Start your journey into our most recent interviews here - with music and videos. Updated almost daily.
Sound, timbre, and projection – these are not theoretical concepts for astoundingly gifted British soul- and jazz vocalist Reuben James. They are everything. His songs make full use of his songwriting and piano magic and the production shines – but his natural voice is always the star here.
Faith Coloccia's collaboration with Daniel Menche began with a shared interest in nature, photography, and hiking, before entering the domain of music and culminating in a work which dissolves tender piano tracks, vocals and field recordings into inviting dreamstates.
As a teenager, Josienne Clarke found herself drawn to “quiet little songs, like whispered confessions.” Now, she's writing them herself, following in the footsteps of Sandy Denny & Nick Drake. Her new album may be called Far From Nowhere – but it feels very close to something incredibly meaningful.
As a solo producer and with his fellow Basement Boys, Douglas has shaped decades of house music history. After a self-imposed hiatus from the business, his new collection of dubby and hypnotic 21st century soul anthems sees him reinvigorated and at the top of his game.
Asked about the future relevance of music, composer Asaf Sagiv finds: “Beneath all of it there is always Void, silence. It does not change. It remains.” “IMA,” a work of infinite subtlety makes us experience this void – its frightening dimensions, its serene gaze, the comfort in its permanence.
Includes albums by Eliane Radigue, Auburn Lull, Catherine Christer Hennix, and Harold Budd.
When Sebastian Wolfgruber teams up with Simon Popp and Flurin Mück, their groove relentlessly grabs-, moves-, and submits you. But it's also light and loving, like the hand of a friend pulling you along. The band's debut LP is an ode to the physicality of rhythm performed as a spiritual celebration.
There's no shame in Jazzy's DJ sets – everybody's free to scream, release, and go crazy. In fact. tears are a sign that her performance was a success: “I cry way less now because I can can channel and release that energy during my sets and share it with my ravers.”
Nothing ever came from small ambitions: A one-woman-performance-unit, ISHA aims to “redefine the jazz-electronic sound.” She's an impressive bassist – but it's really her songwriting-, and vibe-creation chops that make these goals seem remarkably attainable.
For years, Swiss pianist-composer Raphael Loher found it hard to finish his solo music. Through limitations and trusting his sense for what's really important he broke through the impasse. His latest work for tape machine is testimony to the strange magic of his approach.
Her latest song collection may carry the title “The Beauty of it All.” But underneath, these pieces are, as Ella Walker puts it, “particularly candid, blunt and lyrically raw.” There's a risk to confessions this personal – but it's a risk she had to take.
“I’m such a sucker for spatial effects like reverb and delay,” Tokyo producer, Ableton-trainer and composer Sakura Tsuruta says, “I probably overuse them!” On her latest EP, however, every note, treatment and sound is at its right place – it's the aural equivalent of a perfect Lemon Sour.
Katy Guillen and Stephanie Williams honed their songwriting and production chops from the ground up - allowing them to realise their dirty-garage-meets-soulful-country anthems at just the right balance between melancholia and elation, DIY fuzziness and blissful shimmer.
Listening is difficult, but when it works, it can take you far. Belgian experimental jazz trio Steiger has put it centre stage in its philosophy, eschewing traditional models of improvisation and taking their performances to places of surreal, charmingly psychedelic wonder.
As the German producer shifts from ecstatic dancefloor sounds towards a more expansive style and his drifting tracks enter the realm of songwriting, his talents as a lyricist move to the forefront. What's in a word? For Steffen Linck, an entire universe of emotions.
“I like to imagine that feelings are made of cerebrospinal fluid! In that sense I also like to think that shaping music is like shaping pulses in fluids of various viscosities, as an inner dance.”
Lê Almeida of Brazilian band Oruã finds inspiration in tragedy, poverty and “parochial and racist separation.” Music is about coping, it is about entering the chaos without fear. Clarity is appreciated, but not a requirement - “good lyrics need to say something, even if it's confusing.”
Music is space to Australian lyricist and producer Zion Garcia, it's “what isn't there.” And yet, the words are very much “there,” right in the eye of his trance-inducingly-headnodding, contageous-in-another-dimension abstract-jazz-hop's musical storm.
Five voices melt into one in IKI, but it is a singularity that contains multitudes. Every voice is clearly audible yet part of an organism, each performer's recognisable yet an anonymous part of the collective. This is the future – envisioned by the first instrument of all, the human voice.
The collaboration between Pontoppidan and Rønn has developed into a unique musical dialogue, blending acoustic experimentation with electronic textures. They move between improv, prepared piano, voice processing, and open exploration – with curiosity and playfulness at its core.
Each krautrock release takes Marco Campitelli to strange new worlds. His music is akin to astral travelling, requiring a “good dose of crazyness” from the performers. His upcoming full-length has the mind-shifting power of an ayahuasca trip and the physical force of a sledgehammer.
Some still think composers spend their days locked away and dipping their quill in ink. Over the past year, however, Amelia Clarkson has spent more time travelling than behind her desk. Movement plays a pivotal role in her work – both when it comes to the music and getting it performed.
“I fall, constantly. There’s no bottom to my fall, except, death.”
On Simon Popp's new release, his trio with Flurin Mück and Sebastian Wolfgruber drum, brush, and shake their way towards complete unity, to the point where the borders between tension and release, storytelling and movement in time are crumbling.
KAU are associated with the Brussels sound and its community of jazz-leaning creative explorers. Still, the trio's sound is as personal as it is unmistakable, carving alien analog synth textures and sci-fi melodies out of hypnotic groove-oriented jams.
“It doesn't matter” is the title of one of Ida Stein's darkly alluring electro-pop anthems. In fact, nothing could matter more. Writing and producing her deeply atmospheric, intricately detailed debut album turned into a mission statement, the songs into revelations at the border of chaos and hope.
Neither geographical distance nor social distancing could keep Letters from Nowhere apart. Working with a concept they refer to as “performing with our past selves,” the musicians create improvised movements that cherish uncertainty but are never ashamed of beauty.
The once close bond between folk and classical music has been all but severed. In the oeuvre of Jamie Duffy it is making a welcome and entirely un-cliched return. Mostly based on piano, tin whistle, and strings, it focuses on intimacy and melody – held together by Irish storytelling magic.
Small events made the guitarist of experimental rock band torpedo realise that we can communicate with birds, hear the wishes of plants and see the global implications of small-scale tragedies for life on this planet.
Guitarist Augusto Baschera moves fluidly between classical tradition and jazz. APÓCRIFO, an expansive, emotional, and ambitious work of complex drumming and Augusto's multidimensional lines is testimony to a mind without borders: “Anything that can be turned into music inspires me.”
There's the joy of release on the Kurdish-Dutch songwriter-poet's new album, but there is also, on slow-smouldering anthems like “Can,” a sense of something pent-up pushing to the surface. These are the points where vulnerability turns to empowerment, anger is a form of love.
The Réunion songwriter was deeply inspired by the Island's sacred spaces and the power of his first percussive instrument, the roulèr. Integrally fusing subcutaneous shuffles and high-speed rhythms with polyvocal sweetness, he creates spiritual music with a lyrical grounding.
For their new album, the duo covered Jefferson Airplane's classic "White Rabbit.” Astoundingly, their version turned out to be even more psychedelic and otherworldly than the original. Spirituality has little to do with it – it's all about “love, religion, and the nature of truth.”
In an ideal world, Matthew Ryals wouldn't need the modular anymore. Working his way towards an increasingly immediate way of interacting with his instrument, he is gradually approaching the point where voltage is his material, and electricity becomes a music of a strange, bewildering grace.
Recorded in a barn reminiscent of the one used on Neil Young's Harvest LP, Löwenzahnhonig's new album is a feathery, folky fairytale-fantasy-world of "skylinekisses," "heavy pink snowflakes," and "fondue sandwiches." You can hear a band playing softly – that's all there is, that's all that matters.
Expanding towards black metal, shoegaze, and crust punk, Agriculture's music is constantly at the verge of either exploding or collapsing. Lyrics lend as much direction and consolation to this vast expanse as they add to the confusion – you can't expect to go through purgatory without a little pain.
Kneebody are a force of nature, sculpting a massive man-machine sound driven forward by relentless grooves. And yet, this isn't just a vulgar display of power – even at their most ferocious, it is the notes between the notes that make the quartet stand out.
“Michael Rother gave me a NEU! T- shirt once. But I’m not a collector and I am not out to copy anything.”
The Rudolf Steiner House is an actual place. But for the Polish band, it is also a point on their creative topography: It rose from the subconscious and started manifesting itself in an autumnal song cycle of sullen chords, sweet vocals and echoes of The Smiths and The Cure.
The Danish duo feel that emotions are in the music and their role as performers is merely to play it to their best of their abilities. That may seem like a rather cool perspective. So how come their jazzy blend of warm synths and pastoral acoustic resonances feels so damn romantic?
The Dublin duo don't need words to get their feelings across. Their enigmatic, enveloping take on techno embraces a free drum grid and is driven entirely by emotion - tempetuous basses pushing melancholic clouds of melody across a horizon in a state of eternal sunset.
This trio's a hungry beast. Hungry for connection, hungry for a release that only this constellation can provide. It is a sound of plucks, patterns and pulses, a sound of trust growing through absence, nourished by the energy built when individual voices meet again after time spent apart.
Krautrock fans like to dream about the golden years. José D’Agostino is actually living them. His former band Go-Neko! was built on a 70s-like communal spirit and his solo work, which he labels “dreamykraut,” relies on constant creation – pushing the motorik into your feet and utopia into your mind.
Rachel Eckroth is taking jazz out of the box again. You can feel the physicality of the players, their breath, the suspense in the space. Despite her love for electronic world building, this is what it's all about: “I can’t imagine making music and never performing it in some way."
“Trying to be in control in an improvised context doesn't make sense.”
Lober's new album reveals itself gradually, shedding its layers with extreme care and consideration. Recorded during a time of personal loss, the music has the soft tonalities of a green tea without losing its impact: In a world of delicate gradations, it's the subtle movements that hit you hardest.
A cover reproduction of Miles Davis's On the Corner hangs on Sergio Merce's studio wall. His music, however, is already round the bend. There is melody in these monumental, slow-breathing soundscapes – but their contours are opaque, shifting at the speed of tectonic plates.
Amalgamating global influences into a personal background shaped by the supernaturally tight machine grooves of the MPC, Siselabonga drummer Fabio Meier's virtuosity manifests itself in its servitude to the song: First, you embody the world, then you strip it down to the core.
For ten years, Cheryl E. Leonard interacted with glaciers, listening to- and recording them, playing near- and entering into collaboration with them. Compositions or documents? Sounds of the earth or human creativity? Here, you don't have to decide.
The Sicilian songwriter's new work is a concept album which started with a question: “What does it mean to be an island?” Blending different languages, fragile folk and swelling sci-fi synths, the album's borderlessness instils a sense of hope: This is what it feels like not to be an island.
On their debut-abum, tri-continental trio Mother Tongue are exploring the unexpected. Sometimes, the spirit leads them to trance-inducing dervish grooves, at other times to straightforward song. It's a sound without borders, it's a music of infinite possibilities.
Some producers struggle with over-seriousness. Not Invexis. His hard-hitting, high-octane techno sound is the result of a playfully open-ended process. One of his new tracks kept joyfully shapeshifting for an entire year – clearly, the journey is the reward here.
One reason for Jason Dungan to assemble a band was the blissful feeling of hearing his music performed in a vivid, dynamic group constellation. And yet, the all-acoustic material with the ensemble – subtle, delicate, bitter sweet – has the same time-arresting intimacy of his solo recordings.
The artwork of Kai Craig's new LP has an anachronistic beauty to it, the sound is warm and rich. Clearly, the drummer feels a love for the jazz tradition. Still, when it's time to play, all of this is forgotten, giving way to a vital realisation: This moment, once passed, will never return again.
Some of the intense, frenetic energy that he contributed to David Bowie's "Darkstar" is also present on Donny McCaslin's “Lullaby for the Lost.” But the album also hits plenty of the tones and timbres in between, creating a fulminant and deeply fulfilling fanfare for the found.
Spontaneity is their approach, surprise a goal, radical contrast a technique: The Berlin-via-Johannesburg duo write songs that use sweet melodies and vocal camaraderie to descend into noise, chaos and hysteria.
Dub is the thread weaving Mohajer's activities together – creating dynamic spaces extended into tidal infinity. In this interview, she reveals her background in a punk rock girl band, her experience with a moved eardrum and her worst nightmare as a DJ.
Revolving an unlikely set of influences like Sisters of Mercy, “Cold Oi” and Chappel Roan, the Cologne-based band consider themselves one of the least fashionable formation imaginable – but was there ever a better time for raw, bloodletting songs about death, and the end of everything?
You don't have to read this interview about Billianne to get to know her – just listen to her sing. Moving from pure folk to a more multifacetted approach, her debut record began with the challenge of writing catchy melodies for her lower register – and ended with the triumph of a personal sound.
After an album dealing almost entirely with military aggression, pianist-composer Svetlana Marinchenko has shifted her focus towards polyrhythmic structures and working with electronics. The band is her laboratory - and the music an experiment constantly at the cusp of combustion.
The Moroccan producer builds sonic utopias from field recordings, found sounds and ferocious groove patterns. Listening is never passive, it's never just one thing – it's healing and transformative, questioning and consoling. As he puts it, it's “a way to read and understand the world around us.“
Continuing the spirit of its quasi-legendary predecessor Synästhesie, the 8mm Festival is committed to remaining an island of underground culture amidst Berlin's rapidly arts-unfriendly conditions.
In Stockholm, Lina Langendorf's uncompromising presence has become the stuff of local legend, her axis with African jazz a global force. A song, a gig, an album, a solo – they all have a beginning. But if it were up to the saxophonist, they would never come to an end.
If you never stop singing, then life turns into a song and every note has meaning: Singing soul, rnb and jazz for tips for hours each day, Marquis Fair secured a recording deal and found a second home in Switzerland. His voice, however, has never lost touch with the street.
Hafana's new album is called “Angel,” a typical title for a harp-led work. For the artist, however, the pieces, which grew from a single inspirational seed, are an ironic take on the cliches associated with the instrument: When it's dark, it's dangerously easy to confuse a demon for a sprite.
As a teen, Yttling slipped into the local jazz club. Later, he studied with the legendary Esbjörn Svensson. Still, as he stresses in this interview on his new album – an electrically charged oscillation between euphoria and melancholia – all that matters is for things to sound “free and cool.”
One of the latest Brothers Nylon tracks was named after a stimulating substance. Which seems apt: Even at its most chilled and dreamy, the duo's instrumental 70s-soul-funk comes with a dab of chilli, cinematic vibes and the thrill of a deeply resonating espresso high.
No interpretation is ever definitive for ELECTRIO. And so, they re-imagined pieces by Dowland and Monteverdi, bridging centuries and crossing the divide between the electronic and the acoustic. The result is a transfixing triumph of the imagination, washing over you like a timeless tidal wave.
“Maybe AI can be a coach, a guide, a plugin. But it would never invite me over for fennel tea.”
The Indonesiam trio play deliciously spacey, drifting, downbeat synth-fusion. But their debut album is a warning about the desertification of tropical forests. It is a subversive form of activism – opening the mind up with kindness but never letting go of the message.
Many listeners experience mental images. But can the feet of dancers, too, sense the impulse behind a beat? In the music of Closet Yi, scenes, sounds, and sentiments collected while traveling translate into a architectural web of urban patterns – percussive, visionary, and beguiling at once.
Lady Wray started singing in church as a girl. Still to this day, she considers her voice a blessing and part of a ritual the world needs to keep from turning into a dark and barbaric place. It's all about sharing – you can't listen to her perform and leave without taking a piece of her with you.
Who's the person on the cover of Carr's new album? It's the artist, his face lit up by two neon beams. But it's also the departure point for the music which grew as a score around the image. And once it was done, the man on the photo had become someone else, a listener lost in the songs.
“I’m not sure we’re the right people to be asking what jazz means today,” the Australian quartet feel. Or maybe it's the other way around. Their new release is a post-production tour de force involving improv, electronic tools and constant transformation – where else would jazz happen, if not here?
In the club, dancers have been seen struggling to find the movements to match the Colombian producer's beats. At home, however, and ideally under a pair of immersive headphones, his music takes on the kind of soothing quality that some dystopian sci fi flicks convey.
Many artists have described the creative spark as receiving a “transmission.” Emma Rawicz is one of the few where you can still sense this spark of the “beyond” in the finished work. Her music lives in a Murakami'ean dream state where jazz and magical realism blend into something uniquely her own.
When the backing band to some of Asheville's most charismatic vocalists goes instrumental, the music takes flight. Focusing on a cool kind of passion and a laid-back hip-hop-vibe, Sugar Bomb are errupting into a danceable and slow-simmering, red-hot lava stream of infectious grooves and organ solos.
There's an easy way of playing the drums. And then there's the way Anthony Laguerre prefers to do it: Inseperably interlocked with the other instruments, tapping into the infinite palette of percussion to transform and resonate “timbre, dynamics, spectrum and the space in which it all happens.”
Once the NYC vocalist removed all lyrical filters, the songs for his new EP started pouring out. Some of the underlying themes were deeply private, introspective and reflective – which didn't keep the sessions from yielding joyous, life-affirming, 90s-tinged hip-hop, rnb and house.
The guitarist is neither afraid of tapping into the past, nor is he nostalgic about it. On a live album of standards, originals and unexpected covers, the swing always comes first, but nothing hits you like his nonet's cover of “In a Silent Way” - it ain't worth a try if it can't make you cry.
Charmaine Lee thinks of sound as “something that can be shaped, pressed, and stretched, but never held still.” Her voice binds all the aspects of this unique material together: It is its source, a resonator, transformer and a magnifier – searching for patterns in a state of constant surprise.
Includes physical sound experiences by Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Nirvana, Amenra, Hania Rani, and Lori Goldston.
Listening to Pavon's studio album “Born With Heartbreak” delivers an equally beautiful and brutal blow of energy. And yet, it's only a backwards translation of the emotional storm unfolding when she performs live. There's no wrong or right here, as long as it moves you.
On “ok”, the trumpet-poet dives deep into analog synths and global collaboration, shaping a collection of centrifugally spiraling pieces held together by the gravitational force of his personality. daoud has been called “the problem child of jazz” - this album rather sounds like the solution.
Instrumental hip-hop was supposedly the first genre to fall prey to AI. In the hands of Benny Sings, it may turn out to be a stronghold. The Dutch producer approaches samples and beats like a songwriter would his guitar, capturing moments of blissful simplicity with a high degree of spontaneity.
Carmen Electro is bringing house back to its beginnings: A producer in the intimacy of her studio, with nothing but an idea and the urge to create. There's something political about her soft anthems about friendship and private passions: “Don’t let the tech giants choose your sound for you.”
"Every stage of my life has been a kind of unlocking," the Venezuelan singer says, "moving me closer to where I truly want to go." On her solo debut, that goal is now right in front of her: Jazz and South American folk, African rhythms and rock riffs, humour and tears all have their place here.
Björn Lücker felt as though he had no gift for the drums. His creative battle with obstacles attuned him to the intricate details of his instrument and the ability to consider himself not just a rhythm machine, but part of an ensemble – creating a feeling he likes to call “panoramic.”
Think of an incredible jazz singer. Then, imagine what they would sound like with all of the cliches removed. On her new album, Yumi Ito's voice, captured with vintage microphones and embedded into a space of warm resonance and reverb, is right in front of your ear, every emotion magnified.
“Tech has been very bad for music. There is great music still being made and released in isolation - but the ratio of good to bad has declined precipitously.”
On composer Christopher Stark's latest long-form work, he confronts an acoustic ensemble with piercing white noise and luminescent electronic sequences. It's not a denial of the confusion and chaos our data-driven world has created – but it does make it feel a lot more beautiful.
Isabelle Duthoit finds a lot of inspiration in Japanese theatrical traditions. But her performance, as dramatic as it may be, is neither acting nor storytelling. Bypassing language and returning to the archaic voice of visceral emotion, her vocals take the listener back in time and deeper inside.
The sets of the Dutch DJ are journeys built on patience and tension, on the constant subtle fluctuation between a sweet, ethereal flow and the grounding gravitational pull of powerful pulses. This is not escapism – it's reality as a dream of a better world.
With nothing but a guitar, the occasional drum machine and sustained harmonics, Jamie's “Across a Violet Pasture” is painting worlds at the border between waking and sleeping, life and death. You can check in anytime, but these are not places you'll ever arrive at – you can only leave.
The Brussels trio delivers the true Late-Night-Jazz. Based on dreamy piano licks, trance-inducing drumming, spiritual basslines and phantasmagoric synths, this is the soundtrack to a night filled with promises, headed for a morning that will never come.
“Tears in stardust, falling from my eyes // Your absence - a void in starlit skies.”
Music is vibration transmitted through the air, it is emotion made physical. That's why Danish bassist Ida Nielsen will always prefer the stage over the couch and performance over production – when the connection with listeners is most direct, the rawness of her funk just hits you harder.
The Danish bassist's output seems to progress in numbers: His ensemble is called “3 Elements,” his electro-acoustic trio Planet B's new work will be released on 4 records over 4 years. His music, however, is an attempt not to be overly conceptual – and to return to the timeless mystery of art.
Written during the most challenging period of her life, Camilla's new album deals with pain and the finiteness of human existence in an equally extreme and relatable way. There are no certainties in these razorsharp, and brutally fragile songs except one: Right now, in this moment, we are alive.
The third instalment of the German producer's Italomania series once again manages to marry red-hot passion with the tongue-feeling of a cool rosé. What sets great Italodisco apart from mediocre one? For Modica, it's all about the difference between “the vertical and the horizontal.”
Making music, to Indian-American producer Kush Arora, means placing energy at the right spot – or creating new ones for it to inhabit. Born in live situations and hyper-saturated with noise, the results have a meditative, hypnotic quality about them – although they have got him threatened as well.
“It’s all about gongs,” Alex Lavery says about his project with James Ford. And yet, with a small ensemble ornamenting the powerfully sustained drones, it is about a lot more and something deeper as well: Creating “epiphanies, creative solutions or a reset, all from the power of sound.”
“Art is similar to archeology,” percussionist and composer Sébastien Forrester reflects. On his new album, you can hear him digging, scraping off the dust, revealing hidden layers. Only, these aren't fossils: Nervously twitching, they are brimming with barely contained, primal kinetic energy.
Avidan has a voice like no other. But he takes it through hell, straining and crooning, purring and seducing. Sometimes, the need to sing extends beyond his vocal limits, yet there is no alternative: Singing means expressing himself to himself and to the world in a bid of making it more bearable.
Spiritual jazz can get nigh-symphonic. For Blue Earth Sound, James Weir was looking for something more intimate. Mostly built around sweet piano riffs, soulful drums, and blissful flute and brass, the music takes you to safe places of healing and comfort.
What's in an image? For Fenge's new EP, the cover was there first to which the Leipzig producer composed the music. Performed on acoustic instruments and vintage synths and recorded with a small portable recorder, it is lovely and mysterious – and conjures up new mental images inside the listener.
The titles of her pieces are a source of inspiration for Gisela Horat's explorations. The name of her new trio album – Live in Leipzig – is a carte blanche for her imagination, a screen onto which the pianist projects hallucinatory patterns of melodies, moods, and subcutaneous pulses.
Black Polish freely admits that hate comments spurn her on. But she's not out to get anyone down. To the contrary, songs like her anthemic, slow-simmering single “Bondage” create communities for coping: When the lights are out, the darkness draws us closer together.
Contradictions are not just a spice for Sijya's ambient trip hop songs. They're the meat and bones. Blissed-out bass drums and far-away percussion beat out slow rhythms, faintly glistening synths suggest film-noir-moods - while the words revolve around the "hellishness and wonders of the mundane."
Great albums can seem to live in unique acoustic worlds or dimensions of their own. The new múm certainly does. Recorded in an Italian vineyard, it took the band away from Iceland's wind and water and towards an oasis of peaceful distortion, babbling modulars and sympathetically overlapping voices.
“When you don’t have a machine behind you with capital and influence, there are only two choices—remain idle and do nothing, or stop at nothing until you win.”
For São Paulo songwriter Gab Ferreira, the stage is not the place to hold back and songs aren't vessels for coded messages. Her music's intimacy is like the top of an iceberg rocked by wild undercurrents and hot, submarine volcanic activity – cool to the touch, but ready to explode at any moment.
The influences of the Belgian sixpiece are hyper-local and ultra-international at the same time. Rooted in the city of Antwerp, its music fuses influences across eras and beyond borders: “The wider the spectrum, the greater the possibilities.”
Includes sonic archiving by Eno/Byrne, Maqam-meets-rock collisions by Secret Chiefs 3, the textural sonics of Amon Tobin and Badawi's dark Moroccan electronics.
You can't scream for peace. And so, Cecilie Strange is envisioning jazz as a space for serenity and beauty, where drifting sax passages and kalimba pulses are gently moved by cool piano flourishes and the sound of loving brushes caressing the cymbals. This is utopia in a cupped hand.
The Berlin trio started as a tribute to Edgar Froese and Tangerine Dream. But they're not nostalgic. Using a combination of synths, guitar, and laptop, they're exploring how far cosmic sequencer music can go without repeating itself or loosing its original spirit.
"Don't dream big 'til you can handle small things," Shad advises. His personal brand of hip hop embraces music as the soundtrack to the imagination. It zooms in on the tiniest of details – the undercurrents of fear, love, and pride that make us who we are.
Butler wants to express many different energies at the same time, even seemingly contradictory ones. The intention is always the same: To create songs that are “dense, rich, textured and expansive”, songs that you can feel in your head and your heart, that are larger than life.
Kang's music transcends time, his language is as inclusive as it is impenetrably personal. On his upcoming release “Riparian,” an endless dialogue between plucked and bowed strings opens up sparse fields beyond time, reaching for the point where the parallels meet and space folds back on itself.
The trio started while touring abroad in a station wagon. The lack of space, the enforced gear minimalism, and the constant change of scenery resulted in a homesick album of sweet timbres and flowing rhythms, powered by a love for krautrock, prog, 90’s house, trip hop, “and all things psychedelic.”
There's a 16 year gap between Kocher's last solo album and his new one. The accordionist has used the time well and charged his improvisations with playful twists and turns. There's no need for amplification or effects. Everything he needs is right here, within the sounding body of his instrument.
To lend that defining organic quality to his acid-splashing electronica, producer and soundtrack composer The Liquid Dude draws the conviction that “sound is as much science as it is art” - as well as intense real-life experiences: Journeys to the arctic, volcanoes erupting right in front of him.
Even when the Ottawa composer's pieces for small ensembles take visual cues from paintings or movies, what makes them so distinct is a magical confluence of vibration, mood, and resonance, a particular folding of time that is unique to music and never fully reveals its mystery.
For a long time, Nils Kugelmann couldn't decide on an instrument. Maybe that's why, today, his double bass playing frequently crosses from percussive grooves via warm harmonies into melodic territory. His trio's latest album on ACT isn't just tight – instrumentally, it's hyperdimensional.
David Lee Myers is intrigued by the sounds of suspension bridges. Somehow, that shines through on Terrenus, an album which makes tones sing and frequencies dance. It may feel abstract to some, but really, it isn't – this is what the world sounds like to those willing to listen.
“You Heartbreaker, You” is an album to surrender to, to become obsessed with, to play so loud it's painful. Born from intense riffs and the urge to write a crushing guitar record, Beth's songs unfold like apocalyptic cleansings rituals about love, frustration and alternative sexuality.
Hilgeum are performing on gayageum, geomungo, and haegeum – traditional instruments with an up to 1,000 year old history. And yet, the powerful, fantasy-like performances of the Korean threepiece can make the most advanced electronic tools feel pale and tame in comparison.
The studio is their stage: While the Brighton based ensemble's live performances may fit most people's definition of “jazz,” their electronically supercharged recordings redefine its limits. At their heart, however, is the very essence of the genre: Improvisation in all of its variations and glory.
For Billy Nomates, music and lyrics can enter into paradoxical relationships, combining the sad and the upbeat, offering linear and circular narratives as well as navigating between sex and death. Life is short and lyrics can help to make sense of it – what's the point in lying?
The Swedish trio's monumental Black Metal delves into history, digging up the roots of evil and investigating societal entanglements. If that seems bleak, then that's because it has to be: Only when you turn off the lights completely, can you see the faint glimmer of hope.
A lonely clarinet, scattered fragments of piano chords, a ghostly layer of evening ambiance – Matthew Sage's new album seems to exist in the realm of memories, myths and magic. Its chambermusical arrangements are filled with yearning – forever reaching for something that's impossible to grasp.
Paceo's "Atlantis" takes a mythical culture as its point of departure. But the depth, intensity, and just barely contained energy of its songs point to something highly personal – to a burning passion held within that's bubbling to the surface.
Ion is a firm believer in the art of the album. That is remarkable since her songs feel like self-contained worlds. Searching harmonies, her incomparable voice and sparse arrangements lead the listener into a magical place where words take on new meaning – as if they're born that very moment.
Horror film soundtracks, traditional Korean music, electronic studio production, performance and “shamanistic imagination” - the work of WON IL takes the job description of a composer to new levels of complexity. His music is of a remarkable immediacy, however.
The Swedish jazz composer wants to give songs what they need. For his upcoming album, that mostly meant subtracting elements and focusing on warm grooves underneath Beach-Boys-like harmonies. That is, until he discovered they were asking him for a complete string orchestra.
Formentini's latest album is a takeover. During the process, the guitarist-composer allowed subconscious memories, unprocessed traumas, and inherited energies to infiltrate, invade, and influence his process – yielding an infinite field of whispers, Kirlean resonance and cloudy hauntings.
Siichaq was battling with mental health and loneliness when Nirvana and Melody's Echo Chamber came to the rescue. Songtitles like “I keep getting sicker” and “Life's a Mess” still reveal bruises and scars. The music, however, oscillating between brokenness and beauty, has the power to inspire.
Bowman is interested in the idea of sound as democratic, species-crossing communication. Maneuvering wondrous electro-acoustic spaces through improvisation and careful placement of his materials, a music of great subtley, joy, and refinement arises – free from expectations, free from constraints.
The range of influences for this British-Danish jazz supergroup is dizzying. But as exploratory as their creative process may be, the results have a surprisingly dreamy quality, a gently rolling sensuality and warm charm to them – think independent movie theatre rather than Hollywood blockbuster.
“Using ONLY electronic music/sounds is limiting.”
Binding field recordings to harmonies and beats and opening her intimate pieces up to psychedelic intrusion, the Singaporean pianist-producer and sound-composer is not afraid to get her ears dirty. Her work is an invitation to hear the world differently - and see life through the lense of music.
A deep sensation of grief was the overarching sensation for the cellist-composer's debut album. Navigating between her classical training, exploratory instrumental techniques and a profound love for contemporary music's immediacy, she moulded her own language of pain and deliverance.
Tuxis Giant's Matt O’Connor is always writing: Songs about houses, songs about pets. Songs that trick you into looking inward, songs that dip into the sublime. Songs that feel raw, yet glow from the inside. Songs that are quiet, but which you'll never forget.
For her new album, Laura-Mary Carter wanted to return to the straight-forward storytelling of 50s love songs. That's not to say the emotions discussed here are simple. There is always a coating of noise, a halo of hurt, an itch to remove the bandages and open up the wounds.
The “M” doesn't just stand for the Captain's finely groomed facial hair growth. It also relates to: Music, Melody, and that certain Magic that elevates his weightlessly floating future-age electro-grooves to an energetic state approved by Albert Einstein.
As a boy, the albums of Tangerine Dream took the Marillion guitarist to another world. Decades later, his encounter with the keeper of the TD legacy could do the same for a new generation – long, feverdreamy instrumentals casting pulsating shadows on landscapes filled with longing and regret.
“Everything is subordinated to music itself—production, technology, even performance decisions.“
How do you describe the magic that's all around us? On GUSH, Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith does it best by not describing it at all. Her songs are pure synaesthetic sense stimulations, aural caresses of hazy vocals and sultry beats which always put feeling first.
Drawing spirit from John Coltrane's great 60s recordings, the Swiss saxophonist is following in legendary footsteps. Backed by a fourmidable band and propelled forward by highly memorable material, however, he pulls it off – always landing on the right side of classic vs retro.
“Dimensions” reverses the conventional logic of electronic music, treating the orchestra like a synthesizer and an effect processing unit. The results, however, are not formal experiments, but emotionally rousing string oscillations which feel faintly familiar and fascinatingly foreign.
Olly Mundy's journey into music is like an arrow unstoppably making its way towards the bull's eye – and DJing is like life therapy. His afro-house sets hold precious moments, building them into spaces to rejoice, rejuvenate, and re-connect with what really matters.
Could any band be cooler and more unpredictable than Canada's heroes-beyond-borders Motherhood? It can, if it's led by one of their members. Penny & The Pits' are brutal & charming, sharp & fuzzy, they're your mind on helium, they're bitter love & sweet sweat, they're rage wrapped in a pink ribbon.
Recorded at his home, Matt Bachmann's upcoming new album conveys a rare organic intimacy. Realised as a collective dream with a cast of formidable musicians, the music unfolds slowly, and with utmost intent, through the weaving of mesmerising patterns and subtle grooves.
Some have compared Newmen to Stereolab. But the German quintet are closer to the source. Their new album blends irresistible motorics with sweet vocoder tunes and analog synths for a mirage-like, mind-frying ride on the rays of the future and everything that made the originals great.
Mallets, bells, and choirs – and yet, David Robertson is not composing for classical concert halls, but the dancefloor. His music follows a course set by intuition and fast decisions: If there are no rules, every note is an opportunity to break them.
The composer and sound designer's new album starts off in a dreamy, peaceful haze, then drops into unfathomable depths in two time-arresting long-form pieces. On the outside, nothing much is happening here. On the inside, it's a tempest.
Inspired by the proud Afro-Peruvian tradition and Miles Davis' legendary 60s quintet, the sextet are embracing rules and constraints as a tool for liberation. There is a constant flow of energy between members, music, and audience – not a single performance is ever quite the same.
Juri Seo's work explores “the continuum between timbre, harmony, and noise.” Yet its main goal is not experimentation, but exhilaration. Making consistently surprising use of just intonation, electronics, and traditional instruments, this music makes you forget the past and remember the future.
Sometimes, just a single piano note can prove cathartic for the Australian sound artist and composer. But so can the noises of big cities and urban environments. On “Syndesis,” she translates her emotional response to a thrillingly diverse collection of sounds into a mesmerising aural tapestry.
“Is it Love?” the chorus to the Berlin-based dub-reggae duo asks expectingly. But what else could it be? Two decades into their creative career, Noiseshaper keep plumbing the depths of echo, delay and feedback. It's about sharing, it's about the unknown – but most of all, it's about the love of it.
The precise pulse of Juli Lee's percussion patterns pave a path for pure, otherworldly pads, and whispered poetry to softly unlock the brain's emotional hemispheres. It is a space where all anger has gone and left room for the more subtle energies remaining in its wake to unfold.
Steve Lawler has gone through a “god awful” first record and overcome gear addiction to end up in a place where music is a pure expression of emotion. His new single is a relentless burst of energy – describing a place where euphoria and unfulfilled desire merge.
Talking about energy means talking about live performances to the Polish bassist. In concert, “incredible things happen.” Especially so on his latest live album with his quintet, on which 4-minute pieces get expanded to 22-minute explorations as part of the “art of joy.”
The modular synth compositions of the Mexico-City based producer have one foot on the dancefloor and the other on a bed of moss. Inspired both by personal experiences as well as the machine-logic of her systems, her latest EP is an act of conscious self-hypnotisation.
Goldfarb's new album takes listeners to places where everything sounds not-quite-right in exactly-the-right-kind of way – and vice versa. New intervallic spaces lead to new forms which, in turn, lead to new experiences. That's because they “ultimately expand our sense of what music can be.”
David wanted his new album to be “strange, trippy and beautiful.” It turned into more than that: A fantasy for vocals, wind controller, MIDI guitar, and drum-synthesizer that goes from poetic babblings and insular sounds to mysterious structures. It's like witnessing the birth of a new music.
Whatever the Chinese singer-songwriter had to endure, music was always there for her. Now, she is using the power of her tender, diaristic songs to help and heal others. What is needed right now, Miist feels, aren't innovations or extravagant presentation, but art as an act of humanity.
The Australian producer is wrapping huge emotions in a soft fabric, aiming for euphoria with small gestures. Her debut full-length encompasses and congenially blends dreamy house, sequencer electronica, and dancefloor anthems – this is what it feels like to truly be taken on a journey.
His career as a baritone has already led Liverman to a Grammy win, performances at the Met and collaborations with many of the leading orchestras. On his expansive new album, he is now stepping into the limelight as a composer – with songs at the cusp of the fragile and triumphant.
The band's second coming has already been more prolific than their first run in the 1990s. Their new release was even, at one point, set to turn into a double album of gorgeous house songs. That's because they can't conveniently switch the creative muscle off – it's always twitching.
Patience is key for Deepak Sharma, both as a DJ and a producer. Patience to keep a groove going until it fully reveals itself. Patience to reach beyond taste, beyond expectations, beyond ego. His aim is to tap into something hidden – and use it to transform his audience.
For the Lebanese sound artist, music is an extension of politics. His pieces of bonecrushing electronica make for a dark, angelic message: Beats never settle, compositions oscillate between chaos and control, timbres fluctuate and flicker.
For Charlie Sparks, energy is not something to selfishly hoard. It is there to be shared, it expands and grows by passing it on. His new EP is like a distillation of the energy created by his live sets into recordings – and then injected straight into the listener.
“There is a deep reservoir of creativity often found within self-imposed constraints.”
A collaborative, immersive installation is a hard-hitting reflection on - and a ghostly meditation about – technological mediation, beauty in the face of destruction as well as Polowczyk's evolving relationship with his own art. It is also an invitation to walk through the content – literally.
The quartet slap, strum, and blow their instruments like a Hildegard von Bingen on Acid. But beside the mediaeval-folk-like trance rituals, there are plenty moments of tender introspection and catchy songwriting. The New Eves are Rising – and they won't relent until you join them.
"Last night, you were in my dream," Yoshika Colwell wispers on her mesmerising debut album. But we're in there, too. Using the language of folk, her songs capture the in-between with grainy, black-and-white-photography serenity - and brutally honest poetic brilliance.
Now a museum, Lokananta used to be the beating heart of Indonesia's creative scene. For modern jazz trio Babon, its blending of Indonesian traditions with global sounds triggered a wave of inspiration that ultimately led them to their personal sound.
Joane Hétu's path as a composer wasn't easy. But she didn't question her calling. You can hear this sense of necessity in her music which speaks to the mind and the body alike – creating a sense of wonder from elements and instruments you thought you knew inside-out.
“Some of the most powerful experiences I’ve had with music felt like energetic imprints—moments that marked me deeply, almost etched into my heart.”
Filled to the brim with surprisinlyg psychedelic twist and turns, Boersma takes techno far beyond its traditional templates. Her tracks are like threedimensional sculptures of the club experience – even at home, you can literally see the crowd go wild to them.
Furtherset's work is brimming with a potential for synaesthetic confusion: Intuitions get “tuned,” images explained, visuals and sounds collide. It is music that has to bridge the divide: Richly resonant, menacing yet balletic, these orchestral ambient works are still-lifes at the cusp of eruption.
Thomas Julienne's band Theorem of Joy are expanding the traditional jazz palette – with subtly embedded virtual instruments, Indian chants, hypnotically drawn-out groove sections and socio-psychological reflection. It is a meditation on fire driven by an insatiably curious mind.
Uncertainty, pressure, and tension are the triggers for the rattling and rolling, fidgeting and flowing, hickupping and hollering percussion fantasies of Joss Turnbull. It is a music that paradoxically facilitates and requires release: The more vulnerable you get, the more you're free to let go.
Ahikaa Arora's discography is just two singles deep, but the spiritual dimensions they plumb infinitely expand their emotional impact. This is music that envelopes its audience completely, these are songs that don't come from her but to her.
For years, Ria Moran thought her voice was too quiet. Now, it's what pulls listeners into her world of intimate thoughts and confessions. Her debut album confronts and caresses her vocals with lush sub-basses, time-arresting grooves and neonlit synths – fall in love to it, fall in love with it.
Ginton's guitar tone is as light as a cloud, his melodic hooks sweet and captivating. Marrying Afrobeat influences with house and drawing a lot of energy from his DJ/Live-performance-fusion sets, his haiku-like compositions invite the mind to travel.
“Improvisation is not a show-off thing. For me it’s about trying to create something beautiful together with other people.”
garbagebarbie's vision of pop isn't complicated – their new single is about the pleasures of kissing. But taking in elements from glam, jangle, and disco, it is as colourful as it is cinematic and ambitious in scope: “Music changes the world because it is what the universe is made of.”
Emerging from a 20-year long hibernation, the Austrian duo's beats are still chilled, but the vibes feel as warm as ever. Almost entirely instrumental, the music creates a dream-like haze extending blissfully into infinity across an endless horizon of gentle grooves, piano licks and echoes.
This music is about pain. And pleasure. It is means business. It is fun. It is indie. It is experimental. It is none of those. It is wild. It is beautiful. It is chaotic. It is disciplined. It confuses audiences. It makes them fall in love with the band. It is not possible. It is waiting for you.
The sixpiece were part of the same scene for years before locking themselves in the studio and improvising for 48 hours straight. The resulting journey through relentless dub grooves, epic hypnotica, and shoegazy rock channels the spirit of Can and Neu! so perfectly that it feels almost paranormal.
Albums like Anna Sophia Defant's “s:e” make you believe that anything really is possible. Not because it's “free,” not because it explodes stylistic borders and replaces them with unified sonic fields. But because it does all of these things with a pure, passionate, punk-like lack of restraint.
Growing from mysterious number patterns, Dan Rosenboom's Coordinates evolved into a progressive-jazz-rock-adjacent meditation on the infinite-worlds-theory. Despite its conceptual depth, the grooves reign supreme here: This is a philosophy of the mind that gets the body moving.
"Without silence, everything would become noise. Silence is where ideas are born and emotions settle."
His classical education and the accompanying mindset almost ended cellist Daniel Brandl's creative ambitions. Now, his music exists in a fascinating “inbetween-ness” - a driftstate which allows for a force beyond the players and their influences to emerge.
Ryan El-Solh of post-rock trio Scree sometimes imagines his life being happier without the creative impulse. The world, however, would be poorer without it. The band's instrumentals – ornamented with loops, effects and a full brass section – may grow from despair but yield the fruit of consolation.
As a conductor, Owen Underhill has dedicated his life to putting great contemporary composers on a well-deserved pedestal. Now, a new album of small-ensemble pieces is doing the same for his own work: Yearning and of a quicksilvery elegance, these songs are of an otherworldly beauty.
Twitch may have carried dance music through the pandemic. But it is much more than a temporary life vest. A big new festival explores the intersection between physical club culture and online DJing – and how Twitch may lead the way into a stimulating future.
The sonic scenes of the sensitive sound sculptor's soundtrack to a surreal Icelandic documentary never surrender to the striking images. The rhythm of the movie and the floating ghostliness of the synthesizers interlock, creating a dialogue across different layers of perception and consciousness.
Often written in the early morning and in the small window between pain and emotional processing, the stream-of-consciousness songs of the New York fivepiece are instantly relatable and magical at the same time. You don't wake up from this dream, you keep falling deeper into it.
The success of arguably the world's most famous festival remains equally remarkable and fragile. And so, the organisers took a far-reaching strategic decision: Futureproofing the festival by exploding its location in time and space.
“Dance helps to expand our conscious awareness.”
Masterpieces by Verdi, Debussy and Mahler were the point of departure for double-bassist-composer Haggai Cohen-Milo's “Gravitations” project. Flavoured with jazz and hip-hop, these pieces not only hold and stand on their own – they'll make you listen to the classics with fresh ears.
Known for his sonic-laboratory-approach, the Canadian producer is also known as the “Techno Doctor.” On his latest EP, however, he is slipping into the role of a director, scoring scenes from a Jodie Foster movie or Berlin nightlife.
Technically, the TC & the Groove Family frontman's latest release is his solo debut. In reality, it is as collaborative as ever. Incorporating soul and jungle, jazz improvisations and a live band, this is the spirit of a community - and a way of life - set to music.
Each cover for the Canadian producer's mesmerising new drum'n'bass LP is different, each one is part of a larger work. Some might be confused. But to 747, the concept of code as a paintbrush remains infinitely fascinating.
Sometimes barely a minute short, James Burns' ambient work hovers weightlessly at the cusp between clip and composition. Every piece briefly opens a portal into a world of blurry outlines, unresolved grief and softly lingering tones – one step further, and you'd loose yourself.
Maybe our narratives of the new are broken: Lingyuan Yang's latest album has the shape and the line-up of a jazz trio. Underneath, however, microtonal melodies, hyperreal virtuosity and constantly shifting constellations create a seductive sensation of inspiring disorientation.
"Now I barely feel anything // Don’t know if I’ll feel anything at all ever again," Sloe Noon sings. But only someone with a dizzying surplus of emotions could deliver these lines with such conviction. Her songs are sexy and fragile, like whispers sent through clouds of noise and fuzz.
Using ChatGpt, sampling, and supposedly outdated technology, Superspace create hypnotic simulations of alternate utopian realities. Their 90s-inspired debut album sits snugly between chicago house, early Aphex Twin and meditative italo house. It's so nostalgic it sounds like nothing else.
The German duo are playing trippy house with a jazz mentality, treating the studio like the stage, blurring the lines between downbeat and dancefloor. Their latest jams were only supposed to yield one EP's worth of material – then they couldn't stop themselves.
The duo was inspired by a simple thought: As sound passes through us, it moves the liquid part of our bodies. There are moments in these first-take-improvisations which are held still far beyond any compositional logic – within the listener, however, the music is twitching with surreal delight.
Scents and desires, fears and “fucking around” - in the songs of Rhiannon Atkinson-Howatt, the words become tantalising and terrifying, tangible and tastable. Making music is a ritual, its source a mystery.
After finally becoming pain-free after years of chronic issues, the New York drummer and percussionist is ready for his debut as a leader: Balancing precise motorics with mantric swing and oscillating between cool composure and naïve pleasures, this is spiritual jazz for the young at heart.
David Bixler's music is unmistakably jazz – inspired by it, taught by it, shaped by a deep and profound love for it. And yet, underneath it all, there is a constant process of questioning what seems unquestionable: How far can you go - the answer is negotiated anew each session.
Mary Yuzovskaya's vision of minimalism is one of the most consistent in techno. Intriguingly, her creative process is the exact opposite: it knows no limitations, rules, or extraneously imposed boundaries.
After a traumatic encounter with personal loss, Nicolás Melmann has made it his mission create art as an instrument of transformation. His long, drifting drone pieces are open-ended: You spend as much time inside them as you need to heal.
Feeding his bass clarinet through an array of electronics, Ben Bertrand creates worlds of mysterious density and sensual suggestions. If Debussy had composed on the international space station, this is what he might have sounded like.
On paper the multitude of influences in Nadeem Din-Gabisi's sound cosmos – from sacred hymns via soul and jazz to old school hip hop – can be dizzying. In practise, they blend together all but seamlessly. Albums are like people to him - they are walking, talking contradictions.
When Nicolas Meier and his congenial partner Ola Onabulé entered the studio, they had prepared nothing. They had to surrender themselves to the flow, the warm resonance of the vocals and the cool virtuosity of the guitar licks.
Condensed down from much longer originals, two glacial ambient dreamstates for piano and electronics by Melaine Dalibert and David Sylvian reach beyond: Our human lives infallibly have an end, but this music of breathtaking stillness can keep playing forever.
Morten Haxholm's sequel to his ambient-jazz exploration Aether captures the same atmospheric intimacy but drives it forward with propulsive polyrythmic drumming and greater timbral diversity. Solid or ether – keeping the lines blurry is part of the magic here.
For Florestan, creativity is a mysterious and sacred space. His first solo album gently pulls you into this place with a suite of guitar pieces that oscillate between drift and focus, movement and contemplation, acoustic fragility and sizzling feedback.
Despite tapping into desperation, disgust, and desolation, Rylan Gleave's Requiem is driven by the strange beauty of polarities. Catharsis is for amateurs - this is about accepting that pain and pleasure are inseparably entwined.
Melancholy and euphoria are closely connected in the Paris producer's oeuvre. The dynamic tension of indie songwriting melts into the sweet magnetism of deep house grooves, creating pockets between dream and desire.
Goldkimono's main goal is simple: Taking listeners “out of the worry state.” His feathery dream-funk is the musical equivalent to an Air Max: You still have to do the walking, but it sure feels a lot lighter.
“When I listen to my new album now, I feel immense sadness. Some of those songs just destroy me.”
Shadid's yearning compositions for piano, string quartet, and electronics exist in their own time-space-continuum. Heartfelt repetition and intuitive variation flow from a romantic ideal rather than a purist mindset: Music is not about counting notes but making each one count.
Where do the images of Tim Scott McConnell's vivid narrative world come from? Where do they lead? These are not questions he ponders – and maybe that's what lends his music its anything-but-plain-simple personality.
East doesn't just meet West on Shez Raja's “Spellbound.” They truly embrace each other. Driven by Raja's liquid bass lines and a hard-hitting drum n tabla section, the music oscillates between melodic lyricism and percussive bliss.
Downbeat has referred to Chris Cheek's latest quartet recording as an “understated gem.” The praise is justified, but feels like a misrepresentation: This isn't the sound of restraint, but music of great anticipation which elevates every subtle nuance to a moment of devastating beauty.
Despite their warm, elastic bass lines, the dreamy songs of Ello Sun's first solo EP feel like creations of air and ether. They could go on forever, but prefer to fade before their spell is broken.
The Canadian quartet have recorded a collection of emphatically uplifting power pop anthems. In the best moments, they aren't just channelling their own emotions – they are creating dynamic feedback loops with anyone who listens to them.
For the Colombian songwriter, life and art are intricately intertwined: Her new, sunsplashed single literally came to her under the shower. Still, making music is instinctual – a source of love, healing, and self-empowerment.
"Words are incredibly powerful … but where do they fall short?"
Integrating field recordings and gentle modular synth movements, the pieces of the duo's second album embrace their urban surroundings. The music never gets photorealistic, however, capturing an emotional response instead - lusher than life and much more beautiful than the real thing.
Experimenting with compressors, EQs, and tape recorders, Maison Blanche is bringing the deep, jazzy vibe of 90s French Touch house into the present. His productions sound fresh and contemporary – while smelling as familiar as a strawberry-jam croissant on a Sunday morning.
South Korea's jazz scene is changing: The fractures of society are pushing artists to speak up, while new technologies are fostering sonic experimentation. Seoul is oscillating between tradition and hyper-modernity – and yonglee is eager to ride the wave.
As a classically-trained church organist, Hampus Lindwall plays four improvised masses each week. But none of them sounds like the pieces on his new album. Performed with endless inventiveness and energy, they make the instrument sound all but possessed.
For Liz Vice, spirituality informs her entire life. Her voice can silence an entire room and give her out of body experiences while singing. It is a power that feels gratifying and scary at the same time.
The Hungarian producer's “Kraut Komet” has sent audiences dancing to its cosmic sequencer lines for years. As his new EP proves, his interest in the electronic side of krautrock goes a lot deeper still.
In Glasgow Domenic Cappello is already a legend. The pieces of his upcoming EP could make him one far beyond the city's borders. Layering rich, dreamy strings over Kraftwerk'esque beatwork, it's his most personal release yet.
Hailing from Akure, Nigeria, Feyisayo Anjorin has excelled as an author, screenwriter and singer. Spirituality and storytelling inform songs which feel like an African soul take on the gospel tradition.
"Playing around and not adhering to formats or genres is how jazz originated. So perhaps I honour the spirit of it in that way."
Sound artist Edu Comelles spent 5 years sculpting and continually reworking the pieces on his new album. They condense time into six soft meditations – fragile, fleeting, and never fully finished.
“The title of the album was very clear to me long before the recording. But I still had to figure out what it meant.“
Stretching across an epic 26 pieces, DUMMY THICC's debut album is an ode to the groove. But these are more than just rhythm studies. Interacting with seductive keys and resonant strings, his drums are gateways to deep emotional moods.
Eppur si muove: Movement is life and music initiates movement. By scientifically validating the power of rhythm, Julia Basso is finding new ways to support those with autism or spectrum disorder.
“A black metal band playing in suits with ties would in of itself be a statement.”
Even into the third decade of his career, the impulse to create has never left the British soul legend. His first studio album in eight years radiates warmth and flows with effortless ease – the result of a trance-like approach to songwriting.
A wealth of questions stood at the start of the bass trombonist's extraordinary debut album. Occupying a space between jazz, modern composition and experimentalism, the answers are always in her instrument and her imagination.
"I never felt comfortable working with other people’s poetry. Not as they wrote it, anyway."
Born in Afghanistan, Farhot has become one of Germany's most acclaimed and exciting hip hop producers. The future? Is all about never being boring.
The German songwriter and oboist has written a poetic album that takes listeners into their inner world. But although gestures and words are subtle, these pieces are always born from a burning fire inside.
“This is an angry album. And the time that angry women can command an audience’s undivided attention is very limited.“
The Berlin trio places Kraftwerk's naïve melodicism and cool vocals on top of Moroder-style bass sequences. The result is sexy, nocturnal, and physically intoxicating.
Mt. Joy continue their search for the perfect song on Hope We Have Fun. But it's a perfection that comes through free association and letting go – there are worlds of deeply felt intentions within the unintentional.
The Austin quartet's music is a no holds barred emotional dive into the shadowside of life. Still, their buzzing post-noise-rock-hardcore anthems always find the beauty hidden in the darkness.
For Richard Poher, the didgeridoo is strikingly simple but offers endless potential. It allows for intellectual approaches while connecting us to the earth.
“The modular's an instrument that I have to work on constantly. When I come back from a holiday, I often find myself wondering how it all works.”
The French producer's hypnotic sonic dreams do not reinvent the rules of deep house. Suffused with warmth and a sense of wonder, they extend into worlds that retain their mystery yet feel like coming home.
Marc Melià's new album was recorded entirely on a monophonic analog synthesizer. The result is not just so inventive it's hard to believe the premise – but also deeply moving, and utterly unique.
“If I could see Coltrane live I would be so excited I would faint.”
Stella Sommer has been likened to Lana del Rey and Nico. As her new album as Die Heiterkeit proves, these comparisons are mere pointers for an artist for whom songwriting is beyond control – sometimes a walk in the park, sometimes a battlefield.
The Canadian composer intended approaching her debut album with the most minimal concept imaginable. In the end, the pieces grew increasingly more orchestral, more lush, more sepiatoned – while still incorporating her pull towards the unknown and unconventional.
“I think we’ve moved beyond the idea of the composer as a solitary genius. Composing today is as much about curating and connecting as it is about generating.”
The woozy, welcoming deep-house-textures of Gazur's new album stretch out into immersive epics. Partly inspired by the noises of Vietnam and dealing with tinnitus, these pieces get better by turning the volume down.
At first, translating the dark subject matter of a short story by Nicoleta Esinencu into music seemed like a journey into Eastern European history. As G.W. Sok and Pavel Tchikov eventually discovered, it turned out to be a stunningly visionary comment on the current the state of the world.
“I believe that the relationship between the roots of music and what we have now is NOT STRONG ENOUGH.”
The Texas vocalist, composer and instrumentalist draws from her Mexican and Syrian roots for her intensely inwards-looking songs. The world is not just her oyster – it's a miracle of intimacy and utter freedom.
People, programs, and places are on the Spanish cellist's mind, both when she's composing and performing. But in the end, her music always feeds off the human experience: “When something feels important, your body remembers.”
The left-of-center artist is using every tool at her disposal to keep her approach fresh: Scoring for film, tapping into AI, drawing from Mumbai's art scene and “working with atonal sources of sound, to create textural dance music that feels accessible and fresh.”
“The only thing that truly gives me hope for humanity is sound.”
“There was a lot of smiling, but even more tears while recording this album.“
Releasing two albums at the same time might not seem particularly minimalistic. But for Come Down and Mirror Ring, Canadian songwriter Ensign Broderick restricted himself to little more than his voice and the piano – in this vast emotional space, every single sound matters.
It don't mean a thing unless it ain't got those strings: After 15 years of relentlessly reinvigorating Swing, the Scottish ensemble have enriched their sound with a layer of nostalgic violins – be prepared to cry once, then cry twice.
“Tone, placement, and rhythm allow communication in a way speaking could never really match.”
"Once it was just me and my handheld camera, the artists seemed to open up more."
Pasquinelli has been the emotional pulse behind a variety of formidable formations at the borders between jazz and post-punk and -rock. On his solo project, he is now drumming and collaborating with delicately drifting drones – an equally dreamy, intense, and otherworldly experience.
Chicarica are the latest entry in a long line of luminous Chilean synth pop bands. Their take on the genre is mesmerising, floating, and blissful – somewhere between a dream of Kraftwerk and Underworld, but always entirely their own thing.
This band contains multitudes: The Young Mothers are playing spiritual jazz filled with beauty, fuelled by diversity and a deep sense of trust.
Too much coffee, a subversive humour and an un-spiritual approach to creativity drove the Irish trio's latest set of songs about feminism and dogs. The band's manic post-rock is as experimental as it is catchy, taking the pressure of their anthemic riffs to the point of explosive combustion.
"With the rise of Instagram, DJing and electronic music have become a FARCE."
As a resident of one of the world's most maximalist metropoles, Kalkotta's 303-and-drum-maschine explorer Varun Desai came to appreciate the minimalist mindset late. It's still a radical concept to him – but one which offers the reward of total freedom of expression.
Aubry's list of favourite sounds is long, extending from abandoned railway shacks and a river gorge in the Moroccan Atlas to old movie theatres and the hellbound chaos of metal band Portal. But don't get him started on the sirens of Berlin's fire trucks!
In this expansive interview on the occasion of her new album Poravna with improvisers Tony Buck, Axel Dörner, Noël Akchoté, and Greg Cohen, the Crotian vocalist and composer dives deep into all aspects of singing – from the sacredness of performing to the limitations of the body.
A shared admiration for Brazilian music from the 60s and 70s was the “North Star” for the duo's heavenly acoustic excursions. Expanding on short, sometimes 4-bar-loop ideas, these compositions are dreamy yet distinct, sweet but passionate, hazy but with intense focus.
Re-uniting with a former band member and opening themselves up to cross-cultural influences, Azmari are venturing beyond their ethio-jazz roots. More minimal than ever, however, their music stays true to its core: The trance of hypnotic grooves and the mystery of sound.
Translating their raw, propulsive electronic afrobeat to the stage remains a constant challenge for the trio. The real task, however, is to remain relevant: “Being an original artist today feels like survival.”
“Loss, grief and the process of trying to self-assure” remain the focal points of the Glasgow duo's beautifully poignant songs. This time, however, enriched by Adrian Utley's synths and rich string arrangements, they tap into even deeper and more powerful sensations.
“It's important to bring a little confrontation to audiences more often.”
“We can all benefit from listening to music and to our fellow human beings on a deeper level.”
Joy Guidry's expansion as an artist parallels the expansion of jazz as a genre. Working with basson, electronics, poetry, and her voice, her latest projects push sonic boundaries into a space between the spiritual and the radical.
With a unique aesthetic and style, KitschKrieg have made it to the creative top of Germany's hip hop scene. On London's Calling, they focus on collaboration and songwriting, while staying true to their philosophy: Being professional dilettantes with a minimal set-up.
The press release to the duo's latest explorations mentions Deleuze, Nietzsche, and the "planetary movements." The music, meanwhile, performed on small pipe organ and modular, is built on direct interaction, holding a space of gradually interweaving and shifting oscillations.
"I like the idea of my music being a kind of gathering or community, where we can all feel connected to something infinite."
There has to be more to music than emotions, finds saxophonist Uli Kempendorff. On the new album with his quartet Field, there is. Casting a questioning mood between transcendence and the visceral, these pieces invite the listener to co-shape the experience.
The multifaceted composer/producer/DJ's vision of jazz is like a dream of the Glasgow jazz scene: Soft, sensual, subtle and full of wonder for the everyday miracles of life.
Switching from keyboard to modular finally allowed Danielle Nia to realise what was in her head. Her ultimate goal: To shape her sound to the same degree as a string player or vocalist.
Sibel Koçer's recent trip to Vietnam resulted in sequencer music of ethereal, brightly coloured beauty. It is testimony to her admiration for the Asian electronic scene – and a restless brain in need of constant stimulation.
Some people can use improvisation to talk to the universe, Rapturous Apollo Helios believes. But for the infectuous 21st century afrobeat of the Ruffcats, the main key is simply for the groove to never stop.
Places of worship hold a special meaning for Asani's response to sound. It it isn't the silence between notes that feels important to him – but a softness capable of exerting incredible power.
The 18 short pieces on Watras's “Almond Tree Duos” are pure, poignant, powerful in their immediacy. The emotional range is wide and the techniques diverse - but hope is always the overarching sensation.
A personal trip to Vietnam resulted in a sequencer album opening up into a galaxy of intimacy. Tangerine Dream could have written this in the mid-80s – it would have been one of their better works.
The Australian sound artist, currently on tour through Europe, has experienced sound in the most diverse spaces – including a huge disused fish silo. Still, nothing beats the calm and beauty of everyday noises.
Starting from the trumpet, Zimmermann gradually developed a modular set-up aimed at experimentation and exploration. Control is an important element – but so are chance and coincidence.
Something's hidden in the basement, something sinister and hypnotic, flooded in strobe light, smeared with pulsating synth streaks. If you want to feel safe here, you've got to make the demons your friend.
Studying the greats of the past and present is a pivotal part of Sorvina's process. Her stories, however, are uniquely her own – and can never be destroyed by any system.
Merrick Winter's new EP is a collection of true, not necessarily real stories – picked up over dinner while riding the train, overheard on the street, drawn from life lessons imparted to him.
“I asked myself if I could do something like techno without having a sequencer or drum voices - or voices at all.”
With thousands of kilometres between them, coherence was the main concern for Hans Bilger and Eli Greenhoe's songwriting process. As they soon found out, they weren't building bridges – but entire musical worlds.
On the return of his band Los Forajidos, the Venezuelan bassist hits a lighter tone than on the politically driven predecessor. His delirious, trance-inducing grooves between tradition, trap and robotic funk remain true to his core motto, however: Ancient to the Future and Future to the Ancient.
Anger is the driving force for the Berlin formation. Recorded in a rehearsal room, their upcoming sophomore effort is a beacon for those in need of release.
The Roboquarians' second album is progressive-punk-style Black Flag jazz: Free, but with intense intent.
“Minimalism isn’t just reducing but it’s refining. It’s a deep search for essence and presence.”
Joni Mitchell and Erykah Badu showed Adja how to not just believe in herself, but to actually believe herself. In her music, she is not afraid to extend her limits – she's not just an artist, but an athlete, too.
Picking up a variety of raw materials from Home Depot was the first step of the creative process for Nathan Davis's new piece. Gradually, the music grew into a micro-immersive space of Youtube samples, MaxMSP manipulations and suspensefully discrete, visceral sounds.
Connections and exploring the unknown are at the core of Vilhelm Bromander's approach to music. The new album of his Unfolding Orchestra is an epic spiritual jazz journey embracing the mystery of twilight states.
The tender, almost whispered sonic poems of the Japanese artist float in a space between sound and song. They open up intimate galaxies within the safety of your own room.
“I have gigged when I felt like I have nothing to give. It's in those moments that the audience can carry you.”
The Pennsylvania band blend brutal blast beats, spiky punk riffs and blackened atmospherics into a ferocious maelstrom - “part grief and loss, part religious imagery and part monsters of the mind.”
Somewhere between The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, Mark Isham's ambient jazz soundtracks and the clear bell tones and choir-like sounds of early Roland synths lies a place the Dutch producer loves to visit.
Konalgad's debut LP sits at the cusp between dream and nightmare, reliving and exorcising a dark phase in his life. And yet, these pieces move towards the light, not away from it – testimony to the ideal of physically playing, singing and moving his body while composing.
Songs are not the only form of lyrical expression for Ada Morghe, who also writes plays and books. But, she feels, words are particularly powerful when combined with sound: “Music reaches the heart before the mind even has a chance to catch up.”
The Taiwan-born sound artist's Lost Communication is one of the most wondrous takes on animal sounds: Listening deeply, she is putting birds in the spotlight, propelling their song forward with beats, sweetening their signals with sultry soundscapes.
No matter how dark and intense Ash Luke's jungle and hardcore-inspired almost-un-dj'able productions may be – there needs to be a spark of soul at their heart.
Growth is the key theme on the trio's new album. So why are their lovingly crafted, breathtakingly harmonised songs moved by a bittersweet undercurrent?
Doyle's new album emerged from confusion and loss. Aiming at a translation of raw, unfiltered truth, she ultimately found inspiration in sensations of disconnection and disorientation.
The cellist and composer finds beauty in how sounds interact with the space they're born into. On his new album, every stroke of the bow and modular synth line is lovingly, laboriously shaped by hand.
Beats, sampled and chopped lyrics, field recordings and processed instruments: In his wondrous songs, inspired by Irish culture and poetry, Daniel McIntyre excavates fossils from the future.
As a kid, the Swedish songwriter was addicted to books and played in nine bands at the same time. These addictions never ended, they just got sublimated: Words and music are never separated in her larger-than-life torch songs.
"If we take “Chelsea Morning” by Joni Mitchell and you look at the lyrics, it is very easy to smell the bath bomb we created."
Ukrainian producer Anton Somin talks the talk on the future of music - and his meticulously crafted, future-high, sample-shot rhythmical sculptures more than delivers on the promises.
For the British drummer and producer, the stage is the studio and improvisation is instant composition. His collaborative performances have myriads of roots – but jazz and a love for randomised electronic systems are key components.
Recorded to analog tape and capturing the essence of twelve years as a duo, this third-eye-folk-music builds intimate spaces from guitar, kora and vocals.
An inveterate perfectionist Live Sollid Schulerud could never finish a track in a few hours. Perhaps that's precisely what makes her inimitable electronic songscapes, often driven by deeply personal experiences, so unique.
"We need noise to keep us creative and push boundaries."
Max Walker is right – his hard-hitting fusion isn't avantgarde per se. But it is certainly part of the vanguard when it comes to rhythmical inventiveness, emotional complexity and the creation of deep, innovative textures.
Ned Pegler sees no reason to fear for the future. On his deep new album he is tapping into the unknown and building instantly relatable visions of dance music from improvisations.
“Sound is a more direct line to the human spirit than the visual arts.“
Composer and improviser Kjetil Husebø had become estranged from the piano. Then, he connected it to samplers and electronics and started building alien worlds somewhere between structure and spontaneity.
Friendships and the bonds of love remain important catalysts for the psychedelic pop of the French duo – so do food, great melodies and studios with windows.
In her music, Alonso weaves sonic objects of different spatialities into time-arresting drift-states. It's a place of pure experience - no one's judging.
After once being blown away by Reich's 18 Musicians, the Catalan composer no longer looks at music through a maximalist or minimalist lense. It's all about finding and honing the ideas that truly matter.
We call it interspiritual jazz: The soulful songs and blissful moods of these two multitalented polymaths extends beyond borders and genres.
To Alex Garnett, even after 100 years, jazz is still “finding its way.” Ahead of a quintet performance at Ladbroke Hall, the saxophonist reflects on the unique UK sound, the chops of a new generation and why his discography as a leader has remained fairly small.
Teachers tried to smooth out the edge, roughness and rasp in Jon Allen's voice. Thankfully, he had a record player – and a stubborn streak.
El Leon Pardo's journey into music started with a mystical experience. On his psychedelic new album, he is channeling it through cosmic cumbia, spiritual jazz and dubbed-out electronics.
“What hip hop could be like is something so far from its origins that it may not be called hip hop.”
At 12, Leonie Jakobi wanted to sound like Bon Jovi. Today, the singer has found her own voice, and her own style - and has come full circle on her new single.
With a background in jazz and inspired by Frank Zappa and Edgard Varèse early on, Jason Kriveloff's take on house was always going to be different. Recorded while going through serious health issues, his new EP is a triumph of life teaming with individuality.
A series of sonic postcards with an all-embracing reach and a profound emotional impact.
"Many of the positives we associate with the music industry are actually a result of technology rather than anything the industry itself is doing."
The songs of the Australian duo float in soft, psychedelic fluid – as if each note, every word and the next chord were sent to them from an alternate, liminal space.
Florin doesn't think of himself as a fairly limited instrumentalist. In the piano trio Dig Dug Dug, those limitations lead to a direct and unromantic sound, bound- and borderless interactions - and plenty of surprises.
Virtual and physical reality merge on this time-travelling fusion of rock, jazz, and electronica – a perfect representation of the present moment.
“Songs can help us see things in a new way … and that is empowering.“
Saxophonist Tara Sarter doesn't believe anything is better than anything else. On her latest album, this simple creed translates to one of the most unconventional visions of the jazz trio format.
Tobias Fischer reflects on how the death of one of Germany's biggest singers created an infinite loop.
Aiming for the border between divine ecstasy and extreme horror, the doom metal trio “saturate the acoustic space and overtone series in an attempt to sever the listener’s consciousness from the past and the future.”
The Thai drummer's global take on jazzy funk is so dreamy and groovy that it all but belies her real intention: To hit as many things at once as she possibly can.
Soulful, sultry, and smooth, Tasha LaRae's Right Now is a feast for lovers of deep vocal house. Every track stays true to her goal: Expressing every emotion she holds inside.
OHYUNG firmly intends to be a pop star. Their new album has all the right hooks, infectuous melodies, and sultry beats – but bathes them in an otherworldly twilight.
Scott Walker’s Tilt “objectively” inspired the majestic trance-states of the New England fivepiece – never fully discharging, perpetually in a state of feverish suspension.
Inspired by his Latin roots and applying techniques of Sushi preparation to his productions, the new album by the Pillowtalk member is a joyful collection of infectious house songs.
Olafur Arnalds is a fan, but Burial is an inspiration: VRAELL re-defines the borders between producer, songwriter, and composer.
The Cuban singer-songwriter's voice shines brighter than ever on Ritual. But it's the big communal choruses, performed without a metronome, which brought most joy to her.
Terrible or incredible? The trio's hypertechnical metal turns towards storytelling.
Emerging from skeletal sketches, the global-minded duo's expansive new album is driven by the synergy between words and sounds and the beauty hidden in misunderstandings.
Embracing multimediality, and multidisciplinarity, Gryvul navigates between radical sound art, Ukrainian folk-themes and inventive ensemble work.
A state of suspension, a feeling of voluntary submission: This music needs to exist.
“Part of the role of an artist is to determine if an idea is worth exploring.”
Faced with big, burning questions, Verena Zeiner accepted her responsibility as an artist – responding with radical care and a new-found musical freedom.
With Spiral Deluxe, the Detroit keyboard player is shaping his vision of a bright future – between the acoustic and the electric, tradition and progress, jazz and house.
Unleashing an Arctic Post Metal Inferno, the Norwegian band clearly feel strongly about transmitting energy. Their goal: To help listeners raise their voices.
Based on an old French theatrical production, the Tuxon, AZ band created a trip of latinamerican rhythms and deep songwriting - a challenge they wouldn't care to do again any time soon.
On Ghosts Between Streams, triggered by observations of ecological destruction, the environmental impact is “both the subject and the work itself.”
Is every sound we hear loaded with associations with our past? On the first album of his new project – a collage of beats, sequences, personal messages and blocks of sound - Matteo Liberatore is determined to find out.
Watch this space – in her songs and performances, the British songwriter is digging deep into the new and unknown of a genre she has a funny relationship with.
The Dutch indie rock trio are finding beauty in a fucked up world - always looking for the suckerpunch in the most mundane things.
Inspired by “long days and nights that stretched into the morning”, the hypnagogic music of Aregger's trio moulds sensuality and suspense into “moments where the energy boils beneath the surface.”
Utopian jazz: Music so beautiful that it makes you experience and long for a better world.
The Nigerian-British singer and lyricist wants to leave an imprint and offer a true representation of who she is. On her soulful and stripped-down debut album, she's come pretty close to that ideal.
The “rebel sound” marries true lyricism with a border- and genreless sound that is dark, powerful and uplifting all at once.
For her new album, Aimée Portioli processed, pitched and arranged wind recordings. The result is a veritable force of nature – and possibly the most powerful piece of sound art you'll hear this year.
“If more people approached communication the way musicians do, so many conflicts could dissolve effortlessly.”
Ahead of a new Barbican premiere, the experimental vocalist speaks about her practise, disrupting semantic sense and her love for how people say the things they say.
Martial arts and creative remembering are guiding principles for the piano-percussion duo. Their debut album incorporates moments of intimacy, sonic sculpting and suspenseful drum rolls.
Wherever the Hamburg duo may go - the next big melancholic chorus is always right around the corner.
No plans, no concepts. Just honesty and vulnerability: On an impressionist, bittersweet new trio album, Mathias Landæus is once again surrendering to the flow.
Kuunatic play psychedelic rock on traditional Japanese instruments. Their process involves science fiction, mythology - and burning incense from Kyoto's Nanzen-ji Temple.
There is a lot of space in Füting's compositions – filled with echoes of the past, an embrace of magic and the will to break it.
Propelled by two drummers, the quartet are looking for patterns between hypnosis and deconstruction, tactile grooves and grainy texture.
Cuban folk, Nu Soul, dreamy acoustics and uplifting beats - everything flows naturally on the new JOHNNYSWIM album. Aptly, writing songs feels like water to them.
“We must respect the great music of the past, and create something new,” moog master Yumiko Ohno says. To do this, she keeps her antennae open to jazz and electronica, installations, and DJ sets.
Aggression and vulnerability blend in the trios' fuzzy indie rock. Revealing their darkest thoughts opens up a space of hope.
From Kraftwerk and Cabaret Voltaire via Eric Clapton and Depeche Mode to OMD and Black Sabbath - Denis Blackham's masterings have made the world of music a better one.
From Protection-era Massive Attack via modular-synth-fantasies to stripped-down melancholia, Nite Kite is exploring personality over progress.
Hong Kong’s Cantopop is a joyful fusion of Eastern and Western influences. Now, TC:KYLIE adds jazz and historically charged soundscapes to the equation.
Even after five decades, Fisher Turner is still just "making it up."
Spinnen write edgy, from-the-dark-corners-of-the-basement drum-and-guitar post-punk anthems. The lyrics, however, imbue them with a “light that permeates the body.”
Damascus and New York are the pillars of Kinan Azmeh's world. His intensely spiritual, ecstatically still music, however, is bound to no genre or place.
Ambient guitarist Takuro Okada wants to play as if he were looking at water and grasping a cloud.
Mehr's immersive installation SUPRA may sound enchanting. But its themes are serious: Unless we take action, we are headed for epochal changes.
Miles Davis made Hino realise jazz is the ultimate form of music: Ageless, colourless, cool, sexy, sad, chaotic and funky like hell.
The post-punk band's new release captures them at their most raw and intense: Sounds cutting like knives, words turning to swords.
Tapping into sampling and working with experimental performance approaches, Joona Toivanen still heads one of the most unique piano trios we know.
First, Febriani spent time in the Indonesian forest. Then, she translated the inspiratio into stripped-down, bass-heavy percussion-funk.
The French quintet shape their own vision of 21st century jazz, soul, and hip hop – seducing the mind, but keeping the body engaged.
“With the kind of tone I have, one bottle of Bourbon and two packs of cigarettes a day would probably help. But I am not that disciplined.”
Much of today's popular dance music is a "deliberate rip-off of the past," according to van Dyk. But what is the solution?
Is the Swiss composer's new album a piece of ghostly resonances? A sculpture? Or is it just a space in which it exists as a sonic sculpture?
Lutz Krajenski's plays, collects, and restores Hammond organs. On his new album, he now fuses them with hiphop beats.
Sound is almost all-important for David Grubbs. His new collection of "distorted poems" is intense testimony to that.
"My music reflects the challenges of the world I live in while expressing the values I hold dear. Music is not just an art form - it’s a tool for a better future."
Gabríel Ólafs imagines what a world of ice would sound like – rejecting the notion that there could ever be too much reverb.
Haunting and quietly intense, pianist Benjamin Lackner's second album for ECM is a work of beauty slowly descending into darkness.
"I’ve always been drawn to music that has different degrees of weirdness to it."
Experience and the search for essence have turned the French electro duo into architects of sound.
The Moroccan-Yemeni singer has a voice and an on-stage presence that takes her audience on a rollercoaster ride. It's a blessing and a responsibility.
"Music can inspire, and bridge ethnic, religious, and political divides. As a musician and a composer, I want this to be my focus."
In his late 20s and mesmerised by Berlin's 24/7 party life, the German songwriter didn't get anything done. It turned out to be the most creative time of his life.
The legendary DJ looks back on 40 years behind the turntables - on the art of storytelling, the navigation between control and surrender.
“The best way is to DJ like a producer and to produce like a DJ.“
For their new album of baroque music, the ensemble found inspiration in Irish synth folk and Mariah Carey. Who cares what Handel would have thought?
A tiny tool caught every tremor and every hesitation of Garcia's hand. Her new album is a work of of fragile, heartfelt guitar noise.
Every improvisation is about the state of the world for saxophonist Nicole Johänntgen. It is also a “body language.”
Miramar's bittersweet bolero anthems find endless fascination in the "human social experience" and the relationship between joy and pain.
Shibuya's oeuvre questions the nature of death, offering a new romanticism through the eyes and ears of AI.
“I strongly believe that community is key to fighting injustice. Music is one way to build communities.”
As masters of Back to Back DJing, the French duo are constantly in conversation through music.
Jazz-Ambient-Rap-Drone composer Ralph Heidel still “fucks up a lot.” But he's confident “the audience still knows what I’m trying to say.”
In the prayer-like realm of “Moya,” Selaocoe translates African musical languages to the cello.
"Before we think too hard about freedom we should start by focusing on kindness."
“I feed off the audience's energy, and amplify it through the music. It’s a constant exchange.“
The legendary French composer and arranger (Serge Gainsbourg, Françoise Hardy) still writes music "like they did in the 17th century."
The almost frighteningly intense noise-rock of the Dutch trio is inspired by a longing for the unexpected.
Improvisation is everywhere on Ebba Åsman's hip-hop-infused torch songs. But she doesn't need to sound like her jazz heroes to honour them.
"I’m definitely revealing deep secrets and singing about uncomfortable truths."
"Sound is one of society’s core expressions. It’s one of its identification marks."
A conversation about “sucking music through the pores," becoming a sound field, and extreme sonic experiences.
With the trio Cici Arthur, Cummings connects with his inner world – and his experiences with the "shittier aspects of showbusiness."
"If producion gets a lot more easy, it's gonna take the fun out of it."
"You have to live a very full life to channel something meaningful to the audience."
"I’m often moved by sounds where the organic meets the digital."
"Music gives us the strength to stand together against anyone who’s trying to destroy inclusivity and freedoms."
"I live right by the S-Bahn and listen to that for hours. It’s kind of irritating and comforting at the same time."
"I only believe in variations on what already exists. But the range of variation is infinite."
"We tend to use our imaginations so much more when receiving information through sound."
"We like to bring technology to the forefront and play with it."
"I like when the score is a little removed from what’s happening on screen."
"Ego is not about being the best. It just gives me a lot of self-awareness and self-confidence to be able to express myself."
"To sing is to convey a message from the soul - in any way the song calls for."
"We can’t just hide from it and hope it all works out."
“Drummers are natural leaders. They lead bands they play in even when it is not official.”
"In a time when developments tend to draw people apart, creating something as a democratic collective is, in itself, a political act."
"There is something in singing that makes humans similar to the wind, to birds, to the flow of water, to the falling of rain."
"I am always asking why things are so messed up? That topic is unfortunately always relevant."
“Reimagining our songs in a nonlinear environment and creating a two-way interaction between ourselves and the audience is very exciting for us.“
"Singing should be accessible to everyone - not only ‘allowed’ to a few."
"I wanted to record the lids of 20-30 coffins slamming shut. The label and sound engineer refused to help me."
"The evolution of human music may go back to sex. This would bring the music of other species further inside our radius of understanding."
"I try to sublimate negative feelings via music. When I come to my family, my friends, my tribe, I won’t put these things on them."
“My goal was to compose loop-based music that is calming and meditative but never dull.“
"It’s incredible to think that something I created nearly three decades ago still resonates with people."
"Punk and Hip Hop stand for the same thing: breaking the rules and doing things your way."
"My intentions for using silence are very different from those of John Cage."
“Avoiding trends and focusing on authenticity is key to taking electronic music into the future.“
“Hip Hop is the largest and most comprehensive subculture that has ever existed.“
"Being innovative and having a personal voice is part of the tradition. It isn't opposed to it."
“If you only have 3 or 4 elements, but they are used deliberately, you can unravel the flavor layers the longer you play the track.“
“The conception that 4/4 is kind of the “normal“ thing is super unrealistic.”
“Being an artist means offering a more or less unique experience that truly reflects who you are.“
"I’m obsessed with what it all means. Trying to understand and find deep appreciation in our total existence."
"There is only one rule: does the music have an effect on me? Anything that doesn't fulfil this rule can go."
"I prefer a song that is poorly written, even intentionally bad, rather than a song that is trying to be good but is mediocre."
"These are more than mere recordings. They are a narrative of a rapidly changing landscape."
“In Brazil I make my beats way more percussive. In China, the clap is the most important part in the groove rather than the kick.“
"Christian's hurdy gurdy rhythm reminded me of the Agikuyu tribe from Central Kenya."
“I owe much of my ability to be caring toward others to learning the violin.“
"Intercultural collaborations push me to reinvent my role as a musician every single time."
“I have never played the same set twice. I even used to never play the same track twice.“
“The rustling of wind through trees, birdsong, and human voices are not separate elements. They're part of a cohesive soundscape.“
“My love of this music never subsides. I just have to wade through a lot of shit in order to find it.“
"People think that Krautrock must have a motorik beat. But there was so much more new and fresh stuff in Krautrock."
“Autobahn is still special to me.“
"Most of the feedback I get is, “this song helped me with a breakup.” Sounds right to me."
“I have to go in without any expectations - I always seem to find something unexpected.“
"Music is a form of communication. Sometimes you even communicate with yourself."