Soul Call is yet another great Burrell record. On "Here's That Rainy Day," he epitomizes all that is cool in jazz guitar, framing his lush chord-melody statement using a minimum of voicings, and burning up the changes without ever overplaying, sacrificing clarity, or compromising his tone, all while infusing an achingly beautiful standard with a graceful blues tinge. He then repeats this achievement in a harder-swinging vein on "Lucky So and So" and on the ballad "A Sleepin' Bee. "Mark One" is an uptempo cooker by pianist Will Davis; Burrell himself contributes two blues, the late-night, conga-fueled slink of the title cut and the relentlessly jumping "Kenny's Theme."

The third volume in John Zorn's "Olympiad" series is this solo performance in 2007 at the Kompo Cultural Center in Gyungee, Korea by Zorn associate and eccentrically eminent improviser Eugene Chadbourne, performing on electric and acoustic guitars as he interprets 15 compositions for improvisers from John Zorn's seminal 1976 series: The Book of Heads.

“In a Convex Mirror” features Zorn’s unique saxophone playing and keyboard stylings in an extended foray into the nexus of voudun and downtown improvisation. An intense student of Haitian drumming and a regular at ceremonies from NYC to Port-au-Prince Haiti, Ches Smith weaves a hypnotic tapestry of polyrhythms that are constantly in flux. The result is an exciting new context for Zorn the performer. With special guest Ikue Mori creating moody electronic soundscapes, the music is as hypnotic as it is exhilarating. Three pieces of sonic voodoo for the 21st century.

Having recently declared that he's in far better voice than he was in his '70s/'80s heyday, romantic crooner Julio Iglesias gets to put his money where his mouth is on this alternative greatest-hits collection, Vol. 1. His first studio release since 2007's Quelque Chose de France sees Spain's most successful musical export revisit 15 of his most cherished songs from his enduring 40-year career, with tracks spanning from 1973's Un Canto a Galicia (the title track) right up to 2006's Romantic Classics (a Spanish-language version of Elvis' "Always on My Mind"). But other than the inevitable maturity in Iglesias' voice and a slightly glossier production, there's little variation between the originals and the new recordings, which, with the exception of the breezy Gallic lounge-pop of "As Vezes Tu, As Vezes Eu," stick to his trademark orchestral and flamenco-tinged chansons.

Winner of the 2016 Prix Django Reinhardt from the Académie du Jazz and nominated for the Victoires de la Musique Jazz award in 2018, the pianist Fred Nardin, who plays with, among others, the Amazing Keystone Big Band and Cécile McLorin Salvant, is one of the great revelations of French Jazz in recent years. The trio’s new album, released in March 2019 on the label Naïve, with Or Bareket and Leon Parker, is proof that high-quality jazz can reach a wide audience, from simple amateurs to the most expert connoisseurs.

Unrest is a new collection of masterly collages from the hand of Erik Honoré in which he captures, with absolute precision, the moods and tonal imagery of improvisations and weaves them together in a personal and evocative musical process. He has been joined by an impressive array of Norwegian improvisational musicians: Sidsel Endresen, Eivind Aarset, Arve Henriksen, Stian Westerhus and many others.

Musician, record producer and author Erik Honoré (born 1966) has contributed as a musician and producer to more than 50 records with artists as diverse as David Sylvian, Eivind Aarset, Arve Henriksen and Brian Eno/Peter Schwalm. “Heliographs” is, astonishingly, his first solo project, and one can only speculate as to why this is the case. This is a well-integrated and personal debut album that opens up a complete world of sound that the listener can hardly bear to leave behind.

Dave Matthews Band’s 10th studio album, Walk Around the Moon, took shape during the pandemic and is as much a reflection on the current times as it is an urge to find common ground.

"The album title for us reflects the feelings that so many people have been experiencing over the last two unprecedented years of darkness. We feel it is time to ‘turn the lights back on’ and shine some positivity and joyousness…” CATS in SPACE are all set to return this summer with their fifth studio album which boldly promises to musically go “where no band has gone before..” the SUN![/quote

In the five years that have elapsed since the release of Alvvays’ second album, Antisocialites, and their long-awaited third, Blue Rev, the Toronto-via-PEI band had to deal with every possible roadblock a band could face: lineup changes, demo thefts, gear-destroying basement floods—and that was before the pandemic.