July 2, 2026
Lots of interesting music released this Spring! So much that I'm reducing the descriptive blurbs to terse one-liners, more or less. (If they are in quotation marks I didn't write them.) I encourage you to just dive in. As always, titles link to the albums and names in bold are artists who live in the PNW, or used to.
Acid Twilight (Argentina) - Trippo Nova
"...an hour-long journey to the end of the night, crafted with keys, bells, guitar, metronomes, shakers, synths, and smoke."
John Luther Adams (US/Australia) - Horizon
Massive slabs of undulating orchestral strings, quite tonal, deceptively static/not static.
An Ad Hoc Orchestra - A Tribute to Derek Bailey
A well-curated large improvising ensemble and various sub-groupings thereof honor the spirit of the great British guitarist without sounding a bit like him, which is as it should be.
Olivier Alary (France) - Vestiges
"...a 43-minute composition for twelve amplified lap steel guitars and electronics, conceived as an instrumental choir."
Alewya (Sudan/UK) - Zero
This sounds like something made by an Egyptian-Ethiopian woman, born in Saudi Arabia and raised in Sudan and London: an amalgam of contemporary electronic R&B, Jamaican dancehall, middle-eastern and north African elements that all manage to congeal into a unified whole.
Dewa Alit & Gamelan Salukat (Indonesia) - Baur Bentur
"Against the calcification of Balinese music into tourist entertainment, Alit poses his searching, experimental work, which celebrates the communal values and performance practices of traditional gamelan while pushing into startling new directions." Gamelan Salukat performs here with pianist Sri Hanuraga.
Marisa Anderson - The Anthology of UnAmerican Folk Music
The Portland guitarist presents her own deeply personal iterations of nine songs from a collection of nearly one thousand songs culled from the private record collection of the late Harry Smith.
Paolo Angeli & Tenore Murales Orgosolo (Sardinia) - Vinti'e Maju
"On one side, we find the prepared Sardinian guitar, an “alien” instrument that has fascinated music critics across Europe and overseas; on the other, the guttural singing of Tenore Murales, an expression of one of the oldest polyphonic traditions in the Mediterranean, with similarities found in Tuva and Mongolia."
Angine de Poitrine (Canada) - Vol. II
This anonymous French-Canadian duo (electric guitar/bass + drums) plays incredibly tight, complex microtonal rock riffage while wearing crazy costumes. Check out the videos.
Robert Ashley - Private Parts
This recently reissued classic from 1978 blurs the line between composer and writer; the music really lies in the endlessly quotable text, which for me is inseparable from Bob's speaking voice.
Lea Bertucci - The Days Pass Quickly Immersed in the Shadow of Eternity
"The work was written for master flutist and early music scholar Norbert Rodenkirchen, a major player in the early music world as a member of the legendary ensembles Sequentia and Dialogos..."
Cedric Brooks (Jamaica) - United Africa
Originally released in 1978, "United Africa has achieved cult status among reggae fans... a sublime mixture of classic 70s reggae, afro beat and funk."
Brown Calvin - Live at a Birdland
Lively ambient with a slightly jazzy tinge (check out the titles).
Chafouin (France) - Chafouin Orchestra
Imagine a European prog rock band inspired by early Philip Glass, but it's much better than that makes it sound.
Chassol (France) - Funny How?
A truly unusual and quite brilliant merging of music and vernacular speech, "inspired by American stand-up comedy...sounds like a joyful mix of all the musical styles that inspire the artist: soul, jazz, rap, musicals."
Carlo Costa (Italy/US) - Ashes
"8 concise [improvisations], each developed on specific setups, with a particular combination of [percussion] instruments and objects."
Dead Lincoln - evergreen
Previously from Austin and currently in the suburbs of Tacoma, Teresa Flores has been making charming lo-fi bedroom ambient for many years, and I'm glad to have finally come across it.
Domenica Diavoleria - Flicker Statue Eyes
A dark ambient live score composed to accompany Neil Jordan's horror film The Company of Wolves, based on a short story by Angela Carter.
Tashi Dorji - BYEBUYBY
Acoustic guitar as percussion instrument – something like a hyperactive mbira.
Antoine Dougbé (Benin) - Antoine Dougbé et L'Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou, 1977-1982
Great rare recordings from the golden age of African popular music, “influenced by Cuban son and rumba, Congolese rhythms, and the traditional rhythms of Benin associated with Vodún ceremonies.”
Hegramatics - Gefühlswallung
Beloved Seattle harp improviser Carol J Levin passed away suddenly in late 2025, and her frequent collaborators Heather Bentley, Greg Campbell, and Amy Denio pay tribute, joined by Carol herself on two pieces via overdubbed archival recordings.
Hound Dog Taylor's Hand & Joe Paradiso - The Structure & Dynamics of Disordered Systems
Possibly the most rockin', psychedelic free improvisation album you're likely to hear anytime soon.
Innovative Landscapes Laboratory (Ukraine) - Modelisme Session 143
"[Taras Opanasiuk's] compositions unfold as evolving environments where field recordings, modular synthesis, acoustic sources, and electronic processes interact within fluid and often unpredictable structures."
Rafael Anton Irisarri - Points of Inaccessibility
"Irisarri coaxed long bowed-guitar tones through a network of pedals and looping systems. The raw gestures thickened into a vaporous and architectural field of sound. [Jaco] Schilp processed the material through a custom point-cloud software patch that produced images in continuous flux."
Kaloja (Finland) - A Body of Water
"...the artists have carved for themselves an iconic sonic niche tinkering with the potentialities of synthesis, psychedelic composition, physical modeling, impressionistic reveries and micro/macro worldbuilding."
Miska Lamberg (Finland) - Stillness in Their Isolation
"for this project, i wanted to try and recontextualize loud traffic and constant hum of air conditioning units into a quiet, nearly inaudible form..."
Leenachi (Korea) - Here Comes That Crow
Very strange but fun rock music jumping off from traditional Korean pansori, played by two basses, drums, and four singers who absolutely steal the show. Delta 5 fans, listen up!
Clara Levy & Victor Guaita Igual (France/Spain/Belgium) - Songs of Erosion
A violin/viola duo "...revisiting the 13th-century Spanish songbook Cantigas de Santa María through the lens of erosion [and minimalism]...rejecting a historicist interpretation..."
Manuel Linhares (Portugal/US) - Atlântico
"Linhares has developed a singular voice that draws from jazz while reaching beyond it—into Brazilian rhythmic language, avant-garde textures, fragments of pop and folk, and a broader Atlantic sensibility shaped over years between Berlin, Barcelona, Porto, and New York."
Annea Lockwood (New Zealand/US) - World Rhythms
Previously released only as an excerpt on a compilation album, this important landmark field recording work from 1975 by one of my sheroes finally gets a full length release.
Lone Piñon - Hot Carne Seca
"With fiddles, upright bass, guitars, accordions, vihuela, and bilingual vocals, they play a wide spectrum of New Mexican traditional music."
Francisco López (Spain/Ireland) - Tokoloshe
A masterful deep dive into environmental sounds collected in southern Africa.
Thee Marloes (Indonesia) - Di Hotel Malibu
Sunny, breezy neo-soul/pop with a retro feel from...Surabaya? Nothing especially innovative or challenging here, but it's executed so perfectly that I just can't help liking it.
Daniela Mars (Brazil/France) - Protected [OST]
Beautiful music for voice and many flutes, a "soundtrack album for Joel Espi’s documentary film Protected, [about] the [Ukrainian] artist Halyna Andrusenko and the work she created during the war."
Jolanda Moletta (Italy) - Oceanine
Ethereal verging on New Age, "each track represents a collaboration with a different female vocalist...with the foundational elements being generated entirely by her own voice."
Murmer (US/Estonia) - Mill:Liminal
"sounds found at räpina paberivabrik, a southeast estonian papermill that has been producing paper continuously since 1734..."
Helga Myhr (Norway) - Slåttespel
"Norway’s finest Hardanger fiddle player...playing traditional tunes from Hallingdal; the music she grew up playing, and that she has been working with for all her musical life."
Oliveros / Masaoka / Minegishi - Two Days in Dreamland
"These stunning recordings combine the great strengths of Pauline Oliveros on her Roland V-accordion; Issui Minegishi, ichigenkin master and great-great granddaughter of the founder of the Seikyodo ichigenkin tradition; and Miya Masaoka on her 21-string Japanese koto."
Beth Orton (UK) - The Ground Above
I haven't followed this singer-songwriter for a while, but while I was away her music has become more ambient/jazz-inflected and her voice has aged beautifully, a la Marianne Faithfull.
Sara Parkman (Sweden) - Aster, atlas
Not your grandma's Swedish folk music, this probably has more in common with Björk.
Cinna Peyghamy (Iran/France) - Music for Tombak & Synth
"...seamlessly blends the traditional Persian tombak with modular synthesis and digital signal processing, creating a distinctive musical landscape that bridges live improvisation and studio production."
Aaron Russell & Sandy Ewen - Dissectologists
"These deftly paced pieces enhance the artists' now highly evolved and nuanced sonic palettes, venturing thoughtfully into warm and hypnotic sound fields merging two very unique approaches to abstract guitar."
SML - Spontaneous Music Live
Two long-ish live tracks by this LA-based collective – totally improvised with no edits but not at all noodly, in fact it actually sounds composed, which is a good trick.
Akio Suzuki (Japan) - Soundsphere
Another lovingly reissued sound art classic (from 1990) by one of my heroes, improvising on his homemade instruments. I just love this guy.
Helen Svoboda (Finland/Australia) - Headwater
An intense meditation on water for two double basses and two female vocalists.
Galen Tipton - Tide Pool Bath
Bubbly, burbly, zippy, and fizzy synth music from Portland.
Kalia Vandever - Mana
"...solo trombone filtered through a well-dialed pedalboard and manipulated live, paired with spare piano à la late-career work of Ryuichi Sakamoto...emotively augmented with head-on, unambiguous, and deeply personal sung lyrics."
Ben Vida - Oblivion Seekers
Clearly a direct descendent of Robert Ashley (see above) in terms of speech as music, but the mostly acoustic instrumentation takes it somewhere else.
Walrus Ghost - If You Could Be Here Now
"Combining live instruments with electronic processes, Christian Banks carves out a homespun vision of instrumental post-rock shaped by and inflected with ambient, folk, electronica, and lo-fi rock."
Windkraft - To Old Adventures
"Alto flute and synth transmitting from the depths of the kosmische lung."