Curiosity Without Borders

A loose, exploratory current runs through this set, pulling together guitar‑driven haze, electronic drift, post‑punk edges, outsider pop, chamber stillness and a few sharp archival turns. The mood shifts without fuss: ambient bloom into jangling indie shapes, dub‑touched folk into synth shimmer, noise‑bitten punk into spacious improvisation, all threaded by a sense of artists working their own corners with clarity rather than chasing a single style. It plays like a long, unhurried walk through parallel scenes — familiar textures, odd detours, and the occasional jolt — unified more by curiosity than genre.

1. Deardarkhead - Flamethrower - The Pendulum Swings

2. Windy & Carl with Optigan Conservatory - Alvin Loving — Windy & Carl Meet Optigan Conservatory

3. Ups And Downs - Out Of Thin Air - Out Of Thin Air

4. Hard Ons and Jerry A - My One Regret - Hard Ons, Jerry A

5. Professor and the Madman - Tolerant World - Dreamworld

6. Pressgang Mutiny & Sunray Grennan - Hill and Gully - Hill and Gully/Sally Rackett

7. Cohen Almonte Duo - Siena - Timelines

8. Suzanne Ciani - Section 6 : The Vamp - CIANI/ORKEST

9. My Face Is Dancing - Anytime Forever - My Face Is Dancing

10. Robyn Jacobs - Pith - New Forevers

11. Linda Catlin Smith, Cheryl Duvall - The View From Here - The Complete Piano Solos (1989-2023) Volume II: The Underfolding and Early Works

12. Moff Skellington - Four Speed Knock Knock - Dawn Ablutions

13. The Go-Betweens - Poison In The Walls (Acoustic Demos) - G Stands For Go-Betweens: The Go-Betweens Anthology - Volume 3

14. Dave Graney and Clare Moore - Death By A Thousand Sucks - Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye

15. Smoked Salmon - Making Me Better - Totally Sick !!

16. The Junta - Interstate - Exposure

17. Fancy Weapon - Following You - Fancy Weapon

18. The Dream Syndicate - John Coltrane Stereo Blues (Live at the Lexington, London, 2023) - Live Through the Past, Darkly

19. Peter Hammill - Fireships - A Headlong Stretch: The Fie! Albums 1992-1996 (2026 Remaster)

20. The David S. Ware Quartets - Mikuro’s Blues - Live In The World

21. Eldritch Priest - nape…wrinkle…linger - Too, So Like Nothing

1. Their first album in 25 years and the second full-length record released via their own imprint Fertile Crescent Records. These ten tracks capture an ever-evolving band, refining their voice through texture, atmosphere, and emotional momentum. Deardarkhead is made up of guitarist Kevin Harrington, drummer Robert Weiss and bassist James Malizia, who recently replaced Brandon Howard following the recording of this album. Deardarkhead has built a distinctive identity since the departure of vocalist Michael Amper in 2009, shifting fully into melodic texture-rich instrumental composition. The record moves through shifting moods ranging from soaring, psychedelic-tinged guitar anthems to driving post-punk rhythms and more ambient, abstract passages. The result is a dynamic and cohesive work that highlights the band’s signature blend of shimmering guitars, pulsing bass, and powerful percussion. The band pushes the envelope with their instrumental approach, using drum loops, unusual time signatures, ebow, bass VI, and expanded guitar layering.

2. Windy and Carl Meet Optigan Conservatory is a purposefully misleading title for the first collaborative work from four friends who met close to 30 years prior. All active participants in Michigan independent music circles since the early ‘90s, Windy and Carl are well-known for their foundational contributions to drift and guitar-born ambient sounds, with songs characterised by deep connections to the natural world and a hard to pin down yet impossible to miss emotional vulnerability. Optigan Conservatory is another duo, made up of Frank Rotondo (leader of Detroit area free music ensemble Laughing Gas) and Fred Thomas (songwriter and producer most often associated with his band Saturday Looks Good To Me), who have been making minimalistic and time-defiant electro-acoustic sounds since 2016. The album came together almost effortlessly in a very short timeframe, but the idea had been building steam for many a year. In the last days of 2024, Windy and Carl and Optigan Conservatory got together, falling into a mode of sound creation that was almost hyper-natural. Without any discussion outside of the usual stream of jokes and chatter, the quartet set up and started communicating. Added to Windy and Carl’s hovering augmented chord voicings and vaporous guitar drones were electric piano and synth bedding from Frank and Fred. After the initial sessions, all involved parties took time to consider what they’d made, adding new layers and editing the pieces into more definitive articulations. A beautiful and hermetic energy larger than the sum of its parts is captured in the process. There are echoes of the earliest releases from Windy and Carl as well as refractions of the same opacity that surfaced in the early Kranky catalog.

3. Australian jangle pop legends and ‘80s/’90s indie faves Ups and Downs are back with a new single, a forthcoming new EP, and a run of shows to mark the 40th anniversary of a beloved release. With new single ‘Out Of Thin Air’, Ups and Downs summon pure guitar pop with summery melodies and classic harmonies that appear suddenly and stay with you forever. This brand-new digital single is the first taster from their forthcoming EP Radio Is Dead which will be released physically and digitally on Basketcase Records, distributed internationally by Redeye Worldwide, and is their first new original music in 10 years. With the new single out now and new EP scheduled for September 4, and following last year’s sold-out tour to celebrate 40 years as a band (and the release of the vinyl-only anthology, Stained Glass Memories), Ups and Downs will head out again in October to commemorate the 40th birthday of their acclaimed mini-album Sleepless, as well as the new EP.

4. On the back of a sharing stages for a just completed European tour together and following their 2025 US tour together with Napalm Death and the Melvins, Jerry A of legendary Portland powerhouse Poison Idea and his mates from Sydney The Hard-Ons - Blackie, Ray and Murray - are finally set to release an album. The Hard-Ons first toured with Poison Idea back in the late ‘80s and first recorded with Jerry A as guest vocalist back in 1993 - Jerry co-wrote and sung the track “The Blade” on their Too Far Gone album. The track recently resurfaced on Jerry’s solo album From The Fire Into The Water. The first product of their new collaboration came out in the form of single - “You Won’t Shut Up”/”Dead End Turnaround” - released ahead of the American dates last year. And now, having just shared stages together in Europe, the team, which will be known forthwith as Hard-Ons/Jerry A, have released the new single “My One Regret” and announced an August 14 release date for their long-awaited album.

5. A musically adventurous rock group fronted by songwriters Sean Elliott and Alfie Agnew, and backed by the legendary rhythm section of Paul Gray and Rat Scabies. This lineup of the group has recorded three albums together, with portions of Dreamworld being tracked at Abbey Road Studio 2 in London. Agnew’s day job as a mathematics professor at California State University in Fullerton sparked the idea for “Tolerant World.’ “In some sense, the song is a pushback against my peers,” he explains. “Many Gen-Xers beat their chest and tell exaggerated stories of how rough they had it in the old days (in some cases, that’s true), while they condemn millennials for being soft or whatever. At its core, this song is an expression of the difficulty in adapting to a rapidly changing world. The song’s narrator is smart enough to see the positives of the new generation’s attitudes, but admits that it’s not easy to shed the attitudes, beliefs, and communication style you grew up with.”

6. Toronto’s Pressgang Mutiny & Sunray Grennan team up for “Hill and Gully/Sally Rackett,” exploring the parallels between sea shanties and Jamaican folk traditions through dancehall grooves and lyrical improvisation.

7. The sonic documentation of a chance encounter in the creative melting pot of New York City. It was here that guitarists Tomer Cohen and Rodrigo Almonte discovered that despite the vast geographical distance between their roots - spanning the Peruvian Andes and the Mediterranean - their musical “Timelines”

   were destined to converge. Released via the NYC-based Adhyâropa Records, the album is an intimate, raw and cinematic dialogue between two guitars, navigating the space where ancient folklore meets the sophisticated edge of modern jazz. The heart of ‘Timelines’ lies in its ability to bridge disparate worlds through just twelve strings. Rodrigo Almonte, a scholar of Andean music, infuses the record with the mystical, rhythmic pulse of South America and Brazil. In contrast, Tomer Cohen brings the lyrical warmth and melodic complexity of his Middle Eastern heritage. Together, they transform the guitar into a storytelling medium, moving seamlessly from delicate, pastoral whispers to high-energy improvisational exchanges. It is a project that honours where they came

   from while building a new, shared territory in the present.

8. Electronic music pioneer and five-time Grammy nominee Suzanne Ciani joins the internationally acclaimed Metropole Orkest, conducted by Simon Dobson, for the release of a landmark live album composed entirely of new work, created specifically for this unprecedented collaboration. Recorded at Amsterdam Dance Event (ADE) before a rapt audience, the album is not a retrospective. It is a bold, immersive meeting of the Buchla electronic instrument and 50-piece orchestral sound. The result is a sweeping sonic landscape, at once intimate and monumental. Under the direction of the Metropole Orkest, renowned for its collaborations with artists from jazz to contemporary classical - strings shimmer, brass swells and woodwinds echo the organic, fluid qualities that have always defined Ciani’s sound. “This project feels like a homecoming,” says Ciani. “The Buchla was always orchestral to me, an instrument capable of infinite color. Hearing those colors unfold through the Metropole Orkest has been profoundly moving.”

9. The debut release by a unique family collective led by Federico Ughi. More than an album, it is a celebration of family, spirit, creativity, and freedom. It marks the first officially released collaboration between Federico Ughi and his sons—young artists Alberto Ughi, Martino Ughi, and Benjamin Ughi—alongside other members of the family. The recordings that form the foundation of this project were captured at different moments throughout the children’s lives, documenting their growth and artistic evolution between the ages of two and ten. Musically, the album reflects Federico Ughi’s lifelong journey across improvisation, hip hop, jazz, and experimental electronic music. The album originates from a series of improvisational sessions, free-form hip-hop explorations, spontaneous performances, conversations, and moments of play recorded over many years in different environments. These recordings were later brought into the studio, where Federico Ughi carefully listened, edited, sculpted, and assembled the material into cohesive compositions. Rather than imposing structure from the outside, the music was allowed to reveal itself organically through a process of discovery and deep listening.

10. Vancouver-based Robyn Jacob has variously been heard as one of the guiding forces behind Mint Records’ Only A Visitor, one half of the Giving Shapes (alongside Elisa Thorn) and one of the key members Gamelan Bike Bike, a community initiative whose traditional instrumentation was made from discarded bike frames and scrap metal. With New Forevers, out August 14th from Redshift Records (LP/DL), we hear Jacob’s engrossing work in the concert music arena—especially within the realm of percussion. Enlisting Montréal’s Architek Percussion as her core ensemble, the recording also sees her working with SHHH! Ensemble and Grammy-winners Sō Percussion plus guests on a spellbinding body of work. Her compositions celebrates texture from bone-dry sibilances to rich choirs of mallet percussion, all the while delving into environment themes from a unique (and somewhat hopeful) vantage point. The sounds heard here speak to her illustrious and varied artistic history reflecting her embrace of an assortment of influences and styles through a cohesive, highly personal compositional idiom.

11. Last October, the Toronto-based pianist Cheryl Duvall announced she would be releasing the complete solo piano works of cherished Toronto composer Linda Catlin Smith on Redshift Records. She initiated this considerable undertaking with a recording of The Plains, an hour-long, single-movement work she commissioned from Smith. August 7th, 2026 marks the launch of the follow up, The Complete Piano Solos (1989-2023), Volume II: The Underfolding & Early Works, a varied programme of works that came about from collaborations with the likes of John Tilbury, Anthony De Mare, Stephen Clarke, Barbara Pritchard, among others. Listeners are treated to a glimpse—a highly compelling one—of Smith’s development as a composer through works that pay homage to her forebears (namely Satie, Feldman, Cage, Bach, and fellow Canadian Udo Kasemets), endeavour to reconcile movement and stasis, embrace visual art principles metaphorically, and even employ more systematic approaches. For those that only know her more recent catalogue, there are also surprising approaches to dynamics and articulation that contrast her later output. And yet these pieces also exhibit the roundabout hypnotic character that has become her hallmark amidst her rise to international prominence through her BBC Proms commission, high-profile performances at festivals such as Tectonics (Scotland), Other Minds (USA), Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival (UK), and Ireland’s Louth Contemporary Music Festival, and recent releases on Another Timbre and Redshift alike.

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20. Live In The World gathers three concert recordings from David S. Ware’s early‑2000s quartet—Ware, Matthew Shipp, William Parker and either Guillermo E. Brown or Susie Ibarra—capturing the group in full, high‑intensity improvisational flight. Across the three discs the band stretches Ware’s themes into long, shape‑shifting structures, moving between volcanic collective energy and stark, spacious passages where Shipp and Parker recalibrate the momentum. The sets document the quartet’s mature language: huge tenor arcs, rhythmic turbulence, and a deep internal logic that lets the music surge, fracture and reassemble without losing focus. It’s a panoramic snapshot of one of Ware’s strongest ensembles operating at full expressive force.

21. One of two current albums from this artist. See last Sundays World of Jazz for the other. Priest isn’t an easy act to pin down. His critically acclaimed writing (published by Bloomsbury and Duke University Press and others) offers a singular and utterly mind-bending perspective on music. His own musical output, meanwhile, increasingly spans multiple approaches—as witnessed by the extant albums. Priest has a long history in the contemporary music orbit, having worked with prominent ensembles such as Quatuor Bozzini, Apartment House, Arraymusic, Turning Point Ensemble and others. In this regard, Too, So Like Nothing follows the trajectory of his recent disc with Another Timbre, but instead of documenting compositions for groups, it shifts the focus to solo piano. Respected Edmonton pianist Roger Admiral performs three of Priest’s labyrinthine compositions here, spanning almost 20 years. While traversing a significant stretch of the composer’s career they all share a laggard eccentricity that permeates every musical parameter from gesture to form, harmony to melodic ornamentation. Priest’s language is instantly recognizable but also audibly connects to the approach of fellow graduates of University of Victoria such as Allison Cameron, Martin Arnold and Cassandra Miller.