A CLOSER LISTEN weekly #79

Save The Bees

And somehow it’s already mid March… Joseph here, dear Listeners, even later than I originally intended. I had this bi-weekly newsletter mostly ready to go on Wednesday, as usual, but needed a bit more time to finish writing about Save the Bees (see below) and a series of events, including some gale force winds and other unusual weather events have conspired to delay this until this weekend.

Here’s a short recordings of the sound of hail against the tin awnings last night:

Distracted as I was with my residency in Spain, I neglected to mark the third anniversary of this newsletter. ACL weekly #1 was published on 26 January 2022. At the time, I imagined that I would benefit from:

…the additional structure of committing to putting this newsletter out every two weeks, and it will serve a repository from some of the content on our site, such as our Upcoming Releases, which we periodically purge and update. This space will also feature exclusive writing and the occasional interview not published on the blog. But it will also be an experiment, as we’ll see where it takes us.

I’ve never managed to actually stick to a strict schedule—that’s never really been my thing—but I think I’ve hit my stride at some point balancing the bi-weekly rundowns with off-week content. I have enjoyed the rhythm of writing something, anything, for these preambles every two weeks, and it’s resulted in all kinds of writing I wouldn’t have done otherwise, as well as the seeds for pieces that eventually became reviews or features.

I’ll probably dig more into the archive during off weeks for the rest of the year. I’m working on the Sound Propositions books, applying for academic jobs in an increasingly bleak market, and otherwise battling underemployment and the generally grim state of affairs. But as long as I’m listening to music I’ll find a way to keep sharing what I’m enjoying, and that goes for all the other ACL contributors, above all managing editor and review writing all-star Richard Allen.

And another reminder that the ACL internet radio show is live at CAMP, airing every other Sunday at 6pm CET and available on their Mixcloud soon after. Tune in this Sunday to hear a joint mix between myself and Stefan Christoff, with tracks drawn from our friends and collaborators.

Now on to some news.

“When I was nine years old I wrote a story about an evil golliwog. My mother read it and told me it was overly derivative and needed some work. Here we are.”

-billy woods

Golliwog has been announced as the title of the new solo album from billy woods, for release on May 9, with first single “Misery” produced by Kenny Segal streaming now. Four of the last five woods records—Hiding Places (2019) and Maps (2023) with Segal, Aethiopes (2022) with Preservation, and Church (2022) with Messiah Musik—were single-producer albums, with late 2019’s Terror Management the last time we’ve had a woods solo record with multiple producers. I love all of those single producer albums, but I’m optimistic, especially looking at the list of featured producers, which includes Griselda and Mach-Hommy associates (Conductor Williams, Sadhugold) and from outside hip hop, including the experimental future jazz of Saint Abdullah and HUMAN ERROR CLUB. At 18 tracks, there’s still plenty of room for beats from woods regulars Dove, Segal, Preservations, Alc, El-P, Jeff Markey, Messiam Musik, ELUCID, and Willie Green. Obviously you know I already copped the tape, but I had to pass on the t-shirt. I’ll be writing about the album at some point, but interested to see what stories woods will spin around the theme of this racist doll, whose name has gone on to spawn slurs around the world.

It’s been ten year’s since Kendrick Lamar released To Pimp A Butterfly, but I don’t have the bandwidth to weigh in on that at this moment. But I would also like to mark the seventh anniversary of the release of Jean Grae & Quelle Chris’ Everything’s Fine.

Jean Grae and Quelle Chris’ Everything’s Fine was one of my fav records of the 2010s. I listened to it a ton on my portable bluetooth speaker in spring 2018 riding my bike around Minneapolis. I bought a CD copy eventually just to have the physical medium, which I’m in favor of generally, but particularly for records like this which are cohesive statements. Now re-released LP edition.

SAVE THE BEES

Nayt Keane’s review of The Effective Disconnect (Music Composed for the Documentary “Vanishing of the Bees”) by Brian McBride of Stars of the Lid was the moment when I really became aware that the bees need saving. By 2010, when that album and documentary were released, I’d already known enough crunchy types that I was aware something was wrong with the bees, but it was The Vanishing of the Bees that laid out the scale and importance of the problem. It seems to me that the framing of Colony Collapse Disorder was often designed to emphasize the negative impacts on humanity (food production) rather than any true cross species solidarity or empathy. One can only imagine having any affective investment in a problem that effects one directly. But those small problems are often symptoms of a much deeper rot, and their collapse will inevitably lead to much greater problems that have a way of becoming everyone’s problem.

I recently received my cassette copy of Save The Bees from Big Flowers x Messiah Musik and these same themes are explored throughout the album’s 17 tracks in ways both subtle and direct. Released by the PTP label, the tape looks great, with cover art by Nakama. and additional art and design from GENG PTP, including a transparent honey gold cassette, ever extending the PTP rainbow.

As with Big Flowers’ 2021 tape Big Smile, which features an interlude consisting of a facetime convo between the rapper and GENG, Save the Bees is interspersed with conversational interludes with friends and fellow travelers. Collage artist Flowers raps over Messiah Musik beats, finessed and sonically optimized by GENG for maximum impact. 17 tracks full of guest appearances (KAYANA, Cibo, Denmark Vessey, Moor Mother, Sleep Sinatra, VRITREA & PONTIAC, DØØF, Quelle Chris, Fatboi Sharif, and Nelson Bandela), Save The Bees is as much a community statement as it is a singular vision. Standout tracks include “Unraveling,” “Save the Bees,” and "Birdbrain," but the album works best as a complete statement. Don’t sleep.

RECENT REVIEWS

Reviews are at the heart of ACL. Here are selections from a few of my favorite reviews we posted on the blog in the last few weeks.

From the Mouth of the Sun ~ In Wind or Dust
Composed as the score to a dance production, In Wind or Dust recaptures the excitement of early works from Aaron Martin and Dag Rosenqvist (From the Mouth of the Sun), while adding some unexpected twists. As recommended on the release page, it is best listened to as a whole, the majority of pieces blending together in an uninterrupted suite. The album features two extended builds, one at the beginning and the other in the center. [In between,] a remarkable pair of movements, bringing to mind Jasper TX’s “They’ve Flown Away and Left Us Here,” from 2009’s Singing Stones. The title track reflects on all that has come before, the action retracting, the dancers spent, the sounds of nature seeping in. The bucolic atmosphere is enhanced with the warmth of solo banjo, sorrows forgotten in the glow of a new day. On the cover, in the midst of the crimson dust, a lone figure stands tall.

Gellért Szabó’s Ideal Orchestra ~ Live at Berghain
Words to describe Live at Berghain: pummeling, overwhelming, emotional. And yet also: tender, restrained, thoughtful. The cover image suggests desolation and loss, the track titles religion, war, heroism. How can a set be all these things at once? The one-hour concert from Gellért Szabó’s Ideal Orchestra wrings its audience out, takes them to heights and depths, and provokes – at least in the initial, captured performance – an enthusiastic response. While tonally distinct from Wagner, Szabó captures the scale and emotional range of the classic composer’s works. Simultaneously sober and uplifting, tragic and triumphant, Live at Berghain is tremendously affective, appealing to the spirit and the yearning within.

Grand River ~ Tuning the Wind
Those familiar with Grand River‘s All Above – one of our top electronic releases of 2023 – may be surprised at the timbre of Tuning the Wind. But Aimée Portioli has always been about more than electronics. Tuning the Wind is a grand experiment in which the artist records and adjusts the sound of the wind to imitate instruments, while adjusting instruments to imitate the sound of the wind. The resulting 36-minute work, created as an installation piece, offers a meditation on a sound that isn’t a sound; as Portioli points out, the wind itself is silent, heard only through the surfaces with which it makes contact. Few people have ever heard wind “sound” like this, but if it did, one would be riveted. As Portioli writes, “Sometimes the wind howls; at other times, it sings or whistles, shifting from a gentle murmur to an angry roar.”

Imperial Valley ~ American Memory
Richard Skelton never intended his Imperial Valley series to be this relevant. The project was initially inspired by Dorothea Lange’s Dust Bowl photography, captured in rural America during the Great Depression. These albums, originally credited to CF Moore, were a recreated history comprised of field recordings, samples and sombre drone, the initial salvo offered in evocative packaging. The music of Imperial Valley is slow and ponderous, seemingly without hope; the spoken-word samples are bitter and dour. And yet, in the current climate, one might argue that they are not dour enough. There seems to be no bottom for the tired, poor, huddled masses yearning to breathe free. As the first narrator claims “magical powers make people disappear,” he is not only speaking of physical disappearance, but the ways in which unseen people slip through the cracks. If there is any nobility in being broken, Skelton finds it here. By continuing to give his narrators a voice, he highlights the need to listen to today’s lost, indigent and poor. By honoring Depression-era migrant workers, he underlines the importance of all such workers, not only to the economy, but to the patchwork quilt of America. The American memory may not run deep, but the recovery of an honest narrative is crucial to its future prospects.

Joni Void ~ Every Life Is A Light
Montréal’s Joni Void has created a universe in which time collapses in on itself. Every Life Is A Light begins in mid-loop, an indication of its nature. The album is a treasure trove of tapes and effects, crate digging and mind digging. The opening “Everyday – A Sequel” – hearkens back to 2023’s Everyday Is The Song, while the cover art references that of 2018’s A Prayer (For Loved Ones). Loops and samples abound, while the interior art is rife with Polaroid pictures. When the first track ends in a plastic click, one remembers the famous question of an earlier era, “Is it live, or is it Memorex?” What is live is almost an afterthought. The guests are many – Haco, Ytamo, Pink Navel, Sook-Yin-Lee. But the samples are even more numerous. As the words “death is not the end” are whispered in the track of the same name, one muses on the nature of what endures: sound, photograph, memory. Who will win the tug of war between the past and present, the then and the now? [RIP Muffin and RIP Joni Sadler]

Kronos Quartet & Mary Kouyoumdjian ~ WITNESS
We last encountered Mary Kouyoumdjian with 2 Suitcases, which told the story of a couple fleeing the Lebanese Civil War. The subject is greatly expanded on WITNESS, which pairs the composer with Kronos Quartet. We consider this a major work: startlingly relevant, meticulously researched and eloquently presented. The emotional difficulty of listening is offset by the album’s stark, immediate beauty. The suite contains four compositions: two shorter instrumentals and two longer multi-source pieces. “Groung (Crane)” eases the listener gently into the project, with melancholic tones and a sense of deep, abiding loss. Those familiar with the subject matter – the Lebanese Civil War and Armenian genocide – will already be drawing parallels to today’s crisis, which has only worsened in recent weeks with proclamations of eternal occupation and the resettling of residents. With so many lost, forever unable to tell their stories, the need for narration has never been so great. On this album, sorrow descends like a cloud before the first word is spoken. Kouyoumdjian and Kronos Quartet have created an essential, unflinching work that is almost too much to bear. We suggest allowing the first track to play again after the last, providing the room the heart needs for reflection, the absence of words speaking again to the soul, bearing witness.

Valotihkuu ~ Drifting Between Seasons
It’s been too long since we’ve heard from Valotihkuu, who makes his welcome return with Drifting Between Seasons. The timing is perfect; while we have already launched the month of March and its meteorological spring, astronomical spring is still three weeks away; the album is released this Friday. During this liminal period, one may claim residency in either season, or both; one day a blizzard may arrive, another will bring t-shirt weather. Even so, one knows that one season, inevitably, will end. By “Winter’s Last Whisper,” it is time to say goodbye to one season and hello to another, making Kenard Pak’s children’s book Goodbye Winter, Hello Spring the perfect accompaniment. But the album is about more than seasons; it is about how we rescue valuable parts of ourselves we had once discarded, how we reinvent ourselves, and how we create something shiny, sparkling and new, with an equal or greater value of its own.

Whatever the Weather II ~ S/T
Whatever the Weather II’s opening track, “1°C,” samples a voice that observes, “Bit chilly, innit? […] Can’t wait for it to be summer.” It’s the voice of the artist, Loraine James, or Whatever the Weather, which is a moniker she reserves for her own unique brand of IDM. This is James’ second self-titled release under this alias. The first made it onto our Top 20 Albums of the Year in 2022– and it was not the only Loraine James album to do so! Needless to say, this sequel was a welcome and highly anticipated release. Whatever the Weather II lives up to its title in that it really is a sequel to the 2022 album, rather than just a second release. 2022’s Whatever the Weather (I) has an icy and introspective soundscape, and its cover art features a dusky Antarctic landscape to match. Whatever the Weather II picks up right where its predecessor leaves off, and continues its conceptual thread. The voice in the opening track goes on to say, “It’s proper cold, I just wanna go home and hibernate.” Many can relate to this mid-winter despair. Luckily, “1°C” (only slightly above freezing) is as cold as this album gets.

Zoë Mc Pherson ~ Upside Down
he beats seldom stop on Zoë Mc Pherson‘s latest record, and the energy never flags. And yet the artist has more on their mind than dancing; Mc Pherson also calls out stark indictments of the “neoliberal war machine” and the culture of narcissism. On the cover, the artist stands resolute and upright, continuing to favor green, offering a natural visual counterpart to the horizontal Pitch Blender, as if saying, “I have not given up hope for change; neither should you.” The album technically ends with an instrumental version of “Narciss Century,” but “Farewell” is the better closer, shifting from metallic breath to speeding traffic, another wordless commentary on rapidity. Syllables bubble like protests, drowned out by engines. Is this a farewell to civility, a recognition that the loudest voices get the attention? A farewell to words, giving way to sounds? A farewell to humanity itself? A prophecy or a phantasm? The beats pummel; the beats motivate. Which way will we turn as we dance?

UPCOMING RELEASES

(complete list with Bandcamp links here)

Depending where one lives, it’s either still freezing or already warm; welcome to the in-between season. Our Spring Music Preview will appear in mid-March. In the meantime, we’re tracking hundreds of upcoming releases, many of which are already available in pre-order, with links below. We hope you’ll find your next favorite album right here!

a. brehme ~ peaou004 (peaou, 14 March)

a.MIDI ~ an interplanetary adventure (14 March)

Amp ~ Ambient Love Darkness Share (14 March)

Amphior ~ Disappearing (Glacial Movements, 14 March)

Anoushka Shankar ~ Chapter III: We Return to Light (LEITER, 14 March)

Autodealer ~ Draper Point (Somewherecold, 14 March)

Dead Bandit ~ S/T (Quindi, 14 March)

dream brigade ~ dream brigade (Infrequent Seams, 14 March)

Evan Gildersleeve ~ Wake (Mesh, 14 March)

Ghost in the Loop ~ Selected Soundtracks for Lost Media (Imaginary North, 14 March)

Golem Mécanique ~ Siamo tutti in pericolo (Idealogic Organ, 14 March)

Hekla ~ Turnar (Phantom Limb, 14 March)

Inturist ~ Tourism (Incompetence, 14 March)

Kate Carr ~ Rubber Band Music (Flaming Pines, 14 March)

memotone ~ Pruning (Discrepant, 14 March)

Owls ~ Rare Birds (New Amsterdam, 14 March)

Ploy ~ It’s Later Than You Think (Dekmantel, 14 March)

Romanowitch ~ A critical season substitute (glitch[dot]cool, 14 March)

Sopraterra ~ Seven Dances to Embrace the Hollow (Präsens Editionen, 14 March)

Substak ~ Silent Observers (See Blue Audio, 14 March)

Sylvia Courvoisier & Mary Halvorson ~ Bone Bells (Pyroclastic, 14 March)

Zoë Mc Pherson ~ Upside Down (SFX, 14 March)

Andy Cartwright ~ Yonder (Whitelabrecs, 15 March)

Nic Krog ~ Perfect Pattern (Psychic Liberation, 15 March)

squncr ~ The Moorish Shield (Facture, 15 March)

Sven Laux ~ The Undefined Feeling of Comfort (Whitelabrecs, 15 March)

Ai Yamamoto ~ Less Hype More Hyphae (Le Mont Analogue, 17 March)

Gallery Six ~ Kisetsu (Le Mont Analogue, 17 March)

Hagai Izenberg ~ Hypothetical Moon (Maadim Tapes, 19 March)

Yves De Mey ~ Force Over Area (Totalism, 20 March)

Bertrand Gauguet / Jean-Luc Petit ~ Radiesthésie (UNRec, 21 March)

Broken English Club ~ Songs of Love and Decay (Dekmantel, 21 March)

CHILD ~ Dyż-Lokazzjoni (Kewn, 21 March)

Ciao Kennedy ~ Solarium (Sdban, 21 March)

Daniel Brandt ~ Without Us (Erased Tapes, 21 March)

dogs versus shadows ~ Ghost Artery (Flaming Pines, 21 March)

François J. Bonnet ~ Banshee (Portraits GRM, 21 March)

Iggor Cavalera/Shane Embury ~ Neon Gods/Own Your Darkness (Cold Spring, 21 March)

Jefre Cantu-Ledesma ~ Gift Songs (Mexican Summer, 21 March)

J.H. Guraj ~ The Flip Side (Maple Death, 21 March)

Macie Stewart ~ When the Distance Is Blue (International Anthem, 21 March)

Marc Namblard ~ arctic summer (forms of minutiae, 21 March)

Martina Verhoeven/Luis Lopes/Dirk Serries ~ Invincible Time (Raw Tonk, 21 March)

mayforest ~ antifascist ambient (21 March)

Micro Moon ~ Figure in a Landscape (Clay Pipe Music, 21 March)

Molto Ohm ~ FEED (New Focus, 21 March)

Nick Storring ~ Mirante (We Are Busy Bodies, 21 March)

Nørbak ~ Casa (HAYES, 21 March)

Paal Nilssen-Love Circus with The Ex-Guitars ~ Turn Thy Loose (PNL, 21 March)

Puce Moment ~ Sans Soleil (Parenthèses, 21 March)

Sarah Davachi ~ Basse Brevis (Portraits GRM, 21 March)

Various Artists ~ Radar Keroxen Vol. 5 (Discrepant, 21 March)

Various Artists ~ Shorts (Bigo & Twigetti, 21 March)

Yoko Ono/The Great Learning Orchestra ~ Selected Recordings from Grapefruit (Karlrecords, 21 March)

Mutestare ~ My House is Full of Faces (March 23)

Apparitions ~ Volcanic Reality (Deathbomb Arc, 24 March)

Bryn Davis ~ Sometimes Things Change (Edições CN, 27 March)

Florence Cats ~ shell I (Edições CN, 27 March)

Slow Learning Club and Charlie Usher ~ Learning (Edições CN, 27 March)

Aaron Shragge ~ Cosmic Cliffs (Adhyâropa, 28 March)

Annie A ~ The Wind That Had Not Touched Land (A Colourful Storm, 28 March)

Adam O’Farrill ~ For These Streets (Out of Your Head, 28 March)

Andreas Lutz ~ Aura Trans (Kasuga, 28 March)

Bus Gas ~ Mercy View (We All Speak in Poems, 28 March)

CEM ~ FORMA (Danse Noir, 28 March)

Collateral ~ Flickering Cotillion (Cassiar, 28 March)

The Corrupting Sea ~ Political Shit (Somewherecold, 28 March)

Dawn After Dawn ~ Home is where You Are (577 Records, 28 March)

E Ruscha V ~ Music to Watch Seeds Grow By 004 (Secret Circuit, 28 March)

Gagi Petrovic ~ Music for Dance and Theatre 2011-2024 (Moving Furniture, 28 March)

Gianni Brezzo ~ Sprechiamo! (Jakarta, 28 March)

Heroarky ~ Healing Process (okla, 28 March)

Katelyn Clark & Mitch Renaud ~ Ouroboros (Hallow Ground, 28 March)

Mute Branches ~ Us Without the World (okla, 28 March)

Natasha Barrett ~ Toxic Colour (Persistence of Sound, 28 March)

Pierce Warnecke ~ Music from Airports (Room40, 28 March)

Reptile Reptiles ~ All Things Return to One (Constructive, 28 March)

Salin ~ Rammana (28 March)

Sullivan Johns ~ Pitched Variations (Moving Furniture, 28 March)

Use Knife ~ État Coupable (VIERNULVIER, 28 March)

Various Artists ~ I Only Like Difficult Art (and music) (Difficult Art & Music, 28 March)

Yelena Eckenoff ~ Scenes from the Dark Ages (28 March)

Miłosz Kędra ~ their internal diapasons (Pointless Geometry, 29 March)

Angèle David-Guillou ~ Music from PAN TO MIME (Akrotiri, 1 April)

Dustin Wong ~ Gloria (Hausu Mountain, 1 April)

Philippe Petit ~ Closing Our Eyes (Cronica, 1 April)

Michael Grigoni / Pan American ~ New World, Lonely Ride (kranky, 2 April)

Fraufraulein ~ greater honeyguide (mappa, 3 April)

Jäverling ◇ von Euler ~ Musik för vänskap (Flora & Fauna, 3 April)

Andreas O. Hirsch ~ The Salamander Treaty (makiphon, 4 April)

Barker ~ Stochastic Drift (Smalltown Supersound, 4 April)

Bodil Rørtveit ~ DJUPNA (Rainshine, 4 April)

Calming River ~ Macdui (4 April)

Cameron Knowler ~ CRK (Worried Songs, 4 April)

Curve Ensemble ~ Towards the Light (Bigo & Twigetti, 4 April)

David Cordero & Rhucle ~ So Far, So Close (Home Normal, 4 April)

David Wunder Brägger ~ Séance of Sleep I: The Saraswati Dreamcraft (The Parlour Recordings, 4 April)

Drank ~ Breath in Definition (Trost, 4 April)

Gamelan Salukat x Jan Kadereit ~ Áshira (One World, 4 April)

Gūsū ~ The Ending Was a Typical Part (Subject to Restrictions Discs, 4 April)

Hair & Treasure ~ Disc Rot (Discrepant, 4 April)

The Hemphill Stringtet ~ Plays the Music of Julius Hemphill (Out of Your Head, 4 April)

Hüma Utku ~ Dracones (Editions Mego, 4 April)

Lea Bertucci + Olivia Block ~ I Know the Number of the Sand and the Measure of the Sea (Room40, 4 April)

Matthew Muñeses and Riza Printup ~ Pag-ibig Ko, Vol. 1 (4 April)

Nico Giroris ~ Music Belongs to the Universe (Leaving, 4 April)

Nicolás Melmann ~ Música Aperta (Umor Rex, 4 April)

Penelope Trappes ~ A Requiem (One Little Independent, 4 April)

Pidgins ~ Refrains of the Day, Volume 2 (Lexical, 4 April)

Sausha ~ Sausha (Halcyon Veil, 4 April)

Sergei Khramtcevich ~ Other Colours (Incompetence, 4 April)

Simon Heartfield ~ The State of Social Movement (Machine Records, 4 April)

Sissy Spacek ~ Entrance (Shelter Press, 4 April)

Stéphane Odrobinski ~ Le bleu de la rivière tournesol (4 April)

Jeremy Young ~ Cablcar (Halocline Trance, 5 April)

Laszlo Umbreit, Sirah Foighel Brutmann & Eitan Efrat ~ Là (Futura Resistenza, 7 April)

Katarina Gryvul ~ SPOMYN (Subtext, 9 April)

The Album Leaf ~ ROTATIONS (Nettwerk, 11 April)

Araz Salek ~ Peripheries of Nahavand (Worlds Within Worlds, 11 April)

Ben Shirken ~ H.D. Reliquary (11 April)

Big Hands ~ Thauma (Marionette, 11 April)

Charif Megarbane ~ Hawalat (Habibi Funk, 11 April)

Larum ~ The Music of Hildegard von Bingen Part II (Puremagnetik, 11 April)

Lullahush ~ Ithaca (Future Classic, April 11)

Phonolab ~ Disturbia (Subsound, 11 April)

Raining Drones ~ Take Flight (Fluttery, 11 April)

Riccardo La Foresta ~ ZERO,999…. (OOH-sounds, 11 April)

Sonic Chambers Quartet ~ Kiss of the Earth (577 Records, 11 April)

Sons of Ra ~ Standard Deviation (The Laser’s Edge, 11 April)

Stephen Roddy ~ Corpus/Mimesis (11 April)

Theresa Wong ~ Journey to the Cave of Guanyin (Room40, 11 April)

Triology featuring Scott Hamilton ~ The Slow Road (Cellar Music, 11 April)

YUNIS ~ Ninety Nine Eyes (Drowned by Locals, 11 April)

Daniel Blinkhorn ~ Wave Function (Audiobulb, 12 April)

Yuki Fujiwara ~Glass Colored Lily (defkaz, 15 April)

Divide and Dissolve ~ Insatiable (Bella Union, 18 April)

Gryphon Rue ~ I Keep My Diamond Necklace in a Pond of Sparkling Water (18 April)

Odalie ~ Optimistic Nihilism (Mesh, 18 April)

Rindert Lammers ~ Thank You Kirin Kiki (Western Vinyl, 18 April)

Sieren ~ Emergence (Friends of Friends, 18 April)

Ursula Sereghy ~ Cordial (Mondoj, 18 April)

Zosha Warpeha and Mariel Terán ~ Orbweaver (Outside Time, 18 April)

Out of Context ~ Live at the High Mayhem Festival 2006 (20 April)

Conrad Praetzel ~ Angels Set In Motion (23 April)

Anzû Quartet ~ adjust (Cantaloupe Music, 25 April)

Ayane Shino ~ River せせらぎ The Timbre Of Guitar #2 – Rei Harakami (musicmine, 25 April)

Billow Observatory ~ The Glass Curtain (Felte, 25 April)

Gilles Sivilotto ~ handmade (Zeitkratzer, 25 April)

Michael Vallera ~ The Other World (Torn Light, 25 April)

Purple Trap ~ The Stone (Karlrecords, 25 April)

Roberto Cassani / Graeme Stephen ~ Pictish Spaghetti (577 Records, 25 April)

Violeta García & Hora Lunga ~ I’ll Wait For You In The Car Park (~OUS, 25 April)

Will Graefe ~ Compositions for Guitar Vol. 1 (25 April)

Will Graefe ~ Compositions for Guitar Vol. 2 (25 April)

The Balloonist ~ Dreamland (Wayside & Woodland, 2 May)

Eric Shorter ~ Shorter Bendian Shields (577 Records, 2 May)

Max Walker ~ Chronostasis (Orenda, 2 May)

Stereo Minus One ~ Dead Petals At The Other (Machine Records, 2 May)

Surgeon ~ Shell~Wave (Tresor, 2 May)

Jacobo Vega-Albela ~ Un-Belonging (577 Records, 6 May)

Devin Sarno ~ Low Endings (Perceived Sound, 9 May)

Luke Hess ~ Arkeo (DeepLabs, 9 May)

SIGILLUM S ~ Aborted Towns, The Deadly Silence Before Utopia (Subsound, 9 May)

The Vernon Spring ~ Under a Familiar Sun (RVNG Intl., 9 May)

Beatrice Dillon / Hideki Umezawa ~ Basho / Still Forms (Portraits GRM, 16 May)

Charles Chen ~ Building Characters (Cellar Music, 16 May)

David Handler ~ Life Like Violence (Cantaloupe Music, 16 May)

François J. Bonnet / Sarah Davachi ~ Banshee / Basse Brevis (Portraits GRM, 16 May)

Michelle Helene Mackenzie & Stefan Maier/Olivia Block ~ Orchid Mantis / Breach (Portraits GRM, 16 May)

Rolando René ~ Pra’ (Prata Veituriorum) (Torto Editions, 16 May)

Zoo Too Trio ~ Poetry Legroom (Shifting Paradigm, 16 May)

Midi Neutron ~ whosgonnafeedyou likeThis (18 May)

Michael Begg ~ WITNESS. Ambient Chamber Works 2020-2024 (Omnempathy, 18 May)

emptyset ~ Dissever (Thrill Jockey, 23 May)

Goldmund ~ Layers of Afternoon (Western Vinyl, 13 June)

Elskavon ~ Panoramas (Western Vinyl, 20 June)