Azymuth – Light As A Feather (1979)

Ok I'm obviously biased but just looooooook at the artwork for my new album, holy shit! 💖💖💖💖

It's a little bit Katsuhiro Otomo, a little bit Hiroshi Nagai, and entirely something new, original and awesome. Commissioning artists is the ACTUAL BEST.

It's by Phantom Powered Pixels on Insta, check 'em out 💗

Aaaaand the album is out now too, if you want a big ol' feast of steamy city pop and sensual jazz fusion (plus rude robots and X Files love)

Cheers!

(2003, Flight Master, PCCA-01900) Remix by UK acid jazz masters Incognito

Rust - Yussef Dayes (2023)

Ok I said I would make a pin full of music so here it is

First off, I mentioned KNOWER. It's a long project that started a really long time ago, but their best stuff is probably coming out like right now. As in, they are just about to release a new album, KNOWER FOREVER. The singles on it are incredible, like I'm The President just comes right out the gate with the fattest walkdown I've ever heard from a horn section. The B section makes it feel like I'm enjoying a song like I would a multiple-course meal. Then Crash The Car just transfixes you. Yes, yes, you should listen to those, but don't neglect the fire they put out in 2017 because you owe it to yourself to watch the live sesh of Overtime:

Oh god this post is gonna make viewing my blog super annoying isn't it

Anyway the next thing I gotta mention is Vulfpeck. These guys are famous for scamming Spotify, basically. They released an album full of 30-second tracks of pure silence, just absolutely nothing, titled Sleepify. They got online and said "Yo guys, help us raise money for a free concert by listening to this on loop while you sleep." What they were actually doing was exposing a loophole in the way Spotify calculated royalties, and before they could pull the album (citing "content policy violations," of course), Vulfpeck had already bagged around $20,000, so they put on the completely admission-free Sleepify Tour, which was incredibly fucking based of them.

Vulf went on to become several spin-off projects, all entirely independently released and full of some of the stankiest funk fusion that I cannot stop listening to.

My favorite of these projects, The Fearless Flyers, is headed by Cory Wong, with a guitar idol of mine for 5+ years Mark Lettieri and of course the government subsidized active bass of Joe Dart, but the keystone of the group is no doubt Nate Smith on drums. Dude makes a three-piece set onstage sound like a full kit.

Like just look at what they can do with the added power of sax:

And yeah, I could just talk about those guys, but let's get weirder.

I'm talking modal. The kind of stuff that makes my choir-trained mother cringe inward at the dissonance. Let's talk about the crunchiest, most feral fucking harmonies and keyboard solos that make you question what you thought you knew about chord progressions and key centers.

Obviously anyone super into this stuff will have already heard of Jacob Collier, so I won't show him. But THIS:

I listened to this the first time and it was just.. too much. I put it in its own specific playlist titled "very complex shit" immediately. When I went back to it, enough time had passed and I had learned enough that after way too many listens I can actually follow along with this insanity. This track blew my fucking mind, dude. I have never heard a chorus use so many of the 12 chromatic notes and still sound heavenly. The groove changes add so much texture. The flute solo goes off way too hard. The slower final section is just disgusting syncopation when the drums come back in. Everything about it is incredible, and this album came out in 2007. I am staring back at years of my life I spent not listening to this and ruminating my lack of music theory knowledge. And when I wanted to see if some kind transcribing jazz grad student like June Lee had uploaded anything of System, I found a 2020 reboot with 24 musicians playing System for over twice its original runtime, and guess who did the showstopping final solo??

JACOB FUCKING COLLIER.

Look him up if you don't know. The other musicians I obsess over inspire me. This guy makes me want to quit.

Head Hunters - Herbie Hancock (1973)

Artists : Victor Moscoso & Waldo Bascom

SALVADOR EP- another album cover by me for Olivia K and the Parkers 🌿🌞🌴🌾

Janko Nilovic

Drug Song

from the lp Soul Impressions

Ryo Kawasaki – Juice (1976)

mongo santamaria, mongo '70, 1970

cover by stanislaw zagorski

archive / discogs

Listen to both songs before voting, and define "better" any way you wish!

You like it when I'm jazzy, right? 🌃✨

Here I am being real jazzy, with some (mostly) PC-98 visuals mashed together

(1982, Virgin, VS 497-12)

Herbie Hancock with The Headhunters - 1974 Photography by Herb Greene.