Tag Archives: jazz fusion

Best of Afrobeat 2021

by Dæv Tremblay

Welcome to the first of this year’s best of lists, curated by yours truly! As you might have noticed by now, this year is going to be separated by genre, or style, or attribute… it’s rather inconsistent between categories! On top of that, some categories are rather spread-out within themselves! I mean, there’s more than one kind of “hardcore” music out there for example, and I’m trying my best to keep my categories straight, but it’s often difficult to decide in which category such and such album should go, especially with the miscegenous music I usually listen to! Nevertheless, in … Read more

New Music Video from Oort Smog for “Bright Empty Future”

by Dæv Tremblay

We’ve recently reviewed the psychedelic Californian jazz-prog duo Oort Smog‘s upcoming masterpiece: Smeared Pulse Transfers. To recapitulate briefly, it’s a brilliant and innovative album that is full of surprises and good times.

Before the album’s release, on the 26th, you can watch this amazing video, directed by Dylan Louis Pecora, for the song “Bright Empty Future”, which you can also listen to on their Bandcamp page. The video uses various techniques in conjunction and superposition with one another, which gives it a pretty surreal feeling—not so far, in fact, from the feeling given by the music, too!

Smeared … Read more

Saint Sadrill – Pierrefilant

by Dæv Tremblay

The Music

The Words

Pierrefilant is the debut album of Lyon, France’s Saint Sadrill sextet, who plays a thoroughly interwoven mix of avant-garde prog and jazz fusion. Out on November 2 via the excellent French label Dur et Doux, the album is over an hour long and features a full-time vibraphonist. I was anticipating the album since the first single came out, and, now that it is, let me tell you about it.

I was expecting the release to be good; I mean, listen to “Corq”: it’s beautiful. Even if it’s not the most theoretically interesting track on there, it … Read more

Flora – Flora

by Dæv Tremblay

The Music

The Words

From Berlin, Germany, Flora is a duo comprised of singer Flora Dekkers and pianist Benjamin Geyer. This is a very simple foundation, and, accordingly, it leads up to quite a minimalistic building, but the beauty and grace of it all entirely fills the remaining space.

At first, Flora’s voice reminded me of Lauren Kinsella’s, in Snowpoet and Blue-Eyed Hawk, but Flora’s singer has her own intonation, inflections, and timbre after the initial impression.

Flora is a simple and concise EP. It’s made of four songs, plus an introduction that is more than only a filler … Read more

Ring van Möbius – Past the Evening Sun

by Jeff Nixon

The Music

The Words

Ring van Möbius released their debut album Past the Evening Sun back in May, containing three very proggy tracks, including an epic twenty-one-minute title track, the full video of which is featured above. The Norwegian trio provide a hefty dose of Hammond organ, mellotron synths, and strong instrumental grooves, right out of 1971. There are lots of prog bands that take influence from that era, but few that make it sound new and original. Ring van Möbius are one of those few.

The lineup consists of Thor Erik Helgesen on lead vocals and keyboards, Håvard Rasmussen … Read more