Nudo – La última de las burocracias

Nudo is a duo from Buenos Aires playing some really impressive, rhythmically challenging jazz. La última de las burocracias is their debut album and consists of seven tracks exploring the piano and drums duo, but also the use of tuned and un-tuned percussions. It’s a highly energetic and rewarding avant-garde jazz album to listen to, not too far off from another great piano-drums duo called Dialectical Imagination.

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Lost Crowns – Every Night Something Happens (Bad Elephant Music)

Lost Crowns is a retro prog band that seemingly aims to recapture the more psychedelic era of the seventies’ progressive rock scene, including bands like Yes, King Crimson, and Gentle Giant. Every Night Something Happens is a successful effort in that regard. The compositions on here are quite modern in their approach and conception, somewhat akin to ELP‘s “Tarkus”, but all with an analog sound.

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Uswa – Cold Spell

For atmospheric doom, my reference has lately become Soldat Hans‘s Es taut. Uswa‘s debut, Cold Spell, is even more ethereal and light than it, but it’s not a bad thing. Here, the listener is often led by flute and acoustic guitars through a more contemplative state than what doom usually allows for. Although the album is less ambitious than Soldat Hans’s, it’s a remarkable release, and only gets heavy when it is direly needed. This works to the benefit of the music, as the heavy feels tremendous when it finally comes.

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Spinifex – Soufifex

Spinifex is a hard band to nail down. They make the music that they want to make, and it doesn’t matter whether it’s similar as before or completely different. Also, they release it without fanfare and Soufifex is a fine example of this. It came out on music platforms on January 10, but only came on Bandcamp this week, and it’s the only place that will alert me when something comes out, so… Hey it’s here and it’s late but it’s so good it doesn’t matter so go ahead and enjoy!

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Emile Parisien Quartet – Double Screening (ACT Music)

With a QR code that leads to a dedicated website, with fake ads, it’s easy to tell that Emile Parisien Quartet‘s Double Screening looks through a critical lens at the current state of technology; soft- and hardware. Whether or not it successfully does so is up to your own opinion on the subject, but, as a jazz album, it is quite excellent. With a contemporary approach on harmony and rhythm, Emile Parisien crafts an amazing fifty-minute collection of compositions. One of the early examples of this is “Double Screening II”, with its stochastic feeling. I recommend going though it all to appreciate it entirely.

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The Moon Project – Morphologies (Tone List)

I’ve been expecting this one for quite some time, and I’m glad to say that it fucking slays! This Australian avant-garde quintet uses visual scores as guidance for creating experimental, emotional, and improvised music. Needless to say, the result is for advanced listeners only! Oh, and this albums comes from a program for female-identifying people in experimental music, and I think that is awesome.

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MRW – Materia prima

Polish musician Marcin Waszczak has crafted an original entity with his musical moniker MRW. Materia prima is the latest release of this high-output alter ego, and it’s one of the highest quality, in my opinion. Although there are quite a lot of MRW albums out there, only a select few capture this same magic, this lightning in a bottle that Materia prima has. I think the last one of this kind was Paradontoza Band, which was more into psychedelic rock, whereas this newest one branches off into progressive metal.

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Graham Costello’s Strata – Obelisk

Thanks to Dee for always providing me with quality suggestions. This latest one is quite impressive. Graham Costello’s Strata is a Scottish sextet playing an interesting blend of progressive modern jazz; you could also include the “fusion” tag somewhere, anywhere, in there. Obelisk is the sophomore effort of the formation: melodically comforting, it instead sneakily incorporates complex harmonies, rhythms, and structures in a way that makes them all blend in and work for the greater good of the overall experience. The album is filled with strong compositions that are thoroughly fleshed out. It’s fantastic!

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海老 (Ebi) / Shrimp (Panurus Productions)

Shrimp—in English or Japanese—is a free jazz/noise/grindcore improvisational entity based in the UK. These tags alone make me drool, and remind me of bands like Sete Star Sept—in which one member plays—and Schreckwürmer. Unsurprisingly, the result is intense and wild, two of my favourite musical adjectives. Anyways, dive in, and enjoy, or not, but try.