Fusion in the most complete sense of the word, Ginger Baker‘s all-too-brief Horses & Trees melds jazz, funk, world music, electronica, reggae, hip-hop and something noiser still.

by Nick DeRiso Sounds of Saturn, a Fort Wayne, Ind.-based experimental trio, takes the road less travelled on Mars Via Parachute. In fact, often, they’re not on any road at all. Instead, the record employs every trick in the noodle-rock playbook, from psychedelia and stadium-shaking riffs to thrilling science-geek constructions that include math-based tempos. As spacy as it all is, [...]

by Something Else Reviews Over the last few weeks, this merry band of music lovers has offered its varied take on the Year That Was. Now, we winnow it all down. First to go were the personal obsessions (Mark: Mary Halvorson; Pico: Greg Ward’s Fitted Shards), and other worthy entries that somehow didn’t gather critical mass (Tom: Field Music; Nick: [...]

by Nick DeRiso The worry, with any rock-guitar virtuoso’s recording, is that it will quickly devolve into onanistic noodling. But Tony Savarino’s Guitaring adroitly sidesteps the problem with a keen eye for variety, and a welcome sense of unselfishness in the studio. The Boston-bred musician is a dabbler, with a finger in everything from rock to funk, from soul to [...]

by Nick DeRiso He’s got a name that sounds like the future. So, naturally, you expect Brian Eno to be ever changing, on the move, eyes continually fixed on the horizon. That’s why I was starting to hate Small Craft on a Milk Sea. Eno’s new album opens with a crystalline piano line, echoing across a frozen ocean of cloud [...]

by Nick DeRiso Peter Gabriel, always one for the theatrical, has begun a suitably elaborate two-part process with “Scratch My Back” — his first new work since 2002′s “Up.” This recording, featuring occasionally over-curated readings of work by others, will be followed by “I’ll Scratch Yours,” a return-the-favor CD that showcases these same artists tackling Gabriel’s catalogue. The guy who [...]

by S. Victor Aaron Last year we spotlighted a trio of CD’s that made up the maiden releases by a new record label, the artist-run collective Brooklyn Jazz Underground Records. A year later last June, there were three more BJU records to examine. And here we are less than six months after that, and there are now four more new [...]

by S. Victor Aaron Jon Hassell is an inventor of new forms of music – of new ideas of what music could be and how it might be made. His work is drawn from his whole cultural experience without fear or prejudice. It is an optimistic, global vision that suggests not only possible musics but possible futures.” The quote came [...]

by Nick DeRiso: Composed in the spring of 1992, and based on the classic David Bowie collaboration with Brian Eno from 1977, Philip Glass’ orchestral interpretation is that oddity that makes sense. Originally an experimental recording of startling depth and complexity, it follows that “Low” would transfer well into the next iteration. Glass — a three-time Academy Award-nominated classical-music composer [...]