Pursuit 2022

"We're a bunch of outsiders who refused to be kept out," says High Pulp drummer Bobby Granfelt. "We've never had an academic approach to jazz-most of us grew up playing in DIY bands-so it was the rawness and the energy and the absolute freedom of the music that called to us in the first place." Indeed, there's something defiant, something utterly liberating about High Pulp's remarkable ANTI- Records debut, Pursuit of Ends. Drawing on punk rock, shoegaze, hip-hop, and electronic music, the band's brand of experimental jazz is both vintage and futuristic all at once, hinting at times to everything from Miles Davis and Duke Ellington to Aphex Twin and My Bloody Valentine.

Friendship’s Merge debut, Love the Stranger, moves like a country record skipping in just the right spot, leaving its fellow travelers longing for a place they’ve only visited in their dreams…

In-demand Chicago bassist Ethan Philion — praised by bass legend Rufus Reid for his “wonderful internal pulse,” and by The Washington Post for his “well-honed chops and astounding musicality” — has long looked to Charles Mingus as a towering role model. Mingus’ highly physical bass technique, his up-front communicative style as a bandleader, his interest in blending composition and improvisation, his pursuit of a unified voice in both small and large group settings, and not least of all his uncompromising antiracist politics and the way they manifest throughout his oeuvre: these qualities continue to inspire Philion and so many others in the decades following Mingus’ untimely death from ALS in 1979, at age 56.

Progressive-rock at its finest! First came Dreaming City (2021), followed by Skallagrim – Into the Breach (2022). Now Glass Hammer returns to the cursed realm of Andorath with Part III of their Skallagrim trilogy, AT THE GATE. The album’s narrative concludes the sword and sorcery-inspired tale of the thief with the screaming sword, a “desperate man” who lost his lover and his memory. Lead vocalist, Hannah Pryor, joins Steve Babb, Fred Schendel, and Aaron Raulston. Singer John Beagley and former Glass Hammer vocalist Jon Davison (now of YES) make guest appearances. “At this point in the tale, our protagonist has searched a thousand years to find his lost love,” comments Glass Hammer’s Steve Babb.