It took three weeks but it finally happened - I had my first Big Ears "oh my god, this musician is fantastic - where have they been all my life?" discovery moment of 2025. 

Lubomyr Melnyk is a Ukranian composer and pianist noted for his continuous-music piano technique featuring extremely rapid notes and complex note-series, usually with the sustain pedal held down to generate harmonic overtones and sympathetic resonances.  "This is a completely different piano universe from everything that has existed before," according to Melnyk.

He will be appearing at Big Ears 2026 and it was so easy to overlook his name in the lineup announcements. But when I finally got around to listening to him, omg, it really was a completely different piano universe from everything that had existed before. 

While he doesn't employ minimalism techniques in his compositions, his music will undoubtedly appeal to fans of Philip Glass, Steve Reich, and most especially Terry Riley. His presence at Big Ears 2026 will fit right in with fellow 2026 performers Charlemagne Palestine and Hania Rani. 

I can't wait to see all of them at Big Ears next year. 

New Music Friday

I thought it was me and my oddball left-field tastes, but it seems like New Music Fridays have had pretty few offerings as of late. Maybe it's a seasonal thing - music companies don't want to release albums in late summer and were waiting for the back-to-school month of September to drop new music. Or maybe it's just that no one produces the kind of music I like anymore.

Well, here we are on the second Friday of September, and great googly moogly, just look at all these great new jazz, rock, ambient, and experimental releases:

• Dave Douglas - Alloy
• Rafiq Bhatia - Environments
• Tomas Fujiwara - Dream Up
• John Foxx - Wherever You Are
• Fruit Bats - Baby Man
• Guerilla Toss - You're Weird Now
• Brad Mehldau - Ride Into the Sun
• Jens Lekman - Songs for Other People's Weddings
• Maruja - Pain to Power
• Kara-Lis Coverdale - A Series of Actions in a Sphere of Forever
• Oren Ambarchi & Fredrik Rasten -- Dragon's Return
• Nurse with Wound - Healsgebedda Budgerigar  

That's more today than in the last month combined!

Of course, yes, I've prepared a playlist of these new releases, as well as other new shit going back to last June for your review and listening pleasure. Enjoy!

Big Ears 2026

As celebrated over on the main site, the Big Ears festival has released its 2026 lineup. Best Big Ears lineup ever? Best festival lineup ever, any genre, any century, ever in the history of music? 

God, I love hyperbole.

I've already bought my big-bucks, VIP Sonic Explorer four-day, all-access pass, and already have my four-day downtown hotel reservation secured and paid for. Next March, all that I'll need to pay for is the gas to get up there and food during my stay, and of course, a beer or two at Clancy's. 

  

Many people are understandably excited about David Byrne and others are pinching themselves over the possibility of seeing Led Zeppelin's Robert Plant. We're all excited about seeing John Zorn return. All are worthy additions to the lineup. but I encourage those of you who like diverse forms of music to not sleep on Brain Marsella's aptly named Imaginarium. 

Their album, Medietas, was a major, three-CD odyssey through musical history, sounding at times like various forms of jazz, at times like blues and rock, at times like some forgotten movie soundtrack, and at times like some Frank Zappa fever dream. In ways, this one set could summarize all of the diverse musical programming at the Big Ears festival. I hope the festival allots him more than the standard 60 minutes to perform this three-hour long opus, although I'll gladly take whatever they can offer.

I made a Spotify playlist of the most recent or the most representative album by each and every Big Ears 2026 performer. The playlist is over 120 hours long and contains over 1,500 tracks. Yesterday, I took a ten-mile hike through the Chattahoochee National Recreation Area listening to the playlist on random shuffle through Bluetooth headphones. It was a blissful and at times transcendental experience and I look forward to taking that trip again. You doing anything tomorrow?

    

   

Doom

Hey! S'up? Do you like the 1965 Miles Davis Quintet album, E.S.P., especially the closing track, the Ron Carter composition, Mood? But did you ever wish you could hear Carter play it with Tony Williams and Herbie Hancock, but without Miles and Wayne Shorter? Did you further wish that the title of the track was spelled in reverse and that the performance be live in Japan?

Well, have I got good news for you. Here's Doom, performed at Denen Colosseum, Tokyo; on July 29, 1978, featuring Carter, Williams and Hancock.

What now? Now you want to hear a more recent version, with none of the other Quintet members but with an orchestra for some reason? And live in Europe, not Asia? Okay, then, that's getting a little specific and I won't question your motives, but here's Carter in 2022 playing Doom Mood with the WDR Big Band, the jazz band of German public broadcaster Westdeutscher Rundfunk in Cologne, Germany. 

 

You can thank me later.

Jens Lekman

Canales · Jens Lekman - Summer in 3/4 Time Mix

Today's post over at the main site got me thinking about Jens Lekman, which got me to thinking about this mixtape. BTW, I burned a copy of this for the Moms ten of so years ago and she liked it.

OSEES

New Music Friday: The new release from our old friends, Thee Oh Sees (The OCs, OCS, Osees, etc.). The first single from their new album, Abomination Revealed At Last, is titled Fight Simulator. Just a ADHD as ever. Wouldn't have it any other way.

New Music Friday

It's been a slow but not disappointing year for new music releases. Every Friday for years has marked a slew of new record releases. Maybe its just me, but that flow seems to have slowed to a trickle recently, but that trickle has included some very high-quality music.

Yesterday, there was only one notable (to me) release, but it's a good one. Joshua Abrams' Natural Information Society dropped the LP, Momentum, a second digital release of tracks previously available on vinyl only. Stand-out track, descension (Out of Our Constrictions) II, showcases the dazzling circular breathing of saxophonist Evan Parker over a NIS minimalist background performed by Abrams on guimbri (a three-string, Moroccan bass guitar), Jason Stein on bass clarinet, Lisa Alvarado on harmonium, and Mikel Patrick Avery on drums. The track was recorded on July 9, 2019, at Cafe Oto in London, and was initially released in 2021 by both Eremite Records (U.S.) and Aguirre Records (Belgium).

Formed in 2010, Natural Information Society is a staple of the thriving Chicago underground music scene.