A CLOSER LISTEN weekly #84

Ziad Nawfal, Nour Sokhon and Stefan Christoff mix, Ukrainian Field Notes, and New Reviews

Happy Wednesday, Listeners, I hope you’re all doing well as we transition into summer (here in the northern hemisphere, at least). My article deadline has been extended, so I’m still trying to focus on my academic writing at the moment, but I’ve got a few reviews (and special interviews for paid subscribers) coming out over the course of the next month or so. Rich’s Ten Songs That Sound Like Summer will be up soon enough, but since we don’t usually do this sort of thing, next week, my long promised Mini-Review Marathon in the form of a Mid-Year Recap, including a huge number of records we’ve been really digging but don’t have the resources to write full reviews for.

Also, a new hybrid soundwalk / oral history collage I produced was broadcast yesterday, 3 June, on CKUT’s the Montreal Sessions, hosted by my friend and frequent collaborator Stefan Christoff, as part of the 25th edition of the Suoni per il Popolo festival. You can check out the whole two hour session, which includes a great range of recordings and in-studio performances, at the above link. And guide to this year’s edition of Suoni will be published shortly by CultMTL, while my full interview with festival director Kiva Stimac will be available for paid subscribers. (Sorry to double-down on the promo in one newsletters, but as an underemployed course lecturer summer’s are always an especially difficult time financially, so any help is much appreciated, thanks!)

One last thing before we beg to the content of this newsletter, a regular reminder about the bi-weekly ACL internet radio show for CAMP. This Sunday’s installment is dedicated to recent records we’ve reviewed in the Field Recording & Soundscapes category. Tune in to CAMP this Sunday 8 June at 6pm CET (and available on Mixcloud soon after). Happy Listening.

Ziad Nawfal, Nour Sokhon and Stefan Christoff present Signals and connection [mix]

Early this year, we reviewed Nour Sokhon‘s Beirut Birds, which Richard Allen found to be “teeming with urgency, … an example of an album released at exactly the right time.” Another recent record, Beyond All Borderlines, is an evocative collaboration fusing Sokhon’s field recordings and electronics with piano improvisations from Montreal’s Stefan Christoff, released on Ruptured. Late last year, that label released Yara Asmar’s engrossing Stuttering Music, and we’ve been deeply impressed by their ongoing output, with some very exciting releases on the horizon. For this joint mix, regular mix contributor Christoff joins Ruptured label owner Ziad Nawfal to select and mix various songs with field recording contributions by Sokhon. The accompanying artwork is by Mexico City based artist Margarita Barros, who also created the cover art for Beyond All Borderlines. Happy Listening.

Stefan writes:

This mix came together surrounding the release of my duet album with Nour, Beyond All Borderlines, out on Ruptured Music. This album, built on a session in Berlin in Oct. 2023 at Morphine Raum in Berlin by Rabih Beaini, developed ideas from an ongoing exchange with Nour, between Berlin and Montreal, over the past few years. The session was filled with electricity and layered emotions, as all present in the space were feeling the heaviness of war.

The mix that is being shared here on A Closer Listen illustrates some of the sonic influences on the album but also an ongoing exchange of sound and friendship between those who contributed to the mix. A couple of the pieces are shared in excerpts because I wanted to include a relatively wide range of sounds on the mix.

Read the entire piece, including an interview with Nour and Ziad, and a tracklist, here.

Ukrainian Field Notes XLIV

The current episode of Ukrainian Field Notes is dispatched directly from Ukraine. I am writing this introduction from Lviv, where for the past three days I have been attending the Lviv Media Forum. As usual this has been an informative and thought provoking experience.

Many familiar topics were discussed with different narratives being suggested and with semantics playing a large part in shaping new approaches. So, for instance, instead of decrying the “good Russian” trope, one panel discussion proposed to look at Russians as “useful” or “not useful,” and to view the idea of Russians not in terms of ethnicity but in terms of gender, as one can always change gender. But it’s not just enough for a Russian to be against the war, they need to be for Ukraine’s victory.

Also, cancelling Russian culture, is now seen by some as ineffective and bringing only emotional satisfaction (think of Anna Netrebko and the London Opera). Instead, one should cancel the weaponistation of culture.

Moreover, Ukrainians should be attending panels with Russians, not to argue, but to put their point across. And there should be more attention given to Turgenev and less to Pushkin, according to Dmytro Zolotukhin who singled out Turgenev’s short story “Mumu” as epitomising the passive subjugation of Russians to authority.

As for the acronym “FIMI” [Foreign Information Manipulation & Interference], the general consensus is “no thanks” whereas Ilana Bet-El suggested replacing the term “corruption,” with that of “mismanagement” or “bad management,” to differentiate Ukrainians from Russians.

These were all considered controversial ideas not that long ago, but the Ukrainian weltanschauung is dynamic and adaptable.

One of the strengths of the LMF is the presence of foreign guests giving their own perspective and sometimes provoking hilarity. Anne Appelbaum asked for a show of hands from those who believed there would soon be a ceasefire. The audience responded with laughter. Aida Čerkez recounted her experience of the siege of Sarajevo and warned that to achieve peace one needs the courts. If the perpetrators of war crimes are not brought to justice, the risk is of developing a strong sense of victimhood which can turn the victim into a future aggressor. She also framed culture as a tool not just of survival but of self-preservation.

Luckily it wasn’t all work and no fun. The reunion gig by Tik Tu proved to be a highlight, together with the premiere of a double bass concert by Maxim Kolomiiets at the Lviv Philharmonia, and an organ recital featuring three compositions by Alex Shmurak.

And that was just in Lviv. I then traveled to Odesa and Dnipro, before heding to Kyiv, but that’s for next month’s episode. For the current Ukrainian Field Notes, we return to metal with Khors who lament the indifference of the Ukrainian music media when they released the album Where the Word Acquires Eternity inspired by the Executed Renaissance before doing so proved all the rage, Svyatoslav Lunyov wonders how long it will take Ukrainians to start classifying sounds into aesthetic categories again, Farba Kingdom reject the idea of music as entertainment, while Kindracoma considers music a tool for survival and Anna Dovhan counts elephants as a cure for insomnia. Last but not least, Принц Буба [Prince Buba] talks about reconstructing landscapes that are no longer accessible.

This month we also feature not one but two podcasts recorded while in Lviv. The first, recorded for Resonance FM, mixes metal with country music courtesy of Dmytro Kumar from 1914 and Sasha Boole. Not such an unlikely combo after all, they talk about trenchcore and performing for veterans

The second podcast with the punk band Бетон [Beton] is an ACL exclusive. I met them in the rehearsal space they share with the band 1914.

To round things off we have a bunch of new releases, mostly collaborations by the likes of 58918012 with ummsbiaus, Heinali with Andriana-Yaroslava Saienko, Eazyopoluse, Kindracoma, Super Inter, Bayun the Cat and JD Roberts, Natalia Tsupryk & Neil Cowley, mires, and Kyivpastrans.

In the Viewing Room we have Ukraine’s Eurovision entry by Ziferblat (spoiler, they came 9th) and Tvorchi (a previous contestant on Eurovision), plus the latest from Dnipropop courtesy of Monotonne.

Post-Scriptum – I arrived this morning in Kyiv from Dnipro. As I put this episode to bed, so to speak, I am having to make my own bed in the corridor as they are predicting another night of ballistic missiles and drones on Kyiv. And yet, there was a defiant vibe at the Laboratorium Spring Festival earlier today, where old UFN friends Vlad Suppish, Burning Woman and NFNR were performing. One of the headliners for tomorrow (25/05/205), the French producer Shlømo has cancelled at the last minute over safety concerns. But the party will still go on. Symonenko has already been asked to move his set to fill in the gap. This, to me, sums it up.

Read the entire piece, including interviews and tracklists, here.

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.

Anne-F Jacques ~ contre-montagne
One seldom thinks about holes unless one falls into them. contre-montagne is all about holes, specifically those of Montreal. According to Anne-F Jacques, the entire city “was created by digging holes: removing stones from the ground, then making buildings with them.” Holes seldom exist for long before someone considers filling them: with trash, with dirt, and in this case, with snow. The album represents a unique recording site: a place in which pollution mingles with a thriving wetland habitat. One pauses, only momentarily, to wonder if this might be a good thing ~ before dismissing it as another example that nature will find a way. Jacques calls the icy bottom “the glacier of Montreal,” noting the turquoise color of the artificial meltwater lakes. On various occasions, Jacques sneaks “through a hole in the fence” to discover what these holes might sound like. The results are revelatory.

Ben Chatwin ~ The Beginning / KLASIS
Ben Chatwin has taken a new approach in 2025, releasing a double-A side single followed by an EP, each boasting visuals from Morgan Beringer. These audio-visual works are meant to be experienced in tandem, as each enhances the other. These works, although brief, shine a spotlight on sequencing. These complementary opposites peak and recede, explode and settle, boil and cool. There’s a lot more to explore with this template, and we suspect that an album may be on the way, perhaps one in which the dissolution is drawn out, chords fading to notes, spaces expanding, barely audible sounds and finally silence. Chatwin has found his perfect pairing in Berenger, the two inspiring each other to greater heights and depths, wringing emotion from sight and sound.

E. Jason Gibbs ~ fish point
fish point is a gorgeous meditation on place and time, one that bemoans what has been lost and celebrates what still exists. Recorded in Portland, Maine, the set teems with the sounds of water and wildlife, but also reflects the proliferation of industrial sounds and the slow dissolution of everything that made Fish Point so appealing in the first place. To play the album is to listen to all things at once: electrical currents, lapping waves, mechanical churn, swooping birds. While listening, one yearns to hear more wings and waves, in the same way as one visits in order to experience the fullness of nature – not what humanity has made it. At the same time, one acknowledges that the recording itself is a thing of beauty, and that amid all the static and engines, one can still glean a slice of the original biophony. All is not lost; it is only, as this CD underlines, headed in the wrong direction.

Goldmund ~ Layers of Afternoon
Goldmund (Keith Kenniff, who also records as Helios and Mint Julep) explains that the album is about the experience of time, from fleeting moments to valued days, and the ways in which time may either drag or fly, depending on one’s experience. Even in a single day, there may be Layers of Afternoon. Time is passing while one listens; a fitting experiment might be to listen fully, and then to estimate how much time has passed. (Those who are time-strapped might do this with a single track.) Has one lost track of time? Has one begun to fret about losing time? Might one’s mind begin to drift, unmoored in time? Will we squander our next afternoon, working straight through the day; or will we find time for contemplation? Is today a day we will remember or quickly forget? Must we always be active in order to “make the most of our days,” or might we allow them to unfold at their own pace? As the cover suggests, even in paradise there is time enough for a nap, allowing one to appreciate time even more when one awakes.

Jake Muir ~ Campana Sonans
Not since Cities and Memory’s The Chimes has an album delved so deeply into the resonance of church bells; and Campana Sonans (Ringing Bell) has the dual advantage of being a single-artist LP and a physical release. One may even purchase a printed stained glass tote bag to carry one’s record (plus 19 more)! After relocating from LA to Berlin in 2019, Jake Muir became enamored with the sound of the city’s church bells. This led him on a Europe-wide trek as he began to record and examine the vast differences between sonorities and approaches, most especially the staid practices of Germany versus the melodic sequences of England. But of course the album is not just bells; Campana Sonans is a reflection of history and culture, an echo of centuries-old sounds presented “as is” and in reverberant fashion. It is also a sonic portrait of the sounds that coexist inside and outside the churches: bell-ringers and passers-by, many of whom have become acclimated to the sounds.

Only Now ~ Timeslave III
Only Now aka Kush Arora may be billed as an Indo-Californian producer, but that doesn’t tell the artist’s full story. The primary draw is the modernization of traditional sounds, especially Hindustani percussion; but Timeslave III‘s guest stars help make the release an international event. There’s also more to Only Now than percussion, but one wouldn’t know it from the opening three tracks, who tumble so quickly after each other that they can be experienced as an extended piece. Percussion is nowhere to be heard; instead a cold wind blows through the late minutes, followed by a subterranean rumble. Consider this a premonition; even as [the album] returns to the club, showcasing the relentless percussion of Dave Sharma, one senses that at any moment the timbre may shift. It’s clear that the artist cannot be pigeonholed. The cover, titles and timbre hint at even darker realities, while allowing listeners to make their own associations; suffice it to say that the world has grown darker, while the sparks of resistance yet remain.

Pavel Milyakov, Lucas Dupuy ~ Heal
It’s interesting when music with limited activity ends. The breaks between songs on an ambient album seem more jarring. There is often so little there to begin with. It’s too easy to let your mind wander. To lose track of the sound. Making its disappearance all the more disconcerting. HEAL is a gentle record. Although comprised of only six compositions it stretches for nearly 51 minutes, all gentle washes of electronic sound interspersed with the occasional field recording which range from more percussive (albeit still delicate) clanging and rustling, to the natural sounds of chirping birds and wind. The tracks on HEAL feel original in a way too much ambient music in the age of its ubiquity does not. By the time one arrives at “end,” the 18 minute album closer, those pauses between tracks that seemed so jarring at the beginning of the album disappear as the drone of lush synthesis overwhelms.

Theresa Wong ~ Journey to the Cave of Guanyin
Good questions are always more interesting than their answers. “What does the cello sound like?” seeks a factual, closed response, which most of us could easily produce in fairly short order. Through her work, however, Bay Area-based composer and Guggenheim Fellow Theresa Wong poses a much more adventurous and generative inquiry: “What can the cello sound like?” While some of these tracks may be strong enough to stand alone as individual pieces, on the whole they’re best understood in relation to one another, as a single complete work. It’s a studied and technically astute collection which demands a focused listen, yet the songs presented feel far less like academic études than reverent exaltations of the textural and harmonic potentialities of the instrument. As such, it makes for a thrilling voyage.

Various Artists ~ Only Sounds That Tremble Through Us | فقط أصوات ترتعش في أجسادنا
The story has been evolving for fifteen years, lasting through governments, revolutions and wars. Back in 2010, Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme started collecting online recordings of “people singing and dancing in communal spaces in Iraq, Palestine, Syria, and Yemen.” This led to an exhibition at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, then spread to international showings and now to this double album. The first record is a direct reflection of the installation, while the second presents commissioned works from artists in Palestine and New York, deepening the resonance. The ripple effect of these recordings extends to the compositions. Musicians and dancers responded to the initial sounds, which were captured in public squares, at weddings, on beaches and in people’s homes, with sounds of their own, beginning a dialogue. The common thread is one of human expression, from protest to joy: movement and voice as expressions of innate, portable power.

UPCOMING RELEASES

(complete list with Bandcamp links here)

We’ve been waiting all year for summer, and now it has finally arrived! Schools are out, vacations are planned, cars are packed and the beaches beckon. The music release schedule slows down to make space for the concert season, but there’s still plenty of brand new music to look forward to: a steady stream of new releases eager to serve as the soundtrack to summer. We hope you find your next favorite album right here!

enabler-x ~ Lights in the Sky (4 June)

Mark Montgomery French ~ Thy Navel is a Goblet That Does Not Lack for Wine (5 June)

Daniel Wilifried, Paul Grabowsky and Peter Knight ~ Raki (Earshift Music, 6 June)

Elizabeth Klinck ~ Chronotopia (Hallow Ground, 6 June)

Exploding Skull ~ Coyote (Bad Channels, 6 June)

fatalism ~ (n)ether (Bedouin, 6 June)

Genevieve Von Black ~ Ghosts Are Speaking (Blunderbuss, 6 June)

GPS ~ Directions + Destinations (577 Records, 6 June)

Hidhawk + Meanstreetz ~ 1234 (Searching Records, 6 June)

IDTIL ~ A Screensaver of Emotions (Machine Records, 6 June)

Jean-Marie Mercimek ~ Dans Le Camion De Marguerite Duras (Aguirre, 6 June)

Mary Pedicini and Asher Levitas ~ I Wish We Could Tell You Everything (Beyond the Valley, 6 June)

Monogoto ~ Partial Deletion of Everything, Vol. 3 (Home Normal, 6 June)

Object Collection ~ Possible Thieves (6 June)

øjeRum ~ Til Vinden I Dine Øjne (Room40, 6 June)

Purelink ~ Faith (peak oil,, 6 June)

Sankt Otten ~ Hymnen und Helden (Denovali, 6 June)

Sankt Otten ~ Tote Winkel (Denovali, 6 June)

Sequence of Events ~ The Art of Memory (Subject to Restrictions Discs, 6 June)

Stephen Vitiello, Brendan Canty, Hahn Rowe ~ Second (Balmat, 6 June)

Wampís of Guayabal & Aboutface ~ Los Bosquesinos (6 June)

zakè | Spieth | Guentner ~ Arcadia (Affin, 6 June)

Fujimine ~ Threshold of Discomfort (7 June)

Nobuka ~ Monologue Intérieur (Audiobulb, 7 June)

Aiko Takahashi ~ The Grass Harp (LAAPS, 9 June)

Salomé Voegelin ~ Cassette Album (Flaming Pines, 9 June)

Amosphère ~ Cosmogonical Ears (Hallow Ground, 10 June)

Anthony Joseph Lanman ~ Hommages (10 June)

Cyrus Pireh ~ Thank You, Guitar (Palilalia, 13 June)

EUS ~ Completud (Pluvial, 13 June)

Fredrik Rasten ~ Murmuration and Stasis (Moving Furniture, 13 June)

Gabriel Brady ~ Day-blind (Tonal Union, 13 June)

Giovanni Di Domenico & Rutger Zuydervelt ~ Painting a Picture / Picture a Painting (Moving Furniture, 13 June)

Good Weather for an Airstrike ~ suspended animation (Echoes Blue Music, 13 June)

Joseph Allred ~ Old Time Fantasias (Scissor Tail, 13 June)

Juri Seo, Latitude 49 ~ Obsolete Music (New Amsterdam, 13 June)

Kate NV ~ Room for the Moon Live (RVNG Intl., 13 June)

Lagoss & Abagwagya ~ Island Slang (Discrepant, 13 June)

Lyra Pramuk ~ Hymnal (7K!, 13 June)

Stefan Wesołowski ~ Song of the Night Mists (TAR/MM/UOH, 13 June)

Wallace, Vazquez, Von Schultz ~ Siesta (577 Records, 13 June)

Thamel & Jean D.L. ~ Temporary End (14 June)

Felix Kubin ~ Der Tanz Aller (Futura Resistenza, 16 June)

Verloren Schatten ~ S/T (Omnempathy, 16 June)

Andrey Kiritchenko ~ Rust Trust (POLAAR, 17 June)

Various Artists ~ TERRAFORM – I Knud Viktors Lydspor (Edições CN, 17 June)

Chad Kouri ~ Mixed (20 June)

Eduardo Ella ~ Desvíos (577 Records, 20 June)

Elskavon ~ Panoramas (Western Vinyl, 20 June)

Hampus Lindwall ~ Brace for Impact (Ideologic Organ, 20 June)

Julien Mier ~ Gradually (Lapsus, 20 June)

Lia Kohl & Zander Raymond ~ In Transit (Un je-ne-sais-quoi, 20 June)

Matmos ~ Metallic Life Review (Thrill Jockey, 20 June)

Mosley Jr. ~ Rollerskate (Mood Family, 20 June)

Osmium ~ Osmium (Invada, 20 June)

Sally Anne Morgan ~ Second Circle the Horizon (Thrill Jockey, 20 June)

Susana López ~ Materia Vibrante (Elevator Bath, 20 June)

Tassery ~ My Own Mirror (Comme dans les films, 20 June)

Vanessa Tomlinson ~ The Edge is a Place (Room40, 20 June)

Various Artists ~ Blackout Tape (20ft Records, 20 June)

ZÖJ ~ Give Water to Birds (Parenthèses, 20 June)

When Colors Are Fading ~ September Sun (21 June)

Giovanni Di Domenico – Alex Zethson ~ Edge Runner – Noema (defkaz, 22 June)

Jonathan Schenke ~ Passages (No-Gold, 26 June)

Sveið ~ Latent Imprints (577 Records, 26 June)

Universal Affirmation Ensemble ~ Unconditional Propositions (Katuktu Collective, 24 June)

Sveið ~ Latest Imprints (577 Records, 26 June)

Black Sites ~ R4 (Tresor, 27 June)

Brighde Chambeul ~ Sunwise (Glitterbeat, 27 June)

Canzonieri ~ All Creature (Kuboraum Editions, 27 June)

Cate Francesca Brooks ~ Lofoten (Clay Pipe Music, 27 June)

galen tipton & Shmu ~ dewCLAWS (Orange Milk, 27 June)

Jasmine Guffond ~ Music for the Encouragement of Unproductivity (LINE, 27 June)

Sonologyst ~ Planetarium (Cold Spring, 27 June)

Darragh Morgan ~ For Violin and Electronics – Volume II (Diatribe, 4 July)

Jonathan Uliel Saldanha ~ Surface Disorder (Perf, 27 June)

Merzbow ~ Sedonis (Signal Noise, 27 June)

Nev Lilit ~ Hyperit (Moloton, 27 June)

Nitrada ~ Everything That Is Not Counted Will Be Lost (2nd Rec., 27 June)

Pan American & Kramer ~ Interior of an Edifice (Shimmy-Disc, 27 June)

Sary Moussa ~ Wind, Again (Other People, 27 June)

Simonel ~ Cartographies of Silence (LINE, 27 June)

sofii ~ i want this feeling to last forever (Soul Feeder, 27 June)

Stephen O’Malley ~ But remember what you have had (Portraits GRM, 27 June)

Tropos ~ Switches (endectomorph music, 27 June)

VOLTU ~ The Violets Are Blue (27 June)

Zimoun ~ Harmonium I-IV (Room40, 27 June)

Haarvöl ~ Horizons of Suspended Zones (Cronica, 1 July)

Amina Hocine ~ ātamōn (Subtext, 2 July)

Dmitry Evgrafov ~ Research Center (Open Pathways, 4 July)

Rival Consoles ~ Landscape from Memory (Erased Tapes, 4 July)

Traverse ~ It’s Broken (Somewherecold, 4 July)

V/A ~ Perceptions Vol. 6 (Bigo & Twigetti, 4 July)

Yann Novak ~ Continuity (Room40, 4 July)

Lewis Fautzi ~ Unwritten Chapters (Faut Section, 7 July)

7XINS ~ One Knob Per Function (Live Cuts) (Severn Electronics, 9 July)

Aho Ssan & Resina ~ Ego Death (Subtext, 11 July)

Alan Noblock, John Butcher, Mark Sanders ~ Tectonic Plates (577 Records, 11 July)

Annie Blythe, Bendon Randall-Myers ~ Only in the Dark (cmntx, 11 July)

Benoît Pioulard ~ Stanza IV (Disques d’Honoré, 11 July)

Colin Andrew Sheffield ~ Serenade (Elevator Bath, 11 July)

Fuubutsushi ~ Columbia Deluxe (American Dreams, 11 July)

Hammock ~ Nevertheless (Hammock Music, 11 July)

Molly Joyce ~ State Change (Better Company, 11 July)

Patricia Wolf ~ Hrafnamynd (Balmat, 11 July)

phase space ~ Degrees of Freedom (11 July)

Reid Willis ~ Reliquary (Mesh, 11 July)

Siavash Amini ~ Caligo (Room40, 11 July)

Yearns ~ Fata Morgana (Room40, 11 July)

David Donohoe & Kate Carr ~ A Storm and its Aftermath (Flaming Pines, 18 July)

Norman Westberg ~ Milan (Room40, 18 July)

Shrunk feat. Fabiana Striffler ~ Pixie People (577 Records, 18 July)

Sudden Voices ~ Scruples (18 July)

Thee Reps ~ Cryptocarography (Gold Bolus, 18 July)

The Vardaman Ensemble ~ FR FR (19 July)

Giant Claw ~ Decadent Stress Chamber (Orange Milk, 24 July)

The Allegorist ~ From Birth Until Death (Awaken Chronicles, 25 July)

Autistici ~ Familiarity Folded (Audiobulb, 25 July)

Eric Siereveld’s Organic Quintet ~ Sweet William (Shifting Paradigm, 25 July)

Flying Sutra with Ayumi Ishito ~ Out Beyond Orbit (577 Records, 25 July)

Shelley Burgon ~ The In Between (Thin Wrist, 25 July)

Teddy Abrams ~ Preludes (New Amsterdam, 25 July)

Kory Reeder ~ In Place (thanatosis, 29 July)

Andy Graydon & Klaus Janek ~ A Book of Waves (Room40, 1 August)

Brian Wenckebach ~ Memory & Anticipation (Somewherecold, 1 August)

Keefe Jackson, Jakob Heinemann, Adam Shead ~ Stinger (Irritable Mystic, 1 August)

Madeleine Cocolas ~ Syndesis (Room40, 1 August)

Eva Novoa ~ Novoa / Gress / Gray Trio, Vol. 2 (577 Records, 1 August)

Professor Flitch ~ Uneven (3 August)

Tom Gershwin ~ Wellspring (8 August)

Erik Griswold ~ Next Level Avoidance (Room40, 9 August)

Jake Baldwin ~ Vanishing Point (Shifting Paradigm, 15 August)