Here is S. Victor Aaron’s Best of 2018 list for avant garde jazz and experimental music, including releases by Wendy Eisenberg, Brandon Seabrook, David Dominique and others.

Marc Ribot and his merry little band of jazz misfits are back extending the middle finger to anything or anybody that catches their ire.

Tiger Hatchery’s ‘Breathing In the Walls’ proves that you don’t have to find an alternative to jazz to get your yah-yah’s out.

The upheaval seen in Washington and elsewhere since 2016 has amped up the political awareness of a lot of people, and Dave Douglas is no exception.

This completes a year-long celebration of Satoko Fujii’s 60th birthday with the same inventiveness, grace and genius shown throughout the entire series.

Wendy Eisenberg is elbowing her way to the vanguard of guitarists who radically rethink the guitar as Machinic Unconscious Trio proves that she can shine in the company of New York’s best.

As an old school guy who thrives in the outer reaches of jazz, Andrew Lamb leads another formidable trio date ‘Casbah of Love’ with a lot of both head and heart.

Wendy Eisenberg’s singular style is vividly evident even when she is alone on acoustic guitar spinning out these wonderful, abstract shapes on ‘Its Shape Is Your Touch.’

Ivo Perelman’s ‘String 1’ with Mat Maneri, Jason Hwang and Mark Feldman is a quest to fully realize the juxtaposition of wind and vibrations and take it as far as it can go.

With the unusual structure of the electro-acoustic trio Hearts & MInds come opportunities to implement ideas you couldn’t really pull off in a ‘normal’ trio setting. ‘Electroradiance’ adroitly exploits those opportunities.