Jon Young Thropugh Native Eyes

Jon Hopkins supplemented Immunity and Singularity, his two massively ambitious and acclaimed experimental techno albums released during the 2010s, with EPs containing ambient versions and pieces designed for relaxation. His 2021 album Music for Psychedelic Therapy is a full immersion into beatless compositions, moving far away from the grand, intricately crafted progressive dance epics of his two most well-known albums. The release is a three-dimensional sound bath meant to be played continuously while the listener is lying down in the dark, and it incorporates natural sounds within its layers of shifting textures, chimes, and subtle bass modulations. It isn't as jarring or heart-racing as Hopkins' more rhythmic works, but it does feel like it's channeling spiritual energy in a similar, chemically enhanced way. The album might appear new age on the surface, but it's more than just a set of blissful, mind-cleansing meditations…

Siwan, the transcultural, trans-idiomatic musical collective led by Norwegian keyboardist/composer Jon Balke, continues along its special path, with new music inspired by the creative spirit of Al-Andalus. The ensemble weaves lines of communication between musicians from multiple traditions and locations. Among the texts set by Balke on Siwan’s third album and persuasively sung by Algerian vocalist Mona Boutchebak are verses by Ummayad princess Wallada bint al-Mustakfi (1010-1091) and contemporaries including Ibn Zaydun (1003-1071) and Ibn Sara As-Santarini (1043-1123). Hafla was recorded in May and June 2021 at Village Recording Studios, in Copenhagen.

All the songs played in Chicago blues clubs don't necessarily have 12 bars. Many of Chicago's blues singers are also R&B and/or rock singers, and Zora Young is a prime example. Based in Chi-Town but originally from Mississippi, the expressive singer provides an enjoyable, if derivative, blues/soul/rock mix on her 2000 date Learned My Lesson. Young is far from a blues purist - while "My Man's an Undertaker" and Young originals like the humorous "Pity Party" are straight-up urban blues, she confidently detours into soul and rock territory on "Girl Friend" (another Young original) and sweaty performances of Ike & Tina Turner's "Nutbush City Limits" and Chuck Berry's "Living in the U.S.A." Meanwhile, Young draws heavily on her gospel background on a passionate version of Percy Mayfield's "Please Send Me Someone to Love"…

All the songs played in Chicago blues clubs don't necessarily have 12 bars. Many of Chicago's blues singers are also R&B and/or rock singers, and Zora Young is a prime example. Based in Chi-Town but originally from Mississippi, the expressive singer provides an enjoyable, if derivative, blues/soul/rock mix on her 2000 date Learned My Lesson. Young is far from a blues purist - while "My Man's an Undertaker" and Young originals like the humorous "Pity Party" are straight-up urban blues, she confidently detours into soul and rock territory on "Girl Friend" (another Young original) and sweaty performances of Ike & Tina Turner's "Nutbush City Limits" and Chuck Berry's "Living in the U.S.A." Meanwhile, Young draws heavily on her gospel background on a passionate version of Percy Mayfield's "Please Send Me Someone to Love"…

This CD from pianist Ketil Bjornstad fits the ECM stereotype. The music is generally mournful, full of space, floating and very much a soundtrack for one's thoughts. The 12 parts of "The Sea," which find Bjornstad joined by cellist David Darling, guitarist Terje Rypdal and drummer Jon Christensen, set somber moods rather than introduce memorable themes and the only real excitement is supplied by Rypdal's rockish guitar.

Pianist Ketil Bjørnstad's quartet set with cellist David Darling, guitarist Terje Rypdal, and drummer Jon Christensen is almost a stereotype of an ECM release. His ten originals all set an introspective and mostly somber mood, their themes are less important than the atmosphere that they form, and the individual solos of the musicians are less significant than the ensemble sound. The general mood is a bit sleepy and the development from song to song is quite slow, although there are a few fiery and rockish solos from guitarist Rypdal.

For Kyanos, Jon Balke continues the journey begun on Further with an assembly of likeminded label mates - among them trumpeters Per Jørgensen and Arve Henriksen, bassist Anders Jormin, and drummer Audun Kleive - under the moniker Magnetic North Orchestra to ply the glaciers of the Norwegian pianist’s nostalgic compositional approach. Many permutations of the album’s title (which means “blue” in Greek) find purchase in the album’s intimate geography. “Mutatio,” for one, unpacks the depressing implications of the color, trading piano-heavy gestures with soft punctuations from the MNO, each a hope sidestepped in favor of seclusion. “Katabolic” tells the same story but reverses the formula, fronting Jørgensen and Henriksen against intermittent swells of synth. “In vitro” seems to speak in the language of the color itself, as if it were an entire species with specific taxonomic histories and genetic signatures…