Errata – Many People Are Unenthusiastic about Your Work (Gilded)

Errata is the experimental jazz trio of guitarist Ishmael Ali, bassist Eli Namay, and percussionist Bill Harris. Many People Are Unenthusiastic about Your Work is the group’s debut album, out on Gilded Records, and it shows the incredible proficiency of each musician, composer, and improviser of the band. Indeed, the songs range from composition to improvisation, and it’s not always easy to tell which is which, which is always a great sign of success in my opinion. The album is a bewildering and fascinating listen of noisy, heavy, chaotic jazz.

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David Hertzberg – The Wake World (Tzadik)

The Wake World is a new contemporary opera work by composer David Hertzberg. It’s a surreal and hypnotizing musical journey on two discs that starts up relatively slowly, but ends up being quite astonishing and gripping. It’s difficult to put such a massive and ethereal piece into more words, so I strongly suggest you watch this video and listen to the whole thing for yourself. Sit down comfortably, put your headphones on or plug in a good sound system, and let yourself sink into this magical experience. I’ll end with a quote.

I think the opera is pretty whacky.

— David Hertzberg

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Kalle – Introducing Kalle (Jazzland)

From Oslo, Norway, comes the Kalle quartet, an odd but very surprising group mixing together what sounds to me like math rock and jazz fusion! Their description also mentions hip-hop, which is immediately recognizable once you read that. You get that slightly sloppy drunken drums, heavily FX-ed guitars, soaring sax, and immense grooves, all that you need to have a thoroughly good time!

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Neptunian Maximalism – Eons (I, Voidhanger)

Eons is, first and foremost, a trilogy. A three-disc monument transmuting doom metal, spiritual free jazz, and psychedelic music, just as the description mentions, in three steps: To the Earth, To the Moon, and To the Sun, about forty, thirty, and sixty minutes long respectively. As you can see and hear from the video, the band—a quartet formed of Guillaume Cazalet, Jean-Jacques Duerinckx, Sébastien Schmit, and Pierre Arese—doesn’t limit itself with traditional metal instruments, but also adds sitar, flute, saxophone, and various percussion to name but a few. The over two-hour spiritual voyage is truly something out of this world; heavy and psychotropic and spiritual. It comes out in June.

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Fast-Fast – New Color Bomb

Fast-Fast—stylized as FAST-fast—is the project of microtonal composer James Mulvale. As such, New Color Bomb is an entirely microtonal album showing a healthy variety of styles and genres, from the industrial retro-synthwave found on “Plans”, to the breakcore of “Atomica”, but everything remains within the extended realm of pop and electronic music in some way. The album is absolutely brilliant and is a remarkable quality product. The songs are catchy and weird and, truly, amazing! So be sure to hop on it!

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Karmacipher – Introspectrum (Infree)

Can one ever get enough of dissonant extreme metal? If I judge by my sore neck, no. Hong Kong’s Karmacipher are back with a new oppressive, repugnant offering—almost two years and a half after their 陣獄 (Zhèn yù) EP—and this time it’s a full-length, fifty-minute assault on the senses. As I mentioned before, this is straight up the same vein as Ulcerate, Baring Teeth, and Drought-era Deathspell Omega. You’ll love it.