Occasionally, somebody gets it completely right on the very first try. This focuses on those times. But hold on, Gilligan: With no rules about era or genre, our 13-member list of desert island debut discs runs an amazing gamut You May Also Like: How Living Colour’s Smart, Tough Debut AlbumRead More

Mortality and the very, very thin line between life and death, those ideas quietly rumble just beneath the surface on most of The River‘s more serious tracks. You May Also Like: Mortality – ‘Mortality’ (2021)

One of the characteristics shared by most of my favorite jazz musicians is versatility. They have “big ears” in their musical interests as well as in their playing environments. You May Also Like: Dave Douglas, Uri Caine + Andrew Cyrille – ‘Devotion’ (2019)

Have you ever listened to a record and then sat there thinking, “OK …. so what the hell was that?!” I’m not talking about individual songs that might stick out, but the whole thing. You May Also Like: Why I Actually Didn’t Like Some of Those Huge ’70s Records

There are only two kinds of music. Good music and the other kind. There are several slight variations of this quote, attributed to Richard Strauss, Charles Mingus, Louis Armstrong, and others. You May Also Like: Joe Jackson’s Rain underscored a complete modern-era return to form Why Joe Jackson’s Retro ‘BodyRead 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

Travel back with us now to a time when rock stars, given a chance to make one good album, would often double down. Did “more” necessarily equal “better”? Well, no, actually. But that’s an argument for a different day. You May Also Like: Liberty Ellman – ‘Last Desert’ (2020) DanRead More

I would like to discuss St. Cilium-Mortua, the little known (but much beloved) patron saint of hearing loss. Primarily the favored saint for cathedral bell-ringers, St. Cilium-Mortua became much more busy in the 1960s and ’70s You May Also Like: No related posts.

After two goes at an annual Official™ Something Else! Top 10 list, we’ve decided to introduce a mid-year edition — for those who simply can’t wait for the Christmas sales You May Also Like: No related posts.

Alright! A new set of Morricone covers? Let’s check it out. You May Also Like: Marco Marconi Trio – Nordik (2016) Simon Hanes – ‘Tsons of Tsunami’ (2024)