Category: ESSENTIAL NEW MUSIC

Chicago’s the Arrivals—well, singer/guitarist Isaac Thotz now lives in L.A., while fellow singer/guitarist Little Dave Merriman, bassist Paddy Costello and

Self-titled albums tend to have an air of self-declaration about them: “This is who we are.” In the case of

Canadian guitarist Ayal Senior appears to have found a second home in Tokyo. It might seem a curious destination, since

In April 2023, REDCAT, a Los Angeles exhibit/performance space that’s part of CalArts, hosted Pulse Meridian Foliation. It was an

“Did we really?” This album’s title implies disbelief, but if the questions is, “Did these folks pull off a successful

A Mountain Sees A Mountain: Game recognizes game. Pianist Pat Thomas and drummer Hamid Drake may have grown up on

Bands are like the people in them; they tend to get set in their ways. But not Cleared. The sole

Guitarist Derek Bailey, one of the first practitioners of non-idiomatic free improvisation, once opined that solo extemporization was an inferior

Any time you see a band with a couple MacArthur Fellowship recipients in it, there’s a temptation to put the

Humankind cannot live by rock alone. Thus Barry Walker Jr., a geologist and teacher with a Nashville past and a

Daniel O’Sullivan and Richard Youngs share a fundamental quality: Both have spent decades making any kind of music they want.