This week: Zosha Warpeha's reverberations, Bob Bert's bang-bang, Phil Geraldi's alien country, Stephen Emmer's beautiful pathos, and Billy Polo's dub transmissions. Also, your humble editor's favorite 2026 albums (so far).
On 'Asymmetrical Dot,' Stephen Emmer turns grief and new birth into a multigenerational meditation, drawing on the Indonesian folk traditions his mother carried from Ambon to Amsterdam and the hushed compositional vocabulary that hearing loss made necessary.
This week: Thurston Moore + Kramer, Christopher Tignor, George Grella, Wolfgang Seidel, and zzzahara. Plus, Mike Baggetta of mssv namechecks the Wipers and Gustav Mahler in the same sentence.
In 'Minimalist Music,' author and critic George Grella reframes minimalism's defining quality not as style or technique but as a specific, audible practice of composing with time — then turns to ask what becomes of that practice when those who invented it are gone.
This week: Charlotte Cornfield, Meredith Bates, Evolfo, Lisa Ann Schonberg, Ethan Helm, and 'Radio-Activity.' Plus, we go to Jakarta (figuratively) and discuss the art of shoegazing with Strange Fruit.
'The Observer Effect' finds violinist Meredith Bates recasting quantum mechanics, feminist intuition, and acoustic ecology as one long, uninterrupted act of listening.
This week: Phil Manzanera, Hannah Peel & Beibei Wang, Charles Joseph Smith, Arthur Russell, Modern Woman, Meredith Bates, and Nick Fraser. Plus, Phillip Golub takes us for a cruise down the microtonal highway.
On 'Areas,' his trio's third album, Nick Fraser brings Messiaen-inflected harmony, electroacoustic interludes shaped by John Kameel Farah, and a compositional vocabulary deepened by eleven years of playing with saxophonist Tony Malaby and pianist Kris Davis.
This week: Maria Schneider, Tom Skinner, Speedy J, Nick Fraser, Strata Records, and an amplified dose of 'Metal Machine Music'. Plus, drummer and electronic composer Matt Evans misinterprets psychogeography.
Schneider discusses 'American Crow,' the Rolf Schock Prize, her collaboration with David Bowie, and her conviction that the jazz ensemble's practice of listening without a fixed agenda remains democracy's most accurate blueprint.
This week: DoYeon Kim, Caroline Davis, Maria Schneider, System 7, Unwed Sailor, and more. Plus, saxophonist Chris Potter explains how abolitionist John Brown inspired and influenced his new album.
In conversation about 'Fallows,' an album made alone in a Wyoming cabin, Caroline Davis reflects on the ancestral figures who accompanied her during the residency, the saxophone techniques she invented in solitude, and an advocacy practice devoted to carceral justice and gender equity in jazz.