Phil Niblock

By choosing to combine for this recording two complementary but distinctly different drone-based, immersive pieces by the legendary veteran composer and artist/film-maker Phill Niblock (born 1933, USA), and the younger, Berlin-based composer/violist Catherine Lamb (born 1982, USA), Norway’s Ensemble neoN creates a perfect sense of aesthetic balance. Loud is followed by quiet; what seems like random patterning gives way to orderly design; and the opening instrumental ensemble-setting is transformed by the subsequent addition of guest voices. Listening to both pieces one after another is like experiencing thesis and anti-thesis through the medium of Side A and Side B.

There are two videos of Niecy Blues performing in Charleston, South Carolina, way back in March 2018: one is a luxuriantly soulful song called “Christine”, and the other is a guitar-forward R&B track called “Ways”. In the first shot of the latter video, the entire setlist has been written on a whiteboard: the best part of an album that the artist, at some point, outgrew with not one of those titles appearing anywhere in her – until now – sparse discography. It’s been a long road traveled to Exit Simulation, her debut LP, and a breathtaking and immaculate creative statement. In a just world, this record will lay down fire and love in innumerable hearts and minds.

"Who’d Have Guest?" is the clever, intriguingly titled new album from respected UK drummer ELLIOTT HENSHAW. Henshaw has worked with all kinds of people across all kinds of genres – most interesting to us David Benoit, the Drifters, Gwen Dickie, Georgie Fame and Beverly Knight. His standing in the UK music community is such that he can call on plenty of “names” to help him craft his own albums and that explains the title of this one, his latest.