Category: good to hear

Cypress Hill
Tiny Desk Concert
One of my favorite hip hop bands has been given a horn section! These boys have aged well – and their music sounds as fresh as ever. Cypress Hill hails from South Gate, in Los Angeles County. The formed in 1988 by the originally Cuban brothers Senen ‘Sen Dog’ (photo) and Ulpiano Sergio ‘Mellow Man Ace’ Reyes, joined by Lawrence Muggerud (DJ Muggs), and Louis Freese (B-Real). They soon became hugely popular.
NPR Music

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Minyo Crusaders
Kushimoto Bushi (Cumbia)
Minyo are traditional Japanese folk songs. The Minyao Crusadres breathe new life into them by either turning them into instant jazz classics or by giving them an African or south American twist. The band was co-founded by Katsumi Tanaka and Freddie Tsukamoto, who, together with the ten-piece ensemble create some of the most exciting cross-continental music around. Their goal is to reinvent popular music for the people.
Mais Um

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Blur
Live @ St. Charles Square
Blur debuted in London in 1988. Here, Damon Albarn (vocals), Graham Coxton (guitar), Alex James (bass), and Dave Rowntree (drums) regale their fans with a fantastic set showing they are still highly relevant  with their new album, The Ballad of Darren. You can listen to some of it on their website blur.co.uk. Best known for his collaboration on the movie Trainspottin Damon Albarn enjoyed on a successful solo career. The band broke up and reunited several times.
Parlophone

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Juanes
Mayo
Juan Esteban Aristizábal Vásquez (born 9 August 1972), known professionally as Juanes, is a Colombian musician who was a member of the rock band Ekhymmosis and is now a solo artist. Since releasing his solo debut album Fijate Bien in 2000, Juanes has won 24 Latin Grammy awards and sold more than 15 million albums worldwide. Raised in Columbia, Juanes began playing piano at age two. (Wikipedia)
Universal Music

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Tony Allen & Adrian Younge
No End 
Tony Oladipo Allen was a world-class Nigerian drummer and songwriter and one of the founders of Afrobeat. As its musical director, he worked closely with Fela Kuti. Allen was born in Lagos in 1940 and died in Paris in 2020. He taught himself to play the drums and was inspired by the jazz greats he emulated, as well as by African musical traditions and the highlight scene in his homeland. Much of his music is still unreleased. Adrian Younge promotes it.
Jazz is Dead

Arooj Aftab, Vijay Iyer, Shahzad Ismaily
Tiny Desk Concert
disorder that produces abnormalities at the body’s surface, including fingernails and teeth. Five decades later, Ismaily has become one of music’s most in-demand collaborators, flitting like a mischievous butterfly through genres as diverse as honeyed folk, rambunctious free jazz and spectral meditations sung in Urdu. He does not think these facts are unrelated.» (Grayson Haver Currin in The New York Times)
NPR Music

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Arooj Aftab
Tiny Desk Concert
Pakistani singer Arooj Aftab is the first female artist of her country to win a Grammy Award, in 2022, for the ghazal Mohabbad. Born 1985 in Saudi Arabia, she was ten when her parents moved back to their native Lahore. He family moved to the United States in 2005, where Arooj attended the Berklee College of Music in Boston. She works in various musical styles and has won a number of prizes for her increcible music and extraordinary voice. (Wikipedia)
NPR Music

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King Krule
Flimsier
Archy Ivan Marshall (1994), known by various names, Zoo Kid being one of them. He is an English singer, composer, and musician who writes poetic texts and lyrical music. He has mental issues he openly writes about and struggled with discipline from an early age, before learning to adapt go at least some of the time. No doubt he is highly talented, and very special. He takes his name from the Elvis Presley film ‘King Creole’.
Matador Records

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Mdou Moctar
Full Performance (Live on KEXP)
I fit weren’t so trite, one might call this Tuareg guitarist the new Jimi Hendrix, though you can hear his African Roots in everything he plays. Mdou Moctar’s home is Agadez, a desert village in rural Niger. Inspired by YouTube videos of Eddie van Halen’s six string techniques and traditional Tuareg melodies, he mastered the guitar which he himself bult and created his own burning style.
Sahel Sounds

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Olivia Rodrigo
Vampire
Olivia Rodrigo (2003) is from California and is half Filipina, half German. She started playing the piano at the age of seven and began writing song lyrics at 12. Her debut single, “Drivers License,” broke records. “When I wrote ‘Drivers License,’ I had heartbreak that was so confusing and so varied for me, combining all those feelings into one song made everything seem so much simpler and clearer, and at the end of the day, I think that’s really the whole purpose of songwriting.” (Wikipedia)
Wikipedia)
Geffen Records

Phoebe Bridgers
Wasted – video by Rob Moose
Phoebe Bridgers, born 1994 in Pasadena, California, has lately been enjoying huge success both as a solo artist, and as a member of the band ‘Boygenius’. She plays the guitar and names the late Elliott Smith as a big influence. Her style has been called a mix of indie rock, emo folk, and indie rock. (Wikipedia) Her music has lately lost some of its unhappiness but still deals with topics such as loneliness, gender rights, and racial justice.
Libera Awards

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Clark
Medicine (feat. Thom Yorke) – from the album Sus Dog
«Sus Dog… creates songs you’ll replay because you can’t get their comforting weirdness anywhere else. Clark’s falsetto, reminiscent of Caribou’s Dan Snaith or executive producer Thom Yorke, is used carefully as a texture that neither distracts nor dominates, counterbalancing the occasionally abrasive electronics.» (The Observer) Radiohead’s Tom Yorke has a long history of contributing to other people’s albums.
Bandcamp

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JAAW
Total Protonic Reversal – from the album Supercluster
JAAW is a post-industrial supergroup featuring Andy Cairns (Therapy), Jason Stoll (Mugstar, KLÄMP, Sex Swing), Wayne Adams (Death Pedals, Big Lad, Petbrick) and Adam Betts (Three Trapped Tigers, Goldie, Squarepusher). JAAW glories in big riffs and massive hooks, while also pushing the boundaries of what that even means thanks to its uncompromising strangeness.
June Records

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Lola Young
My Mind Wanders and Sometimes Leaves Completely
«On her debut project, ‘My Mind Wanders and Sometimes Leaves Completely’, it’s gratifying to hear Young push her idea of pop beyond the spacey atmospherics of her earlier material – this is the overdue arrival of a completely credible new talent. Much of the 10-track collection was inspired by Young’s schizoaffective disorder diagnosis, a condition marked by intrusive thoughts – though it’s also about grace and the illusion of effortlessness.» (New Music Express)
Island Records

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Peter Fox
Eine Auge blau (‘One Eye Blue’)
The German producer, hip-hop and dancehall musician was born in Berlin in 1971 and is actually called Pierre Baigorry. His family comes from the Basque country. He is one three musicians of the band Seeed. He started playing the piano at an early age and also played the recorder and even the trombone. He has been writing idiosyncratic lyrics to catchy music for a long time.
Warner

Dave Matthews Band
Walk Around the Moon
In Charlottesville, Virginia, in early 1991, when vocalist/guitarist Dave Matthews decided to tape some songs he had written.,he found assistance in drummer Carter Beauford and saxophonist LeRoi Moore, both accomplished jazz musicians. Their bass player, Stefan Lessard was a musical prodigy and only sixteen. The lineup was completed by keyboard player Peter Griesar who left the band after a few years, and the classically trained violinist Boyd Tinsley.
ATO Records

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The Smashing Pumpkins
ATUM
This third and last album of this operatic work is the Pumpkins twelfth studio album. It is a concept album and based on a lot of autobiographical data. The story has one foot in reality, and one foot in a world of make-belief. The Smashing Pumpkins are made up of Billy Corgan (vocals, guitar, bass guitar, keyboards), Jimmy Chamberlin (drums), James Iha (guitar) and Jeff Schroeder (guitar). And as usual, they’re smashing it.
Rough Trade

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Graham Nash
Right Now
Legendary artist Graham Nash, as a founding member of both the Hollies and Crosby Stills and Nash, is a two-time Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee who has seen rock history unfold at some of its seminal moments. Towering above virtually everything that Graham Nash has accomplished is his long and multi-facetted career, stand the litany of songs that he has written and introduced to the soundtrack of our lives for nearly six decades. The beloved singer-songwriter is eighty-one years old.
Rudy Records

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Dave O’Higgins
Pluto
Dave O’Higgins’ tenor and soprano sax sounds are highly personal and recognisable, with a clear sense of melodic development and adventure. He has relentlessly pursued artistic and sonic exploration and development with a deep respect for the tradition of the music. Dave is also a highly regarded educator at the London College of Contemporary Media, where he is the Jazz Pathway Leader. On Pluto, seven of the nine songs are originals.
JVP Productions

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Madison McFerrin
Colorado
Throughout her fruitful independent career, spanning three EP ad multiple collaborations, Madison has received much acclaim. Her genre-bending work has been called ‘soul-appella’ by Questlove. Ahead of releasing new music in 2023, Madison has continued to blow away and sold out crowds in New York City and Los Angeles; last fall she mesmerized crows in London and Paris.
AllMusic

Sparks
The Girl is Crying in Her Latte starring Cate Blanchet
The Sparks, a duo made up of Mael brothers Ron and Russell, have been producing unique music for five decades. They could have been «just another band from LA» (Frank Zappa), however, they have continually pushed boundaries with their music, exploring new styles from Glam to Swing and beyond. Their recent score for the film Annette highlights Russell’s unique voice, while Cate Blanchett proves herself as a phenomenal dancer.
Island Records

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Lizzy McAlpine
ceilings
Lizzie McAlpine, born in a suburb of Philadelphia, studied songwriting at Berklee College of Music before leaving in her junior year to pursue music full-time. This was during the Pandemic, when she also lost her father. Her first album, Give Me A Minute (2020), was not only critically acclaimed but listened to millions of times.
“Part of McAlpine’s increasingly far-reaching appeal is the mix of musical influences that have helped form her as a storyteller.” (Rolling Stone)
Independent, found here

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Rising Appalachia
Thank you very much
“The soulful folk-roots of the two sisters can be traced back to their parents, who prioritized culture and diversity, and to the grassroots music communities that dot the hills and valleys of the Deep South. They spent countless weekends at fiddle camps, immersing themselves in what they affectionately call “Appalachian trance music.” Leah and Chloe Smith have eschewed established industry norms and instead forged their own path by following their invitations and intuitions independently.»
Independent, found here.

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Lana del Rey Featuring Jon Batiste
Candy Necklace
«Listening to Lana Del Rey’s music is like diving into a cinematic dream world filled with heartbreak, romance, and nostalgia. She’s a true poet of our time!» (Bedo)
Lana del Rey (Elizabeth Woolridge Grant, born 1985 in Manhattan, New York) needs no introduction. She’s considered to be one of the best singer-songwriter of the 21st century, unique in her effort to recreate the music of the forties and fifties, which she lends her very own timbre.
Interscope

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Aly and AJ
Blue Dress
Another duo made up of two sisters: Aly (Alyson) and AJ (Amanda Joy) Michalka like to use the stage for good, enlightening their audiences about LGBTQ+ rights and the importance of voting. They’ve cut five studio albums, pursue individual acting careers, as well as working together. Their music comes from a Christian perspective, but they are not preachy. They are from southern California and play a guitar-driven mix of rock, punk, and pop.
Aly & AJ Music LLC

Gorillaz feat. Bad Bunny
Tormenta
This smooth piece is due to the collaboration of two big names. It takes us back to the sounds of Sergio Mendes, or Antônio Carlos Gobim. Life has picked up a bit speed since. The Bunny charms us with many changes in rhythm and subtle vocals. Gorillaz, still with Damon Albarn and Jimmy Hewlett at the helm, are releasing a new album, Cracker Island, in a few weeks and have teased various outtakes with different colleagues. The results, so far, are jazzy and light. (sgs)
Parlophone/Warner Records

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Depeche Mode
Memento Mori: Ghosts Again.
The band is releasing their 15th studio album on 23 March. It looks a little somber. But is it? No, the old drive is there from the first beat, unmistakably Depeche Mode! It is the first album they have released since the death of Andy Fletcher, their keyboarder. “We started work on this project early in the pandemic, and its themes were directly inspired by that time. After Fletch’s passing, we decided to continue as we’re sure this is what he would have wanted, and that has really given the project an extra level of meaning.” (Martin Gore, songwriter, guitarist, and keyboarder)
Columbia/Mute

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Nakhane
My Mom Was Good
Nakhane Mahlakahlaka is a South African singer, songwriter, actor, and novelist. Having grown up among a Christian community in Port Elizabeth, at fifteen they moved to Johannes, leaving the church in 2013 and publicly celebrating their queerness with their debut album Brave Confusion. They found both controversy and critical acclaim with their starring role in John Trengrove’s 2017 film Inxeba (The Wound), and relocated to London to record 2018’s autobiographical album You Will Not Die. (Wikipedia)
Columbia/Polydor

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Boygenius
Live from Brooklyn Steel
The American Indie supergroup is made up of singer Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers (acoustic guitar and electronic production), and Lucy Dacus (singer-songwrtier and producer). Though the three women only burst onto the scene in 2018, each of them was already well-known on their own. They are releasing their first album soon, called The Record. According to Rolling Stone, “fans have always hoped for more». I agree.
Interscope

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Schaltkreis Wassermann
2600Noise
For the first time since the early 80s, the pioneer electronic band  Schaltkreis Wassermann has released several completely new tracks. Up to now Schaltkreis Wassermann was known for their early singles and their cult album Psychotron (1982) These, and a plethora of other Schaltkreis tracks from the early eighties, have been re-released on vinyl by Berlin-based Private Records over the last few years. And now there’s a new Schaltklreis EP called 2006Noise. It grooves!
Private Records

Omar Apollo
Evergreen (You didn’t deserve me at all)
Omar Apolonio Velasco, born May 20, 1997, in Hobart, Ind., known professionally as Omar Apollo, is an American singer-songwriter. His parents came to the US, from Mexico, in 1992, and opened a restaurant, The Super Taco. They gifted Omar an electric guitar for his twelfth birthday but forgot the amp (he traded it for an acoustic one). He dropped out of college to pursue music. Borrowing $30 from a friend to upload his song «Ugotme» on Spotify, where it garnered 20,000 clicks a day as a «Fresh Find». His style: a mixed R&B bag.
Warner Brothers

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Mulatu Astatke
Timeless
«Mulatu Astatke is an Ethiopian musician, composer, arranger, and founder of a hybrid music form called Ethio Jazz, a blend of Ethiopian traditional music and Latin jazz. Astatke was musically trained at Lindisfarne College and the Trinity College of Music in England, and Berklee College of Music in Boston. A multi-instrumentalist who plays the conga, keyboard, and vibraphone, Astatke has performed numerous concerts in Ethiopia and abroad. His interest is in developing traditional Ethiopian musical instruments and music.» (Radcliff Institute)
Amha Records

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Asha Bhosle
Best Songs Bollywood Collection
Asha Bhosle is a legend and possesses one of the purest voices of India. The beloved back-up singer, entrepreneur and occasional actress was born in 1933 and, together with her sister, Lata Mangeshkar, who died in 2020, she dominated Bollywood’s backup singing for more than three decades. She sings traditional Ghazals and Bhajans, but her forte has been to incorporate more jazzy tunes into her singing. She has worked with many famous contemporary Indian composers and partners with celebrated male singers. (Wikipedia)
Columbia/Polydor

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Yahritza y Su Esencia
Soy el unico
Yaritza y Su Esencia is a trio led by a young internet sensation, and, according to Rolling Stone, she’s the future of Mexican music, due to her unique sound. Yahritza started uploading videos to TikTok when she was about 14. She’d taught herself to play guitar, and began building a fan base with her covers of contemporary sounds… She and her brother Jairo, who plays bajolochea, decided to try their own version of Esta Dañada, a sullen acoustic track by the 17-year-old artist Ivan Cornejo that went completely viral in 2021. Soon her cover exploded.
Columbia

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Lonnie Holley
Oh Me, Oh My – featuring Micheal Stipe
No surprises in this beautiful ballad. Lonnie Holley, born 1950 in Birmingham, Alabama, has the voice of a gospel singer. Since 1979, Holley has devoted his life to the practice of improvisational creativity. His art and music, born out of struggle and hardship, but perhaps more importantly out of furious curiosity, has manifested itself in drawing, painting, sculpture, photography, performance, and sound. Michael Stipe, of course, is the frontman of R.E.M. Here he does the humming.
Jagjaguwar

Fireboy DML & Asake
Bandana
Hearing an audience sing along in Yoruba is a joyful adventure. “Asake is arguably one of 2022’s biggest breakout stars. After years of being part of Nigeria’s underground Afrobeats scene, in the past 12 months the 27-year-old Lagos-based singer has collaborated with Burna Boy and released his debut album, Mr Money With the Vibe, to widespread critical and commercial success… Asake, whose real name is Ahmed Ololade, was recently nominated for BBC Radio 1’s Sound of 2023 award, for artists breaking through in the UK.» (The Guardian)
YBNL Records

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The Jerusalem Orchestra East & West Feat. Medi Nassouli & Omri Mor
One of the biggest joys of travelling to the Levante is the abundance of music on TV. Traditional ND MODERN instruments are mixed, the orchestras themselves are often huge! The Jerusalem Orchestra East & West is a multicultural orchestra, consisting of musicians from all three religions, from all over the country and from all sectors that make up the Israeli society. A mixture of western, arabic, african and latin percussion instruments are joined by darbuka, qanun, oud, ney flute according to musical program (kamancheh, flamenco guitar).
Sony

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Derya Yildirim & Grup Şimşek
Bal
Sensations from Anatolia via Germany are not on the menu every day. The language is beautiful, the music cool, the singer excellent. They deserve to be as popular as they are already in many places in the world, where they give regular concerts. “Fronted by Turkish singer and multi-instrumentalist Derya Yildirim, who lives in Hamburg, and with members in France and Great-Britain, the group is known for its contemporary take on traditional Anatolian folk ballads whilst drawing on a heady mix of psychedelia, jazz and the omnivorous pop universe of the present day.” (Bandcamp)
Catapulte Records

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Hermanos Gutiérrez
Live desde Aire Libre Fm
Eight years separate the two brothers Alejandro & Stephan Gutiér¬rez. Born to an Ecuadorian mother and Swiss father, it is in their Latin roots that they draw a certain scenery of emotions. If one of them has a melody and a sound is missing, the other completes it. They share an unspoken understanding through which their souls can connect. And so they find their musical balance, their harmony.  After two albums recorded in Berlin, 8 Años and El Camino de mi Alma, they continued their path with two more albums recorded in Zürich, Hoy como Ayer and Hijos del Sol.
Easy Eye Sound 

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SAULT
Free
SAULT are an R&B-rooted British collective whose output has integrated numerous styles including retro-modern psychedelic soul, post-punk funk, Afrobeat, and purposefully oblique pop. They have been just as varied from a lyrical standpoint, shifting with ease from affection and heartache to opposition and upliftment. Remarkably prolific, they’ve issued eleven full-length projects, including the debut 5, the Mercury Prize-nominated Untitled (Rise),  and the choral/orchestral Air, since appearing in 2019. At the 2022 Brit Awards, Inflo became the first Black producer to win British Producer of the Year.
Forever Living Individuals

In memory of Gal Costa
Fotografia
The Brazilian singer Gal Maria da Graça Costa Penna Burgos (1945-2022) was closely connected with the Tropicalia Movement of the 1960s. Born in Salvador, in the State of Bahia, she developed an early interest in the Bossa Nova, represented by artists such as Gaetano Veloso, Maria Bethânia, João Gilberto and Gilberto Gil. “I was born wanting to sing, wanting to be a singer,” she said in a 2020 interview in Sounds & Colors “I always thought I would be one – I had this intuition and I wanted it. [I knew it from] when I was born.”She was 77 when she died, on 9 November. (sgs)
Philipps

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Natalia Lafourcade
De Todas las Flores (Full album with lyrics in Spanish and English)
Another fantastic voice, classified as a lyric soprano. It belongs to the Mexican singer-songwriter Natalia Lafourcade. Born into a family of musicians, she has been one of the most successful south American singers from the moment she started out, in 2002. “Lafourcade’s artistry is simultaneously rooted in jazz, classical, bolero and the Mexican folkloric genre of son jarocho.» (New York Times). For her new album, she partnered with Adán Jodoroski, a filmmaker just like his famous father, Alejandro.
Sony BMG

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Makaya McCraven
Dream Another (live)
Born in Paris in the autumn of 1983 to Hungarian singer and flutist Ágnes Zsigmondi and African American jazz drummer Stephen McCraven, Makaya was raised in a vibrant, creative community in the Northampton (MA) area, where his father often played with artists like the saxophonist and ethnomusicologist Marion Brown, multi-instrumentalist Yusef Latif, and saxophonist Archie Shepp, as well as the cadre pf African Gnawa musician (for more, see his website)
ATO Records

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Ursina
Míu cor (from the album When I Let Go
Brazil sound is not only for Brazilians, and the language of this and the following songs is older than Portuguese and older than most tongues spoken on the planet. Many people are not aware that Switzerland has four official languages, yes German, French, and Italian, that’s right, but also Romansh, the archaic language spoken in pockets of the Grisons, our easternmost Canton. This song by the musician, singer-songwriter, composer, and vocal coach has been chosen by Netflix for the latest season of the fantasy series Warrior Nun.  (sgs)
Radicalis Music 

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Brian Eno
Who Gives a Thought
Minimalist Brian Eno needs no introduction. Here, he delivers a dirge for the lowly of birth, either human or insect. Did you know the famous musician, composer, visual artist, and producer’s full name is Brian Peter George St John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno, despite humble beginnings? Bands and musicians he played with include Roxy Music, David Bowie, David Byrne, John Cale, Laurie Anderson, U2, or Robert Fripp, to name a few. There are few contemporary musicians who enjoy a greater influence on contemporary music, be it ambient, Rock, electronic pop, or experimental.
Nonesuch Records

Paramore
This is Why
Paramore is an alternative rock band from Franklin, Tennessee. Their debut album, titled All We Know Is Falling, was released in the United States on July 26, 2005. Paramore was the birth name of the mother of a former bassist of the band. Because this name pleased the singer Hayley Williams and the other band members well, they named the band after it. That the name Paramore is also a homophone of the outdated English word “paramour” (Engl.: lover), the band noticed only later. (Wikipedia)
Atlantic Records

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Toro y Moi
Millennium
Chaz Bear (born Chazwick Bradley Bundick in 1986), known professionally as Toro y Moi, is an American singer, songwriter, record producer, and graphic designer. His mother immigrated to the United States from the Philippines as a teenager, and Bear spent his life mostly with Filipinos. In mid-2009, he was signed to Carpark Records, on which he released his debut Toro y Moi full-length album, Causers of This. His 8th Album, Mahal (Love), was released last April. Millennium is a new composition and video that came out last month.
Dead Oceans

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Brandi Carlile
Space Oddity from In the Canyon Haze
Brandi Carlile (1981) is a U.S. singer-songwriter and six-time Grammy Award winner.Brandi grew up listening to country music in her rural home and first performed on stage with her mother when she was eight years old. After that, she discovered more rock music for herself and moved to Seattle at seventeen, where she performed as a solo and backing musician. She later teamed up with twins Tim and Phil Hanseroth to form a rock & roll band, but Carlile’s songwriter folk rock style began to dominate more and more. Today, the brothers back her up.
ATO Records

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MorMor
Seasons Change
MorMor (born 1992 in Toronto as Seth Nyquist) is a Canadian singer and songwriter. Nyquist sang in the school choir and played trumpet in a band. He dropped out of university to focus on his musical career and took piano and vocal lessons. In 2015, he released his debut EP Live for Nothing under the pseudonym MorMor, but it went largely unnoticed. In 2018, he released the EP Heaven’s Only Wishful through his own label Don’t Guess.
Don’t Guess

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Tom Skinner
Bishara
Tom Skinner (born 26 January 1980 in London) is a British jazz and pop-rock drummer. Skinner started playing drums at the age of nine and attended workshops at the Weekend Arts College in London between 1993 and 1996. In 2021, he became a founding member of The Smile, which also included Radiohead musicians Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood; they made their first live appearance together in May 2021 at the Glastonbury Festival. Their first album A Light for Attracting Attention, produced by Nigel Godrich, was released on May 13, 2022.
Nonesuch Records