Wherever Thollem travels during an Astral Traveling Sessions jaunt like the ones he made with Alex Cline and Susan Alcorn, it’s a journey into the vast unknown areas of music that few dare to venture. But Thollem, he lives there.

This is obviously not music for all tastes but if you know about Fred Frith and Ikue Mori, then you know how good they are at making noise; for ‘A Mountain Doesn’t Know It’s Tall’ they make beautiful noise together.

Kuzu’s third album ‘The Glass Delusion’ continues this noise-jazz trio’s reputation for making some of the most individualistic and rewarding music of this genre.

Michael Gregory Jackson’s ‘Frequency Equilibrium Koan’ is a communion of loft jazz musicians who weren’t just among the best of their time, but of *all* time.

There were two discoveries with ‘Science Friction +size’: When a quartet discovered new possibilities with a trumpeter, and when Tim Berne scraped a shiny disc off the floor.

‘Threads’ is the kind of opening statement that usually takes several tries to nail down, but the Caterpillar Quartet blends a variety of styles to make ostensibly jazz that’s often hard to neatly categorize when you dig deep into these songs.

Individually and collectively, Tim Berne’s Hardcell trio was amazing and the live souvenir ‘The Cosmos’ confirms that.

Dave Gisler’s highly improvisational trio is a natural in a live setting. Add the like-minded trumpeter Jaimie Branch to the mix, and those qualities are taken up a couple of notches.

If you’re going to go extreme, do it with conviction. Jon Irabagon, Mike Pride, Mick Barr and Ava Mendoza are committed as ever for ‘I Don’t Hear Nothin’ But The Blues Volume 3: Anatomical Snuffbox.’

The first encounter of tenor sax boss Rich Halley and the Matthew Shipp Trio worked out so well, they quickly decided to do it again.