When Zevious first started out in 2006, they were like any guitar/acoustic bass/drums jazz trio, but soon after their self-titled 2007 debut, they decided they didn’t want to be like any jazz trio. You May Also Like: Flowtilla – Just Passing Through (2017) Many Arms + Toshimaru Nakamura – ManyRead More
Bandleader, drummer and composer John Hollenbeck has been able to keep his Claudia Quintet viable long after its original formation in the late 90s by continually tossing new challenges at it. You May Also Like: GEORGE [John Hollenbeck] – ‘Letters to George’ (2023) Brian Landrus – ‘For Now’ (2020)
It would be easy to assume that a discussion about a record produced by the Decembrists’ Nate Query and featuring a guest spots by the tUnE-yArDs’ Noah Bernstein and Los Lobos’ Steve Berlin is a discussion about an indie rock record You May Also Like: Solitaire Miles, “Ghost Riders inRead More
Forty years after first bursting into the avant-rock scene with his band Heldon, the music of guitarist/composer/philosopher Richard Pinhas remains as intriguing, mysterious and ahead of it time as it did then. And naturally, music that’s so far ahead can sound like something else altogether for the uninitiated. You MayRead More
Curtis Hasselbring heads up a couple of bands and on the spy-themed Number Stations he rubs them together and watches the sparks fly. You May Also Like: Chris Lightcap – Superette (2018) Tomas Fujiwara, Ben Goldberg + Mary Halvorson – The Out Louds (2016) Mary Halvorson – ‘Cloudward’ (2024)
When listening to instrumental rock groups like Guapo, I realize how broad is that term “instrumental rock” because it can connote prog rock, art rock, fusion jazz, post-rock, experimental rock, kraut rock and avant-garde. You May Also Like: Thinking Plague – Hoping Against Hope (2017) Pixel – Golden Years (2015)
The genius of Rob Mazurek doesn’t necessarily lie in all the musical ideas he has; it’s the modular approach he takes to those ideas. You May Also Like: Rob Mazurek Quintet’s hypnotic, diverse Sound Is rewarded close listens Rob Mazurek’s Black Cube Marriage – Astral Cube (2017) Rob Mazurek –Read More
As a member of many an experimental or edgy band (Herculaneum, Cursive, Icy Demons, Michael Columbia), it’s not hard to surmise that when drummer Dylan Ryan got around to leading his own band, it would be out on the margins of music, too. You May Also Like: Producer Don WasRead More
The competing tubas heard on the opening seconds of Jason Robinson’s new big project Tiresian Symmetry made me instinctively utter three words: Very Very Circus. You May Also Like: Liberty Ellman – Radiate (2015) Henry Threadgill Zooid – ‘Poof’ (2021) Liberty Ellman – ‘Last Desert’ (2020)
When Chicago-based trumpeter/cornetist Rob Mazurek decided to dig deeper and absorb the rich and festive melodies of Brazilian music, he didn’t do so by merely listening to a bunch of Jobim records You May Also Like: Rob Mazurek Quintet’s hypnotic, diverse Sound Is rewarded close listens Rob Mazurek’s Black CubeRead More
