Stewart Smith

Glenn Jones - My Garden State

Album of John Fahey-esque impressionistic storytelling from American Primitive guitarist

(Drag City) For an artist whose compositions are entirely instrumental, Glenn Jones has a special talent for impressionistic storytelling. Like a musical translation of a haiku or imagist poem, his finest songs reflect on an image or idea, bringing…

Neil Young & Crazy Horse set for 2013 UK tour

Neil Young and Crazy Horse visit UK for what is probably their last outing together

A grizzly bear of a man wrings sublimely heavy tones from a battered old Les Paul and a chain of massively overdriven amps while his seasoned companions sweat and toil to forge the most elemental of grooves: such is the lumbering majesty of Neil Young…

Alasdair Roberts & Friends - Stereo, Glasgow, Fri 3 May 2013

Less a conventional folk gig than a subversive ceilidh organised by some cracked millenarian cult

Alasdair Roberts is hopping around the stage, picking out a jaunty Scottish dance tune on guitar. Huddled around him are fiddler Rafe Fitzpatrick and electric guitarist Ben Reynolds, while double-bassist Stevie Jones flanks them all, rocking and swaying…

Black Host - Life in the Sugar Candle Mines

Splendid mix of prog tentacles and free jazz goo

(Northern Spy) Bursting out of some back-alley Brooklyn laboratory in an explosion of prog tentacles and free jazz goo, Black Host are bizarro world mutant cousins to Little Women. As the sole horn player in a jazz-rock (of sorts) combo, Darius…

Little Women - Lung

Somewhere between free jazz, avant-classical and downtown art-rock

(Aum Fidelity) Like their more fidgety Brooklyn associates Zs, Little Women operate somewhere between free jazz, avant-classical and downtown art-rock. Lung is conceptualised around the human breath, treating it as a sound source and organising…

Quercus - Quercus

June Tabor and Huw Warren collaboration blending jazz and folk tradition

(ECM) The great English folk singer June Tabor has been working with Welsh pianist Huw Warren for several years, most notably on her 2011 album Ashore. Now, under the Quercus umbrella, the pair is joined by saxophonist Iain Ballamy, best known for…

Orchestre Poly-rythmo De Cotonou - The Skeletal Essences of Afro Funk

(Analog Africa) The third compilation of vintage recordings from Benin's greatest dance band, The Skeletal Essences of Afro Funk stands as a fitting tribute to founder Melome Clement, who died of a heart attack in December last year. His 'Ne Rien…

Arika Episode 4: Freedom Is A Constant Struggle - Tramway, Glasgow, Thu 18–Sun 21 Apr

A quietly powerful weekend of jazz, poetry, philosophy and 'haiku for black people'

Arika may no longer do music festivals, but Episode 4: Freedom Is A Constant Struggle, boasted the most sublime music the innovative Edinburgh-based curators have presented since the glory days of Instal, alongside riveting talks, readings and…

Scottish National Jazz Orchestra - In the Spirit of Duke

Live recording an impeccably performed, if conservative, affair

(Spartacus) Compared to William Parker’s Essence of Ellington, an inspired avant-garde reinvention of Sir Duke, this live recording by the Scottish National Jazz Orchestra is a rather conservative affair. Led by Tommy Smith, the SNJO’s arrangements are…

Death Shanties - Nunatak

Free jazz outfit featuring Alex Neilson, Sybren Renema and Lucy Stein

(Self-released CD-R) When Alex Neilson launched his folk-rock project Trembling Bells, he spoke of having fallen out of love with improvisation, preferring to focus on songwriting. Five years on, the drummer fervently reconnects with free music…

Bombino - Nomad

Young guitar hero from Niger soups up his sound with classic rock flourishes

(Nonesuch) Bombino, the young guitar hero from Niger, has become a breakthrough star of Tuareg desert blues. Here, he’s hooked up with producer Dan Auerbach of garage blues duo The Black Keys, who soups up his sound with classic rock flourishes and a…

Jerusalem In My Heart - Mo7it Al-Mo7it

Gauzy enigma of echo-drenched Arabic vocals, twanging buzuk, and grainy, over-saturated electronics

(Constellation) Best known as the home of apocalyptic post-rockers Godspeed! You Black Emperor, Montreal’s Constellation label also presents an intriguing strand of contemporary Arabic-influenced music, including Sam Shalabi’s Land of Kush project and…

Five highlights from Arika: Episode 4 - Freedom is a Constant Struggle

Including Daniel Carter & William Parker and Amiri Baraka & Henry Grimes

Daniel Carter & William Parker. Bassist William Parker and saxophonist and trumpeter Daniel Carter revisit the duo format they explored to thrilling effect in the late 1970s, as documented on last year’s incredible Centering boxset. Carter’s anarchist…

Glasgow experimental music festival Counterflows set for 2013 outing

Highlights of second edition include Peter Brötzmann, Loren Connors and Jandek

Now in its second year, Counterflows channels vital currents in experimental music and art into a world class three-day festival. This year, there’s a particular focus on mixed-media performance. Saturday sees the CCA reverberate to the intense drones…

Fire! Orchestra - Exit!

Mats Gustafsson collaborative project featuring Sofia Jernberg is a thrilling gamb

(Rune Gramofon) We know Mats Gustafsson is an insatiable collaborator, but this is ridiculous. New album Exit! sees the intrepid saxophonist expanding his jazz-rock trio Fire! into a 30-strong big band. As with previous Fire! releases, the music is…

Los Chinches - Fongo

London-based update chicha sound with chippy ska rhythms and a festival-friendly energy

(Movimientos Records) Sharing its name with a popular South American corn-based alcoholic drink, chicha is a musical style dating from late 1960s Peru, where hot cumbia rhythms sweat it out alongside pentatonic Andean melodies and groovy psychedelic…

Decoy with Joe McPhee - Spontaneous Combustion

Head-spinning live set from veteran free-jazzer and Alexander Hawkins' organ trio

(Otoroku) A veteran free-jazzer (check out his 1971 classic Nation Time for a righteous blast of fire music, James Brown funk and radical black politics), Joe McPhee has been making some of his most adventurous and vital work in recent years. This…

Rokia Traore - Beautiful Africa

Malian singer, songwriter and guitarist works with PJ Harvey producer John Parish

(Nonesuch) Rokia Traore has an extraordinary voice, a deceptively gentle alto to which she brings a vibrato that can be tender or fierce. This, her fifth album, sees Traore working with PJ Harvey producer John Parish, who deftly combines a natural…

Salif Keita & Bwani Junction

Celtic Connections, The Old Fruitmarket, Glasgow, Fri 1 Feb 2013

Is any genre safe from the beige hand of indie? There's the odd trace of Nigerian high-life and Soweto pop in Edinburgh support act Bwani Junction's guitar and vocal lines, but fundamentally this is stodgy indie, more Arctic Monkeys than Talking Heads…

Scattered Melodies: Korean Kayagum Sanjo

Remarkable and eerie music salvaged from 78 RPM discs from pre-war Korea

(Sublime Frequencies) How to describe this remarkable music, transmitted from pre-war Korea via the dusty crackle of vintage 78 RPM shellac discs? 'Invented' around 1890 by Kim Chang-jo, sanjo, meaning 'the scattering of melodies', is a major form…

The Group - Live

Gloriously creative and soulful 1986 live recording from dream team of first generation free jazzers

(No Business) A dream team of first generation free jazzers (altoist Marion Brown, bassist Sirone and drummer Andrew Cyrille) and 1970s avant-gardists (violist Billy Bang, trumpeter Ahmed Abdullah and bassist Fred Hopkins), The Group left no studio…

Dur Dur Band - Volume 5

Heady Arab-inflected melodies on gem of 1980s Somalian pop

(Awesome Tapes from Africa) Following last year's brilliant album from Ghana’s Bola, the redoubtable Awesome Tapes from Africa have uncovered this gem of 1980s Somalian pop. Recorded in 1987, Dur Dur Band's Volume 5 gives a tantalising flavour of…

Wayne Shorter Quartet - Without A Net

Ingenious chamber jazz from 79-year-old saxophone legend

(Blue Note) Wayne Shorter's first album for Blue Note in 43 years is not quite the daredevil leap into freedom its title might suggest, but it does show the 79-year old saxophone legend in inquisitive form, leading his superb group through an artful…

Nat Birchall - World Without Form

Northern English saxophonist influenced by Thembi-era Pharoah Sanders

(Sound Soul and Spirit) With track titles like ‘Divine Harmony’ and ‘Speak To Us Of Love’, and his deployment of both tenor and soprano horns, Northern English saxophonist Nat Birchall makes no secret of his love of John Coltrane. While some of 'Trane’s…

The Black Twig Pickers - Rough Carpenters

Old-timey music filtered through the American primitive aesthetic

(Thrill Jockey) Rough Carpenters, the latest transmission from Appalachian coterie The Black Twig Pickers, is aptly named. Well-crafted, but not too finely finished, the album has an appealingly homemade quality, as if it’s been recorded in some funky…