The Comet Is Coming - Hyper-Dimensional Expansion Beam

Lazily, I could call this a fusion record. As if Jazz is a lone island becomes a constant other when combined with other genres. That’s a real disservice to what’s on offer here:

Jazz as an exploration into the unknown.

Jazz as spiritual unity in the flow of improvisation.

Jazz as a fucking attitude to move forward.

These dudes cooked up nine hours of shifting rhythms, cosmic contemplations, analog fizz, and life-giving grooves at Real World Studios earlier this year. With masterful precision, they edited down the music into a tight 45 minutes.

This is the kind of record that shifts and contorts with every listen. I’m not sure if it’s truly fixed down in time or space.

One fact remains: Shabaka Hutchings is a Saxophone Colossus.

Bent Arcana - Live Zebulon

John Dwyer’s Bent Arcana project reframes his entire work with The Oh Sees, and the output of his Castle Face Records label. It posits the idea that John is a high-level music, who, instead of having boring music conversations, gets into rooms to jam out his musical influences with fellow nerdy peers.

Maybe I’m reading too much into this, but when I’m listening to the show, I’m hearing Miles Davis, The Stooges, Can. Conversations flow between the players as they set their collective minds' eye to the deep, dark centre of an undiscovered dimension.

This record is a fucking trip, fellow psychnauts: like the most potent experiences, you simply need to let it happen and see where you land at the end.

Beak> - Kosmik Musik

I feel like this one quietly slipped out into the world and it shouldn’t have. Kosmik Musik certainly deserves a regal fanfare.

It’s a short, sharp sonic shock to the system: where a multitude of aural adventures segue into each other, with an entrancing, graceful flow.

I wish there was a version without the track breaks. As this record really feels like it was composed as a long piece. I’m inclined to say, a Kosmiche Tubular Bells? Though it’s very much the broken dystopian counterpoint to that record’s rich hippy bullshit.

Let’s get the appropriate BBC late night TV performance in a fittingly grand and spooky setting sorted, yeah?

Petbrick - Liminal

From the second, I heard the teaser for this album, Primer, I wanted a direct IV for this music. I don’t think I’ve felt this desperate to hear a record since Lil Wayne’s Rebirth.

This is music that, at once, drains out the colour of the world and infuses it with the most vivid detail you could imagine. It’s noisy, gnarly yet: warm and comforting. It fucking dares you to keep diving deeper.

When the world feels broken, a suitable soundtrack is required. While a temptation may be to reach for your Panpipe Hits Of Steely Dan: I’d recommend you get yourself in front, the best sound system you can find, and let your soul be reconfigured by the pure fury within this music.

Bitchin Bajas -Bajascillators

Bajascillators is a fucking tough word to pronounce, let me be clear. It’s a play on words that almost undervalues the warm syrup analog sounds within.

Carefully crafted synth patches gurgle and bubble through golden sunrises and intoxicating sunsets as subtle lead lines grab your hands to pull you through these deeply winding meditative jams.

Realise that everything is temporary. Peace is always the intention. This record reaffirms those notions. You’ll feel yourself growing as you drift out with the oscillators.