Archive: 2025

With Beth Gibbons out doing her solo thing supporting her pensive new album Lives Outgrown, it seems like a good time to dust off some of those classic Portishead records that helped make her a household name in trip-hop circles back in the 90s. That said, while everyone agrees that Portishead’s highwater mark was achieved […]

It’s no slight understatement to declare Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew (released 3/30/70) a paradigm-shifting work. Not that its groundbreaking likes were any more or less profound than Birth of The Cool from 1957, the trumpeter/composer/bandleader hard bop efforts on Prestige Records in the same decade, or the innovative work with his second great quintet in the mid-to-late Sixties. But […]

West Coast-born genre blender Beck has established one of modern rock music’s most diverse and captivating discographies. From his explorations into electronic pop balladry (2019’s Hyperspace) to stretching the limits of indie rock (2008’s Modern Guilt), Beck has proven to have a restless creativity that leads him down genre-shattering paths. Of all these daring dives […]

Steely Dan co-leaders Donald Fagen and Walter Becker cultivate the most sympathetic characters of their career on the ten songs composed for the now fifty-year-old Katy Lied. But as an ironic twist in keeping with the duo’s acerbic persona, for the first record the group made after the cessation of touring, the titular leaders of the […]

With the weather outside beginning to change, many people see this transitional period of the year as a time to reflect and approach the upcoming months with a new lease on life. As the warmth of Spring slowly trickles into our everyday lives, the world seems more alive, as if it has regained its lust […]

The veteran instrumental outfit from San Diego, CA, The Sure Fire Soul Ensemble, continues its smooth grooving ways on the band’s sixth offering, Gemini. Keeping the vibe alive from their last studio offering, 2022’s Step Down, the players deliver jazzy, funky, and soul-accented offerings that roll all night long. The nine-piece band is comprised of Tim Felten on keys, […]

Produced by Sir George Martin, who oversaw most of the Beatles’ studio forays, Blow By Blow (released 3/28/75) marked Jeff Beck’s first proper solo effort, deliberately conceived as a wholly instrumental work.  And, implausible as it may now sound, a fifty-year retrospective suggests the late guitar hero’s landmark work is a logical extension of his previous experiences […]

Gambling become a normal way to have fun, such as going to a movie or a concert. Millions now take part. That’s no accident and a few things made it grow fast. First, more places now allow casinos and slot halls. Rules changed – it’s easier to walk into a casino and not feel judged. […]

Innovation is essential to drawing attention and creating memorable experiences in the dynamic field of design. A new frontier that combines the immersive force of mixed reality with the wonder of artificial intelligence (AI) is replacing traditional static posters: interactive augmented reality (AR) posters. These dynamic posters, which provide much more than simply a visual […]

On March 28th O.A.R keyboard player MikelParis is releasing his fourth solo album, GuitarDrumming 01. Though he has released previous solo work, this marks his first album release focused on his unique style of guitar playing, which he calls GuitarDrumming, to write and record songs. The original songs also include contributions from friends Vernon Reid, […]

Gabriel Yared’s score for The English Patient doesn’t simply accompany the film, it is the film, just in sound. Woven into the very architecture of Anthony Minghella’s cinematic vision, the music captures the vastness of landscapes, the slipperiness of memory, and the blurring of national and cultural differences. The result is one of the most […]

Mocity Jones is a Detroit rapper with the goal of blending old-school hip-hop with new-school flavor. Heavily influenced by MF DOOM, Kool Keith, and Eminem, Jones decided to pick up a mic after years of writing poetry and making beats. His album, moe, has done over 200,000 streams and showcases the many different styles of […]

Nu Epoque is a Barcelona-based band founded by Simonal Bie, singer and beat-maker of Mozambican origin, and Leonardo Cincinelli, Italian pianist and producer. Their story begins at the emblematic jazz bar Jamboree, where they meet and start experimenting during the Jam Sessions, creating various projects together. The result of this union is a unique world […]

Saxophonist Branford Marsalis and his longstanding quartet take a thought-provoking approach to their Blue Note Records debut, Belonging. Their first long-player since 2019 is a full-album interpretation of Keith Jarrett’s 1974 ECM LP of the same name.  Yet given how pianist Joey Calderazzo, bassist Eric Revis, and drummer Justin Faulkner bond with the leader to forge […]

He’s been writing songs about people on the fringe for damn near a lifetime. 40+ years of detailing the idiosyncrasies of outcasts, losers, freaks and outliers in society in his two acclaimed, if not totally different, bands – Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven. David Lowery, chief singer-songwriter and frontman from the aforementioned bands, is now […]

Reed Turchi, the Brooklyn-based musician, producer, and poet announces his new record World On Fire, a collection of vintage blues and spiritual tunes Turchi picked up along the way on his circuitous route through the music industry. Some of the songs are traditional with no documented authors, others performed by so many artists with so […]

Many scenes come to mind when you think of innovative punk music. The explosive hardcore movement that birthed many legendary Southern California bands and the equally rowdy D.C. movement are the two that come to mind, but another Northern city was cultivating its own tight-knit group of ferocious punk. In the late ’70s and early […]