Grails :: The Sounds Behind Miracle Music

GrailsPosted on

Grails has never been afraid of big moments—David Axelrod’s bold, dramatic arrangements come to mind. However, Miracle Music isn’t all crescendo and climax. There’s a subtlety and sensitivity at work here, an attention to detail that pays off enormously. And though the group leans towards the darker side of things, there’s a lot of joy to be found as well, musicians doing exactly what they want to do and generously sharing the goods with the rest of us. And speaking of sharing, Grails’ Emil Amos, Alex Hall and Ilyas Ahmed have put together a useful . . .

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Billy Strayhorn :: The Peaceful Side (1963)

Billy Strayhorn Jazz Midnite JazzPosted on

Dim the lights. Chill the glasses. Loosen your tie; kick off your heels. For the latest installment of our "Midnite Jazz" column, we look at Billy Strayhorn's The Peaceful Side (1963), a ghostly offering of sparse jazz standards that showcase Strayhorn not as Duke Ellington's right-hand man, but as a formidable solo artist in his own right . . .

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Janine :: Muda

JaninePosted on

Just like the early MPB of Marília Medalha, Nara Leão, and Elis Regina, Janine Price's music comes from the theater tradition, where she built her musical persona and developed warping intonation techniques. Just like their early MPB too, her music is centered on the tenor vocal range, which prepares grand orchestrations to a sequence of unexpected soft landings . . .

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Wadada Leo Smith & Vijay Iyer :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview

Jazz Vijay Iyer Wadada Leo SmithPosted on

Composers Wadada Leo Smith and Vijay Iyer are inveterate collaborators. Compile their past work together and you're staring down a list that includes Bill Frisell, Jack DeJohnette, Pauline Oliveros, DJ Spooky, John Zorn, Anthony Braxton, and more. But something singular and deeply special happens when they work one on one, as they do on the recently released Defiant Life. "We just create," Smith says. "You could call it 'composition' or 'spontaneous composition' or 'spontaneous improvisation' or some kind of stuff like that. But the truth is, all the serious documents about humans on this planet refer to creation . . .

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Posted on Jazz Vijay Iyer Wadada Leo Smith

Cash Langdon :: Dogs

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With a tight full band setup reminiscent of his own version of Crazy Horse, the sophomore effort from Alabama-based musician Cash Langdon brings a rugged, heavy country rock feel. Langdon's muse of forthright melodic songcraft however still delivers the melodic goods, capturing a gritty power pop sensibility. Dogs is an increasingly impressive work, from the uniquely southern identity in the lyrics to electric, shambling song frameworks that hit exactly as hard as intended . . .

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Florry :: Sounds Like

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Florry, from Philly and now headquartered in Burlington, VT, makes a tipsy, slurry, utterly fetching variety of country rock, the notes wobbling all over the place but fizzing with unstoppable electric energy. The band spins out songs like a country joyride, rattling, banging, jolting hard on the ruts, but full of unfussed beauty. Sounds like a good time? Sounds like Florry . . .

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The Aquarium Drunkard Show: SIRIUS/XMU (7pm PDT, Channel 35)

SIRIUSPosted on

Patois. Via satellite, transmitting from northeast Los Angeles — the Aquarium Drunkard Show on SIRIUS/XMU, channel 35. 7pm California time, Wednesdays.

34.1090° N, 118.2334° W . . .

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The Vernon Spring :: Under a Familiar Sun

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Sam Beste of the Vernon Spring emerged first as Amy Winehouse’s favorite piano player, later taking part in the fusion-jazzy Hejira and assisting in various behind-the-scenes capacities for Matthew Herbert, Floating Points and other jazz-electronic ensembles. Here, in his solo project, all these elements of his past as a musician flit through the mix. Lyrical runs of trebly piano touch on jazz. Note-shifting, syllable stretching vocal phrases send a tendril out towards soul . . .

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Transmissions :: Dean Wareham

Dean Wareham Galaxie 500 Luna PodcastPosted on

Do you ever connect with an old friend and find that, despite however many years it's been, you pick up right where you left off, as if no time has passed at all? That’s sort of what happened between today’s guest, Dean Wareham and producer Kramer in the making of Dean’s new album, That’s the Price of Loving Me. You know Dean from his work with Luna and Dean and Britta, his duo with his wife Britta Phillips, but when Kramer and Dean last teamed up, it was for the recording of Dean’s old . . .

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Zandoli :: A Mixtape (Spring 2025)

MixtapesPosted on

Step inside Zandoli, a humid TDK embrace spanning 1971-2025. Analog Estonian groove opens the set before sliding into vintage Italian film funk, Grecian honey skronk, imitation Bengalese hypnagogia, and a rousing 1977 exaltation from Fort-de-France, Martinique. And that's just the first twenty minutes. Press play, let it soak . . .

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East of Eden: The Legendary Strata-East Label Provides a Haven for Jazz Departures

Jazz Strata-EastPosted on

What began as a DIY operation by two jazz visionaries to release their music became a home for bold young talent, avant-garde masters, experimental eccentrics and middle-aged mavericks. After years of stratospheric Discogs prices and zero streaming presence, the Strata-East label has returned, with an extensive physical and digital reissue campaign. Aquarium Drunkard talked to co-founder Charles Tolliver and current CEO Ched Tolliver about the label’s difficult beginnings, unlikely rise, continuing relevance and majestic catalog . . .

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Ibex Band :: Stereo Instrumental Music

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Laid down on a four-track recorder over two sessions at the Ras Hotel ballroom in Addis Ababa in 1976, Ibex Band’s Stereo Instrumental Music is a foundational, if little-heard, document of Ethiopian music. Led by guitarist Selam Woldemariam and bassist Giovanni Rico, the group—which would go on to become the Roha Band and back Ethiopian greats such as Mulatu Astake, Girma Beyene, and Mahmoud Ahmed—was aided by Swedish radio worker Karl-Gustav who was working for the Ethiopian Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus at the time . . .

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Charif Megarbane :: Hawalat

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Charif Megarbane's prolific schedule of releases via his independent imprint Hisstology looks like a set of Borgesian fantasies or little musical toys that tap into all possible musical traditions. His releases on the much more selective Habibi Funk label, though, are another beast entirely, distilling that beautifully demented potpourri to their essence. Hawalat, the follow-up to 2023's wondrous Marzipan, is a cosmo-cosmopolitan craftwork, a world tour through a lysergic miniature model. The Lebanese musician, who has lived in Nairobi, Lisbon, London, and other cities around the globe, provides both a self-conscious reflection on the diasporic . . .

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Lael Neale Wades Into Wild Waters

Lael Neale The AD InterviewPosted on

“I once followed blindly but now I can see,” Lael Neale intones on her fourth record–and third in the space of a fruitful five-year period–Altogether Stranger. This is one of many revelations and reflections on her return to Los Angeles having spent several years away from its stifling chaos in the respite of her family’s farm in rural Virginia. The songs astutely capture this internally fraught period with colloquial eloquence. Altogether Stranger simultaneously confronts the relentless noise of city living and provides a much-needed sanctuary away from it through its comforting intimacy. Neale’s latest . . .

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People Whispering, Or The Strip Mine On The Other Side of The Mountain :: The Experimental Folk of North Carolina’s Magic Tuber Stringband

Magic Tuber Stringband The AD InterviewPosted on

Magic Tuber Stringband is one of the most arresting outfits to emerge from the American folk tradition in the last five years. While they spring from North Carolina’s venerable old-time music tradition, they are experimentalists, deeply engaged in the methods of free jazz improvisation pioneered by Marion Brown and Don Cherry, and the minimalist strategies of postwar composers like Pauline Oliveros and Terry Riley . . .

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