-pas and the tightening of the Brazilian dictatorship.
Silence is a primary component of Nathan Salsburg’s new album Ipsa Corpora. The first all-acoustic solo guitar record from Salsburg since 2018’s Third, Ipsa Corpora consists of one, nearly 40-minute long track. Within that single song, Salsburg moves through a series of sections made up of a multitude of musical motifs on the acoustic guitar. The binding agent throughout are moments of silence. These pauses not only occur between distinct pieces, but also between notes and figures played by Salsburg. It’s clear that he wants the listener to inhabit silence as part of the album experience.
Outré California. Via satellite, transmitting from northeast Los Angeles — the Aquarium Drunkard Show on SIRIUS/XMU, channel 35. 7pm California time, Wednesdays. RIP Sly Stone.
34.1090° N, 118.2334° W
Summertime, summer sounds. Since 2015 the Villard De Lans, France based label Heavenly Sweetness has been dropping semi-regular sonic island soaks into the digital sphere and beyond via their ongoing Antilles Series. Curating from a wide swath of French Caribbean gems, the series saw the release of its seventh installment this April via a reissue of Luc-Hubert Séjor’s 1979 polyrhythmic LP, Mizik Filamonik – Spiritual Sound. The Séjor release also serves as a welcome return to the series, its first post-Covid, following 2019’s Chinal Ka 1973 -1995. Dive in, the water’s warm.
A new compilation excavates the curious history and powerful sound of Repetition Repetition, a 1980s L.A. guitar/keys duo that merged the transcendental dissonance of the avant-garde with the serene pulse of new age and the limber nerves of rock ‘n’ roll. Surviving member Steve Caton recalls the scene, hanging out with a Toto guitarist, meeting with Harold Budd and a wedding-reception run-in with Jon Hassell.
The universe isn’t hurting for more albums filled with gorgeous waves of melody and pillowy drones produced by synthesizers. But when the person behind said music is Peter Baumann, you’d be right to sit up and pay attention to it. He joined us to discuss Nightfall, his recently-released studio album that sets an appropriately dusky tone over nine tracks of smoldering ambient and gently experimental pop.
The moniker of Berlin-based musician and visual artist Miro Denck, TWÏNS weaves a comforting medley of warmly obtuse, jazz-rooted artifacts. The stitched, fragmentary palette of sophomore effort Healing Dreams feels equal parts Soft Machine jazz-psych and Brazilian MPB (with echoes of golden seventies AM pop). The subtleties of the record’s sequencing function as a revolving framework that allows for each exploration to pivot and manifest rather than crafting a feeling of jumbled excess.
From the moment Lonnie Liston Smith’s tantalizing piano chords are joined by the unmistakable vocals of Leon Thomas on “Prince Of Peace” it’s clear that Izipho Zam is going to be a very special recording. Liston Smith is on fire and the yodelling strains of Leon Thomas backed by a host of percussionists elevate the material to the spiritual jazz equivalent of an apex predator. It nearly swallows you whole. While Karma and Thembi get a disproportionate amount of attention in the Pharoah Sanders canon, the alchemical Izipho Zam is right up there with the very best of his work.
In summer 1977 the Charles Mingus Quintet rolled into South America on tour. It was the second time he’d been there and these shows would be among his last. As such Mingus in Argentina: The Buenos Aires Concerts would be essential listening for anyone interested in his music. But thankfully it’s more than just that.
I’ll Be Waving As You Drive Away is the culmination of Hayden Pedigo’s Motor Trilogy, an album cycle documenting an unintended journey of becoming that has seen the guitarist step firmly into his own as a both player and composer, evolving from fingerpicking wunderkind to one of the foremost ambassadors of modern guitar soli. Pedigo sounds assured and perfectly at home here, his lithe picking at once deliberate and full of surprises, augmented with delicately arranged electric guitar, pedal steel, synth, and strings that imbue each micro-narrative with a pastoral psychedelicism.
