Much of the music on this weeks offering has a quiet ambience which offers a healing solace in these crazy times. There is some noisy stuff as well, to shake things up, plus the usual selection of current featured releases and old favourites.
AUDIO
PLAYLIST
Plz Respond - Budgets & Bootstraps - Budgets & Bootstraps 1
Hooper - Roxton - Super Duper 2
Radian - Fathom - Subterfuge 3
Radwan Ghazi Moumneh and Frédéric D. Oberland - A Silence With No Ceiling - Eternal Life No End 4
Rick Morris & David McClymont - set up to sell my soul - Chiaroscuro 5
Gee & Tee - The Revolution Will Not Be Televised : Keep Our Eyes Open - Gil In Dub 6
Elaine Palmer - Once Were Lovers - Some Seek Silver Some Seek Gold 7
Willem Heylen - Fast - Short Stories 8
Pan•American - Desert Under Bridge - Fly The Ocean In A Silver Plane 9
Linden Pomeroy - The Handmade Star - The Cat Sang Out 10
Allison Cameron and Scott Thomson - Bark - Platanus 11
Lowsunday - Nevver - Low Sunday Ghost Machine - White EP 12
The Go-Betweens - Woman Across The Way - G Stands For Go-Betweens Vol 3 13
Asteroid Ekosystem - April Dance - Sounds Have Dreams 14
Clare Moore - Yes! Fat Chicks - The Third Woman 15
Hugo Race Fatalists - Bad Dreams - I Made It All Up For You 16
Moff Skellington - storrigossom - Portrait Of A Humble Tribe 17
Miles Davis - Lonely Fire/Feio - The Complete Bitches Brew Sessions 18
NOTES
Canadian punk-rock four-piece Plz Respond release their new single ‘Budgets & Bootstraps’ - a loud, fast, and furious gut-punch of a track aimed squarely at the billionaire class and the politicians who carry their water. Written by frontman and drummer Galen Crampsey, produced by Logan Treaty, and mastered by Johnny Ross, the song arrives as one of the most direct and unambiguous political rock tracks to come out of the Ontario punk scene in recent memory. It is, in the best tradition of the genre, exactly what it sounds like: a band that has had enough.
Single from new EP “Super Duper” set for release on April 21. Montreal-based songwriter whose musical roots run deep. Born and raised on a small island off Canada’s west coast, Hooper grew up surrounded by song: his father a member of The Grapes of Wrath and his mother one half of the beloved indie-folk duo Lava Hay. Now based in Montreal after time spent in BC and Toronto, Hooper has found a home within the city’s vibrant indie community, collaborating with members of bands like Fleece, the Nora Kelly Band, and Pastel Blank. With “Roxton,” he leans into the melodic storytelling tradition of ’60s singer-songwriters, filtered through a gritty, imperfect ’90s lens that gives the track its warm, lived-in character.
Akron, Ohio-based sludge band with their third LP. Formed in the winter of 2017 as guitarist Mike Burns (Rue, Sofa King Killer) set out to fuse groove and grime into something both confrontational and enduring. The project took shape on its independent debut, Chapters (2019) followed by Discordian (2022), released via Burns’ own El Burno Records. Touring in support of the second record brought both expansion and fracture – multiple line-up changes, periods of uncertainty, and turbulence that ultimately reshaped the band’s direction. During this period the line-up coalesced with renewed focus and intent, featuring vocalist Corey Staley, drummer Derek Vaive, and bassist Carly Allman, alongside Burns. Subterfuge is a concept-driven album set in a reimagined, modern-day Egypt – one that never fell to Roman conquest – it tells the story of a man willing to do whatever it takes to protect his home, his people, and his culture from a cabal of overlords bent on erasure for personal gain. While rooted in a reimagined history, the album is riddled with comparisons to contemporary society: exploitation, manufactured collapse, and rebellion in the face of systems designed to consume rather than sustain.
Their debut album as a duo. Across the seven tracks of Eternal Life No End electronics entangle acoustic instruments and synthesis integrates with traditional forms, forging a sound world both structured and fractured, fragile and luminous, contemplative and charged, charting a space between memory and invention, between the personal, mystical, and political.
David McClymont’s return to city living has sparked a sophisticated shift in his compositions. Drawing inspiration from the rhythmic energy of his new surroundings with its stunning views of the urban horizon—his new material has taken on a vibrant, mid-century jazz feel. Rick Morris proved the perfect collaborator for this transition, lending a warm croon and moody lyrical sensibility to the project. Together, Morris & McClymont have crafted a distinctive collection where jazz, funk, soul, and pop coalesce into a blend that demands a closer listen.
It’s been said spring can be revolutionary – and when it comes to Gil Scott Heron’s music, ‘The Revolution Will Not Be Televised’ came out in April 1974 ‚ while ‘B-Movie’ came out in March 1981 – two special and very political tracks. In these times of political unrest, these classic tunes ring as true as they did half a century ago – their blasé, laid-back acuity seems only sharpened by today’s events. Guillaume Tell and Thierry Negro in fine form here.
Following on from last year’s acclaimed album Half Moon Rising, and looking to recapture some of the magic found on that release, Elaine Palmer returned to Half Moon Studios high in the San Diego hills to work once again with producer and musician Mike Butler. Some Seek Silver, Some Seek Gold actually started life much closer to home in Northern Ireland at the isolated Amberville Studios, Co. Antrim, once built for Van Morrison. It was here that, under the watchful ears of producer/engineer Stevie Scullion (aka Northern Ireland Music Prize-nominated artist Malojian), drums, bass and vocals were laid down before operations then crossed the Atlantic to complete the recording at Half Moon, making it a perfect example of the mix of UK meets USA textures Elaine is known for. This collection deftly blends the quiet after-hours reflections of the title-track and the gossamer ‘Roses’ with the strident alt.country of ‘I Still Feel The Same’ and soulful single ‘The Losing Hand’, demonstrating a newfound assertiveness. Featured track the wintry Brontë-esque ‘Once Were Lovers’, meanwhile, evokes the windswept moors of Elaine’s homeland. A delightful release.
The music on Short Stories moves fluidly between jazz, folk, and free music, combining short songs, improvisations, and rich sonic textures. The album reflects the influence of guitarists such as Ralph Towner, Lenny Breau, and Robbie Basho, while also drawing inspiration from the songwriting traditions of folk artists like Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell. Across the album, Heylen performs on a wide range of string instruments. Alongside electric and acoustic guitar, he incorporates fretless banjo, fretless guitar, and zither, instruments that sometimes give the music an oriental and more abstract color. This approach creates a diverse and expressive palette of sounds. Short Stories unfolds as a musical journey through different atmospheres and cultural influences, inviting listeners to drift along with the music and immerse themselves in its unfolding stories. The album marks Heylen’s second solo release, following his self-released debut Meditations (2016). In addition to his solo work, Heylen is active in several jazz projects including Aki, Cinema Paradiso, Lara Rosseel Quintet, Alver, and The Rising Moon. He has also collaborated on pop projects with artists such as Stef Bos, Kommil Foo, Leki, and LaPiratesse.
Mark says “The music on this record is a reflection of journeys and travel. The real world kind and the metaphorical ones as well. Having experienced the arrival of my children, the decline and departure of my parents, and the many years of venturing out and returning home in my own life, travel feels like the perfect tropology to consider the mysteries we inhabit. Travel and its impressions, rituals, superstitions - the possibilities and risk - all open up onto the landscape of our biggest questions, fear and wonder. The songs on Fly the Ocean In A Silver Plane were recorded at home over the last couple years. I played electric guitar, rubber bridge acoustic guitar, Ableton Live and an Electron Digitone synth. My friend Mallory Linnehan aka Chelsea Bridge contributed beautiful violin and vocals to a couple of the songs. We recorded those performances on a summer afternoon in Chicago at the Not Not space with the windows open.
The Cat Sang Out is a collection of acoustic guitar pieces from British devotional guitar player Pomeroy. It is the sister album to 2025’s heady LP Other Downlands, equally inspired by his local South Downs, its myths and folklore. The Cat Sang Out is Linden’s second release for Ramble and is laden with luscious weissenborn slide pieces, 12 string modal excursions and ecstatic steel thunder that further expands on his distinct take on the American Primitive-guitar style.
An abstract affair, chronicling the duo of noted Toronto-based composer-improviser Allison Cameron and Montréal’s Scott Thomson (on trombone). The woozy, intangible space they construct spontaneously together is thoroughly compelling; Thomson’s formidable timbral command pairs beautifully with Cameron’s unusual instrumentation which showcases the Crackle Synthesizer (a more flexible sibling to the Crackle Box) but also employs other keyboards (audibly the Casio SK-1) and tapes. What they produce collectively resists easy description and that’s precisely what makes it so resonant. Their elusive semi-hush feels as like something was piped in from another reality. The release is dedicated to the memory of Nobuo Kubota, the extraordinary Canadian improviser and intermedia artist who passed away in September of 2025 at the age of 93. The duo had played as a trio with Kubota, and the aforementioned Crackle Synthesizer in fact used to belong to the elder artist.
Legacy postpunk-shoegaze outfit Lowsunday presents ‘Nevver’, the final single from their new ‘Low Sunday Ghost Machine - White EP’, following the earlier-released ‘Love Language’ and ‘Soft Capture’. Released via Projekt Records and ranking second among Post-Punk.com’s Best EPs of 2025, this is the band’s first record of all-new material since 1999. With early gothrock underpinnings, here Lowsunday capture a different energy than other tracks on this EP, with a slightly more down tempo and driving rhythm. Itt is uniquely sparse and delicate at times, relative to the band’s typically multi-layered approach regarding atmospherics and dense noise.
Current featured Box-Set - a Forster songs from around the time of Tallulah
Current featured album
Current featured album - final track
Current featured album
Current featured album
There will be semi-regular features on this show and World of Jazz during Miles centenary year. The version of "Lonely Fire" found on The Complete Bitches Brew Sessions is essentially the same recording as the one on Big Fun, but its inclusion in the box set provides crucial historical context for its creation. While the track was recorded in January 1970—several months after the core Bitches Brew sessions—it represents the natural evolution of that album's "atmospheric" experiments into a more overtly ambient and Eastern-influenced territory. This version remains a sprawling, twenty-one-minute exploration, featuring the distinctive textures of Khalil Balakrishna’s sitar and Bihari Sharma’s tamboura, which anchor the track’s meditative character. Listening to it within the sequence of the box set highlights how Davis was beginning to de-emphasise traditional jazz structures in favour of colour, mood, and sustained tension. “Feio” is a haunting, transitional piece also recorded in January 1970. Much like “Lonely Fire,” it eschews traditional melodic structures in favour of a dark, minimalist atmosphere that leans heavily into ambient and avant-garde territories. The track is notable for its sparse, skeletal arrangement, where Miles Davis provides brief, muted trumpet interjections over a shimmering bed of electric pianos and Wayne Shorter’s inquisitive soprano saxophone. The composition is grounded by a repetitive, hypnotic bass line and the drone of a sitar, creating a sense of “ugly” beauty—fitting, as the title translates to “ugly” in Portuguese. It captures the ensemble in a state of collective, low-intensity improvisation, where the focus is entirely on texture and space rather than rhythmic drive. By stripping away the dense percussion found on the rest of the Bitches Brew sessions, “Feio” serves as a stark precursor to the more meditative, static soundscapes Davis would continue to explore throughout the early 1970s.
Bob, thanks from Shameless Promotion PR for including Lowsunday