Brooklyn (2015)

Mooroolbark is an album by Australian jazz pianist and composer Barney McAll, released on the ABC Classics Label in May of 2015. Other than the composition: "Apple Tree," which has a live and studio version on the album and "Sparkler," all the tracks were recorded in ABC Studios (Australia), with additions made in Tokyo by Shannon Barnett and Brooklyn by Mino Cinelu. The name of the album, "Mooroolbark" is the Wurundjeri ethnic name for the area where McAll grew up, which McCall says is "why I play music."

Bill Brewster turns his attention to seminal New York imprint of the 1980s - Arthur Russell, William Socolov and Juggy Gales' eccentric Sleeping Bag Records! An excellent comp. featuring essential tracks from the likes of Class Action, Konk, Dinosaur L, Mantronix and many, many more!

Synovial Joints is the most ambitious project of Coleman s 30+ year career, featuring 21 musicians from the jazz, Afro-Cuban, Afro-Brazilian and contemporary classical circles on horns, woodwinds, piano, vocals, percussion and strings. The music is based on the physiological processes, functions and rhythms of the human body, in particular the musculoskeletal system. Coleman also explores an orchestration technique inspired by sounds that he recorded in the Amazon Rainforest, in which instrumental colors move gradually from foreground to background, much as the variety of layered sounds reveal themselves in the rainforest.

American new-music sextet eighth blackbird, which won Grammy Awards for each of its last three Cedille Records albums, continues to connect with genre-spanning, cutting-edge composers on FILAMENT, a CD of world-premiere recordings of works by Bryce Dessner, Nico Muhly, and Son Lux, plus a Philip Glass classic. The ensemble’s album, FILAMENT, was produced by Dessner, a Brooklyn-based composer, guitarist, and member of the Grammy-nominated, Billboard-charting indie rock band The National. Premieres include Dessner’s Murder Ballades and Muhly’s Doublespeak, both written for eighth blackbird, and Son Lux’s To Love and This is my Line, a remix created from the album’s other tracks. Dessner, on guitar, and Muhly, on organ, join eighth blackbird for a live-in-concert recording of Glass’s mesmerizing Two Pages at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. The album’s title, FILAMENT, is a metaphor for the fiber of friendship, collaboration, and mutual influence connecting the composers and performers on the album.

Bridge of Spies is a 2015 American historical drama-thriller film directed by Steven Spielberg from a screenplay written by Matt Charman, Ethan Coen and Joel Coen. The film stars Tom Hanks, Mark Rylance, Amy Ryan, and Alan Alda. Based on the 1960 U-2 incident during the Cold War, the film tells the story of lawyer James B. Donovan who is entrusted with negotiating the release of Francis Gary Powers—a pilot whose U-2 spy plane was shot down over the Soviet Union—in exchange for Rudolf Abel, a captive Soviet KGB spy held under the custody of the United States. Frequent Spielberg collaborator, John Williams, was originally announced to compose the film's score. However, Williams had to drop out of production due to a health issue. Thomas Newman was then contacted by Spielberg to replace Williams, marking Spielberg's first film without Williams' music since 1985's The Color Purple, which was scored by Quincy Jones. Hollywood Records released the film's soundtrack on October 16, 2015. All music composed by Thomas Newman.

Born Ted Horowitz in the Bronx, New York, Popa Chubby was the son of a candy store owner. At 13, Chubby began playing drums; shortly thereafter, he discovered the music of the Rolling Stones and began playing guitar. Although he grew up in the 1970s, Chubby took his cue from artists of the '60s, including Sly & the Family Stone, Jimi Hendrix, and Eric Clapton, among others.

On October 2, Nicole Willis returns with her third album accompanied by the Finland-based Soul Investigators since 2005: Happiness In Every Style. As the name suggests, the new release her fifth solo outing since 2000 offers plenty of variety and lands on a sunnier side of the street, following her darker, acclaimed 2013 release, Tortured Soul. Nicole and the Soul Investigators offer upbeat modern soul and embrace sophisticated melodies alongside their highly evolved raw funk sound, whose wares share vinyl shelf space with fans of Sharon Jones and Charles Bradley.

While Jamaica is the cradle of reggae, many American reggae musicians are doing good work too. Formed in 2006, Brooklyn’s New Kingston certainly qualify; the group play a heady mix of old-school roots, dancehall jams, and R&B-influenced grooves on their third album. Kingston City also features several guests, most notably including the late Sugar Minott and Sister Carol, but don’t sleep on “You Are Mine” with Kimie Miner. Other highlights include the positive “Honorable” and the acoustic ballad “I Believe in Me,” as well as odes to different kinds of higher powers on “Mystery Babylon” and “Who Tell Them.”