British Electric Foundation

Former PiL bassist, post punk icon and general cool cat Jah Wobble is set to release Everything is Nothing, his new album with his ever-morphing, genre-enveloping combo Invaders of the Heart on August 26. Made with producer Youth, it’s a super jazzy record and the lineup this time out is pretty damn impressive, featuring Hawkwind’s Nik Turner and the incomparable Tony Allen on drums.

Bridges are a symbol of bringing people together, of communicating with each other, of connecting ideas. What else could reading bridges in the context of the music we usually talk about here mean but presenting different approaches of making music and trying to understand how communication works? Who else but Ken Vandermark has been constantly presenting such approaches by crossing the borders between hardcore jazz/punk (with The Flying Luttenbachers), noise core (with Zu), free funk (with Made to Break), new classical music and of course with his various free jazz/improv projects (everything from duos to larger ensembles like Audio One or the Resonance Ensemble) – and these are only a few examples! Ken Vandermark is simply one of the great masters of notated music and completely free improvisation.

Previously unreleased and captured in 1973, "New Dawn" by the Pat Smythe Quartet offers a rare glimpse into a pivotal moment in jazz fusion history, particularly for fans of guitarist Allan Holdsworth. Recorded across two dates in France, the eight-track album showcases the virtuosic quartet at the intersection of jazz fusion, jazz rock, and Latin American influences, featuring an early and electrifying performance by Holdsworth, a pioneer of the genre.

After the intoxicating heat of Mediterraneo, released in 2013, Christina Pluhar and her ensemble L'Arpeggiata now head to the cooler climes of England with Music for a While, an album based on the haunting, graceful and sometimes deeply moving music of Henry Purcell.

Respected British drummer Simon Phillips has a resume that’s as long as your arm…assuming you have a long arm. Here on his fourth release under the Protocol title he once again is performing with Greg Howe, Ernest Tibbs and Dennis Hamm. Together they’ve created fifty-eight minutes of some of the finest instrumental Fusion music I’ve heard in a long time. Most of these tunes are longer, in the six to eight minute range allowing for a great mix of combo performance and soloing. After all, this is a genre and an album that showcases performance and instrumental virtuosity, and on Protocol 4 we get plenty of both.