Soul Asylum is back following a six-year gap between projects, the last of which was completed by Dave Pirner and Co. as bassist Karl Mueller succumbed to cancer. Tommy Stinson (who, while with the Replacements, was a labelmate of Soul Asylum’s at Twin Tone) filled in on some of theRead More

Perhaps best known as the leader of the now-defunct band Squirrel Nut Zippers, Jimbo Mathus is returns with a raw, ambitious six-song EP. Moving from stomping Southern rock (“Blue Light”) to dirt-road garage rock (“Haunted John”) to Stones-y white blues (“Fucked Up World”), then back again to a gospel-soaked countryRead More

Squarepusher (OK, it’s really just a guy with a boatload of electronic blurpy noisemaker thingies. Oh, his name is Tom Jenkinson) takes electronic music and infuses it with as much humanity as possible. In this case, the human element is jazz. Now, I sure haven’t heard every electronica recording outRead More

The Grammy-award winning Arturo O’Farrill, in preparing for his first-ever solo piano performance in concert at the Noguchi Museum in Long Island City, New York, worked out the initial parameters during a Wednesday night residency at Puppet’s Jazz Bar in Brooklyn. Then, he simply set up a piano in theRead More

Harvey’s material has never been particularly sunny, but this album is seriously dark. AllMusic uses the word “eerie” in their review and I have to agree – this is haunting, chilling music, all stripped down to bare bones: piano, a few other instruments, and the atmosphere churned up by herRead More

Former Jazz Messenger Steve Davis might not have the name recognition of his Blakey forbear Curtis Fuller, but he’s no less a talented trombone player. We last examined his handiwork on Images: The Hartford Suite from a couple of years ago and now he’s set to release his second albumRead More

I still remember the day I originally found this album: My drive home was full of modern prog-rock goodness — stuff the likes of which we rarely get to hear anymore, especially from the remnants of yell-rock band At The Drive-in. Long songs (one of which clocks in at overRead More

The Dap-Kings may not be a household name, but you likely already know them: They backed the late soul diva Amy Winehouse on her tremendously successful “Rehab” from Back to Black — which, of course, was way better than just “Rehab.” Like Motown’s Funk Brothers, who backed pretty much everyoneRead More

I haven’t thought about The Offspring in quite a few years, but when their latest record landed on my desk this week, I had to give it a try for old times’ sake. I still like a lot of the stuff from 1994’s Smash, and I had a fling withRead More

The most obvious branding of the acoustic trio Surface To Air’s music is “world fusion” but it’s not really a “-jazz” kind of fusion, but rather a mélange of the East Indian/new age/folk variety. Think of a more elemental variation of the seminal band of this arena in music, Oregon.Read More