Today, Bandcamp is donating all its profits to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and artists are joining the movement as well. Heavy Blog Is Heavy even put up a list of the best albums to buy, today. In conjunction, here’s nine more fresh and praiseworthy releases from our point of view!
Lukas Mantel is a Swiss drummer and percussionist, and he released Kolam korvai this week. A korvai is a percussions-only, mathematically interesting composition from South India. The EP thus comprises eighteen short tracks that are musically and technically impressive yet flow naturally – as a good korvai should. It’s something different, but also interesting, challenging, and fascinating!
Snaggle‘s The Long Slog was released all the way back in October of last year, which makes it all the more puzzling why I didn’t hear of it more. The album is quite substantial, at seventy-two minutes long, and is filled to the brim with exciting jazz fusion songs in the vein of Snarky Puppy. If you’re even slightly aware of that now-legendary act, then please give Snaggle a try as well!
Want something even more obscure? Let’s try Mexico’s Orquesta Xibalbá, a – … what to call them? – avant-garde progressive rock and dark jazz fusion trio. Onirófago is their debut EP, and it was released in early January. It consists of five unsettling tracks at the crossroads of jazz and prog, with an undeniable twist. The compositions represent different myths and legends of pre-Columbian Mesoamerican civilizations, and are depicted as bleak, oppressive, and chaotic passages. It’s truly something special!
French experimental progressive metal group Pryapisme is releasing Diabolicus felinae pandemonium today! Their highly-anticipated third album is a follow-up to their 2015 EP, Futurologie. Needless to say, at this point, it reaches and exceeds expectations, no matter how high they were. With their trademark blend of chiptune, EDM, jazz, heavy metal, and optimistic progressive rock, Pryapisme make us passionate again by delivering us truly outstanding and original music!
Don’t let their silly name fool you, Tindergodz are no joke. The Emergence, their first and only demo/EP, was released in late January, and shows us what the New York quintet is capable of, in four tracks – one of them even being a shittyfluted jazz fusion cover of Darude’s ‘Sandstorm’! The EP shows great promise, even though it was probably made with too little a budget; the drums are, sadly, programmed, but the overall mix and production are more than sufficient to quench our curiosity. It’s an amazing EP from a band that doesn’t take itself too seriously; you should absolutely and positively let it enter your lives.
Even though Avant Temporal‘s only EP is almost two years old today, Avant Temporal VS. Death Grips – or Djent Grips – is an awesome little piece of work. Imagine Hacktivist were part of the mythical experimental hip hop group, and you can see why this release deserves your attention. Rumour has it the band is working on a new release featuring Death Grips’ Bottomless Pit, so that got me more than excited! It can’t come soon enough. In the meanwhile, you can listen to Djent Grips as much as you like – which is never enough.

Led Bib is an experimental jazz quintet from the United Kingdom, and they recently released their seventh album, Umbrella Weather. It’s a beautiful, aggressive, at times straightforward and at times windy seventy-six-minute LP of pure joy. The tracks are inventive, and written and played masterfully. Utterly recommended.
The instrumental progressive metal of Increate has long been taunting us, but today is finally the day of the release of Void. It’s the quartet’s first release, and it sets the bar dauntingly high for their future selves. Their style covers Fallujahesque atmospheric progressive death metal to Animals as Leaders-like djent with clean guitars, so there’s a lot of variety on display. I personally think the $10 price tag is a bit much for thirty minutes of music, but it’s indeed astonishingly good so you might be willing to shell it out.
Here’s something I’ve been personally expecting for quite some time: Fire-Toolz‘ Drip Mental album. Hybridizing black metal and vaporwave has perhaps been thought of or done in the past, but it’s the prime example of a working product. Through the course of fifty minutes, Angel Marcloid takes you to a strange place on the Internet, where plunderphonics are the foundation of a black metal entity. It’s one of the best results of creativity in music, and why everyone should think about and try to push boundaries of genres. This is awesome.