It's OK

Bamako-based producer/educator Paul Chandler has been documenting the sonic and cultural complexities of Malian traditional music for more than a decade and “Every Song Has Its End” is an out-of-time, visceral collection of sounds from Chandler’s unparalleled archive.

Charles Mingus - Music Written for Monterey, 1965, Not heard…played in its entirety at UCLA, September 25, 1965 (2006)
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 462 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 212 Mb | Artwork | 5% repair rar
© 1965, 2006 Sue Mingus Music / Sunnyside Communications | 984 275-9
Jazz / Post Bop / Progressive Jazz

The back story behind this concert CD is that, in September 1965, Charles Mingus performed at the Monterey Jazz Festival. He had done so triumphantly well the year before, however, Mingus' 1965 set was inexplicably cut short at a half-hour (Mingus himself claims 20 minutes) and so the material he had planned for the event, much of it newly composed, was instead unreeled at UCLA a week later. Mingus later pressed a couple hundred copies of the performance into a self-released two-LP set, but the master tape was hence destroyed and the album basically forgotten until its release on CD by Mingus' widow Sue in 2006.

Nonesuch Records releases an album of songs written and performed by Caroline Shaw and Sō Percussion, Let the Soil Play Its Simple Part. The musicians, who have known each other since their student days, were presented with three days of gratis studio time and decided to experiment with ideas they had begun putting to tape during the sessions for their January 2021 Nonesuch release Narrow Sea. With Shaw on vocals and Sō—Eric Cha-Beach, Josh Quillen, Adam Sliwinski, and Jason Treuting—filling out this new band, they developed songs in the studio, with lyrics inspired by their own wide-ranging interests: James Joyce, the Sacred Harp hymn book, a poem by Anne Carson, the Bible’s Book of Ruth, the American roots tune “I’ll Fly Away,” and the pop perfection of ABBA, among others. The album is co-produced by Shaw, Sō Percussion, and the Grammy Award–winning engineer Jonathan Low (The National, Taylor Swift).

Channeling new age and spiritual jazz, the multidisciplinary artist’s debut solo album creates its own thoughtful and potent world with the help of many guests and many flutes.

The combination of Damian Wilson and Adam Wakeman has never disappointed and this eloquent album continues that trend. Key to their artistic success is an understanding of songwriting and a defiant resistance against overplaying…

Bill Bruford - If Summer Had Its Ghosts (1997) {Discipline Global Mobile DGM9705}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 271 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 117 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (jpg) -> 14 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1997 Discipline Global Mobile / Bill Bruford | DGM970
Jazz / Fusion / Modern Creative / Post Bop / Drums

On If Summer Had Its Ghosts, a primarily acoustic trio recording, drummer Bill Bruford, bassist Eddie Gómez, and pianist/guitarist Ralph Towner create some lush, wondrous, spontaneous and melodic music. It has jazz roots, improvisational branches, and elfin extensions. There's no gimmickry or pretension, although Bruford does add some sampled colors, and Towner overdubs his instruments as well as throwing in a pinch of electronic keyboards. What you basically hear is Bruford's newest and freshest music, interpreted and extrapolated upon by three virtuosos in mellifluous interactive conversation. At their most swinging, as on the lively, four/four, tick-tock, light rimshot, mid-tempo swing of the title track, they are telepathic, with Towner effortlessly switching from acoustic 12-string to piano and Gómez laying down soulful, full, deep bass punctuations.

Cul de Sac has been described as "post-rock," a vague category for bands typically uncategorizable. Cul de Sac weaves instrumental trances around guitarist Glenn Jones' finger picked stylings that recall surf, Middle Eastern, or folk music. He also plays "the contraption," a Hawaiian lap-steel-guitar laden with effects pedals and played with kitchen utensils. Synthesist Robin Amos produces distinctive sounds by playing instruments he created himself; his electronic sounds are musical, not a distracting novelty as can sometimes happen in similar situations. Bassist Michael Bloom and drummer Jon Proudman provide a rock-solid yet melodic anchor for the band. All four are virtuoso yet sympathetic musicians – none of them hog the spotlight. Crashes to Light Minutes to Its Fall, the band's fifth album, finds Cul de Sac at its most confident and lyrical. The music is complex and cerebral, yet playful and accessible. This is mind-expanding music of the friendliest sort.