Ava Mendoza

New York guitarist Ava Mendoza has cut quite the career with her solo performances and collaborations with William Parker, Chris Corsano, and others. Here she is with the Brooklyn retro pop-rock band Hearing Things at Nubulu in 2019. 

In addition to Mendoza, Hearing Things is Matt Bauder (tenor), JP Schlegelmilch, (organ), Jonny Lam (bass), Elizabeth Pupo-Walker (percussion) and Vinnie Sperrazza on the drums. 

A slimmed-down version of Hearing Things (Bauder, Schlegelmilch, and Sperrazza), including all of the above as guest on one track or another, just released their second LP, Hearing Things II: Attack of the Xenophobes, last Friday. You can buy it on the their Bandcamp page. 

You should buy it on their Bandcamp page.

You will buy it on their Bandcamp page.

Joe Farrell

It's New Music Friday today, but I woke up this morning to this track by Joe Farrell from 1971 on Just Jazz on WREK, Atlanta, and it would be dishonest to post anything else.   

Andrew Poppy

Discovered today on NTS Radio.

BTW, Zang Tuum Tumb, or ZTT Records, is Trevor Horn's label that released music by Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Grace Jones, and the Art of Noise in the 1980s.

New Music Friday

Trumpeter Adam O'Farrill followed up last March's AOTY contender, Elephant, today with Elephant (Deluxe Edition), featuring two new bonus tracks. New track, You, closes the album, but the astonishing Flowering now opens the album.

With the new tracks, Elephant just became more than a mere contender for AOTY - it's the presumptive winner, the heavyweight champion others will have to top if they want to claim the title.   

   

Jim White Meets Zoh Amba

I'll be honest with you: the first time I heard this song, my reaction was, "Meh." That's the best these two could come up with?

The second time I heard it, I got it - it's a catchy, hooky song. The third time, I thought it was great.

Now I think this might be the best American song in the last century.  

New Music Friday

New Music Friday

Lots of new releases today, and the ones I'm interested in aren't listed by NPR's abbreviated New Music Friday listings and probably won't appear on your Spotify Release Radar.

Case in point, Philly trumpeter Paul Geiss' phantasmagorical The Mirage of Cueta, an opium-dream of an album recorded during the Festival Gnaoua et Musiques du Monde d’Essaouira in Morocco. In addition to Jamaaladeen Tacuma (bass) and Matthew Jernigan (drums), Geiss is backed by Danish vocalist Randi Pontoppidan and Moroccan guembri players Mohamed Wakrim and Maryam Bouzid. 

The album is available on Bandcamp - buy it and support the artists.