Staghorn – Wormwood Ⅲ

Chicago band Staghorn has been a really nice late surprise to me! On Wormwood Ⅲ, the band brings their finest crafts and exposes us their quasi-apocalyptic anti-capitalist concept story in spoken word with accompanied post-metal soundtrack. This is an amazing release, it’s only too short!

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Montecharge – Demons or Someone Else (Wooaaargh)

Switzerland, as I’ve said many times before, is a hotbed for really good blackened music, and Montecharge is only the latest example of this. Demons or Someone Else is an aggressive blackened hardcore album exploring creative ideas on the genre and its usual tropes. An album that deserves your attention!

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Gordon Grdina’s Nomad Trio – Nomad

Consisting of some of the best players in jazz today, Gordon Grdina’s Nomad Trio sets out to conquer everything with their eponymous release, in early January. This project takes influence from various musical cultures around the world and infuses them into cutting edge modern jazz. The result is mind-boggling, Nomad is really a strong and impressive album.

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Johann Luebbers Dectet – Other Worlds: 10 × 10 × 10, Volume 1

For the ten year anniversary of his dectet ensemble, composer and conductor Johann Luebbers wrote ten compositions, each placing the emphasis on a different musician within the group. Other Worlds is the first volume of this creative experiment, showcasing the first five pieces. The music you’ll find here has lush and diverse orchestration and masterful penning. I am already looking forward to the second volume!

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The Canyon Observer – Urn (Kapa)

“Urn”, the seventeen-minute avant-garde doom metal track presented here, is described as being a bridge between the more traditional material the band previously put out—like their album Nøll—and their future material. If I draw two points, with Nøll and Urn, and extrapolate to a third, I’m expecting some downright bizarre music (which I can’t help but anticipate eagerly). “Urn” is an astonishing, dissonant, apocalyptic masterpiece of what doom metal can be. I seriously cannot wait for further experiments to be unveiled!

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Matana Roberts – Coin Coin, Chapter Four: Memphis (Constellation)

Matana Roberts‘s latest album has been widely acclaimed already, and it’s thanks to this that I’ve been acquainted with Memphis. To say that it’s gut-wrenchingly emotional would be underselling it. The Coin Coin series retells, from my understanding of it, stories of the North American slave trade, and it’s intertwined with this fascinating composition style that’s uniquely idiosyncratic and unmistakable. If you see that album on many lists, this year, don’t ask why, listen to it. Over and over again.