Blue Earth Sound drops second single, ‘Japanese Green’, off upcoming The St. Louis Sessions EP

20 May 2026

Following the magnetizing and lulling ‘Chartreuse’, Blue Earth Sound has shared new single ‘Japanese Green’. Both tracks are lifted from his forthcoming EP The St. Louis Sessions, the follow-up to last year’s debut album Cicero Nights, which was one of our Album Picks of 2025, and one we can’t put down. James Weir, the Chicago-based multi-instrumentalist, bandleader and composer behind Blue Earth Sound, recorded the EP in St. Louis, Missouri, with drummer and longtime collaborator Austin LeMoine, and a small group of musicians, including local horn players Jawaad Spaan and Josiah Burton.

‘Japanese Green’ is a cinematic and delicious track partly inspired by 90s R&B and Japanese Jazz. Of the track, Weir shares:

“I wanted this one to feel like a swingin’ cruiser, with strong unified horns. We settled on this A & B structure, with the swing and groove at the start, but added sensitivity at the end with a nice, muted piano lead and delay floating over the top.”

Listen to ‘Japanese Green’ below and grab The St. Louis Sessions EP when it drops on May 19th through DeepMatter Records.

Alden Hellmuth announces second album, Tether, and shares first single ‘Face The Wall’

20 May 2026

Recently signed to LEITER, New York-based saxophonist Alden Hellmuth is back with a second album, Tether, following her German Jazz Prize winning 2024 debut Good Intentions. Releasing on June 26th, the sonic world of Tether weaves eight threads built around the exploration of jazz, punk and freeform improvisation, balancing form and freedom. As the press release describes, the album “centers on the notion that regardless of how loud and unruly her band might get, the tether always ties the players back to the listener and their invigorating experience.” Hellmuth comments:

“The record is a study in how to effectively write and communicate improvisational ideas. We’re always bending and pulling to make something new out of the music in the present moment and even in the improvising world you have to stay tethered to other people in the band. All of us are connected.”

To bring Tether to life, Hellmuth enlisted the help of bassists Logan Kane and Miller Wrenn, drummer Justin Brown (Thundercat, Aja Monet), pianist Paul Cornish and trumpeter Yakiv Tsvietinskyi, a stellar cast where everyone’s talent shines through.

The riveting and blistering ‘Face The Wall’ is the first single to emerge from Tether. “‘Face The Wall’ was the first piece I wrote specifically for this project,” Alden says. “I was listening to a lot of Deerhoof and Otoboke Beaver at the time and wanted to channel that energy and creativity into my own music. I also wanted to highlight the bassists Logan Kane and Miller Wrenn, and create a space for them to explore sound, texture, and their roles in relation to each other. Justin Brown understood the energy right away and his interpretation made everything lock into place in a unique way.”

Listen to ‘Face The Wall’ now.

Tyondai Braxton is back with fifth album, Splayed Werks

19 May 2026

Photo: Ebru Yıldız

News of a new album from Tyondai Braxton fills us with excitement. The prodigious composer and producer has announced his new album Splayed Werks, marking his first full-length release since his 2022 symphonic record Telekinesis, as well as his first release on Erased Tapes. Braxton, who’s one of the most daring, ambitious and brilliant artists out there, boasts an incredible body of work, both solo and collaboratively, including Battles, a duo with Philip Glass, commissioned work for Los Angeles Philharmonic, London Sinfonietta, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Bang on a Can All-Stars, Alarm Will Sound, Third Coast Percussion, Brooklyn Rider, Kronos Quartet, New York’s Wordless Music Orchestra, and Yarn/Wire, amongst many other projects.

In the course of fifteen tracks and over 70 minutes of electronics and sound design, we are taken for a wild stroll drawing influences from Aphex Twin and Autechre, to Mica Levi and Laurel Halo, and also a few of his collaborators, like Kieran “Four Tet” Hebden, Jeffrey Cantu-Ledesma and Ben Vida. As the press release describes, “it’s a world in which the multitude of dirty rhythms strays far outside club-land’s big rooms”. Splayed Werks features mostly newer compositions but also some pieces composed over the last decade. With his new album, Braxton ventures boldly into even more ambitious sonic territory. He comments:

“My philosophy on releasing music has changed a lot, but also my idea of what it means to be an artist. The important part of the artist’s job is to archive what you’re doing—what you’re excited about, what you’re dealing with, what you’re reacting against—putting that in a form that documents your life… At the moment, we’re all looking out into the world, dealing with the helplessness in a time of war, media over-saturation. What’s the role of the artist in that? I think the archiving of any particular creative idea in the moment is one of the most significant things an artist can do now. Things I previously thought were important—’this piece means so much to me,’ or ‘listen to how this chord arrived’—are actually much less so.”

Braxton’s sonic world is a fascinating one, evolving in an adventurous and compelling way. He says:

“Every record I’ve ever finished, I’ve been shocked with what it is. I’ve never known it was finished until it was. Then you get to learn about it retroactively. If I’ve done it right, the finished thing will feel like its own personality, its own being, its own vibe. [Splayed Werks] included.”

Get ready for the absolute banger that is lead single ‘UnFS’, serving as a tantalising introduction to the album, ahead of its release on August 21st. Braxton describes the track as “a Rubik’s cube of sound, rough hewn samples fashioned into a functionally impaired dance track.” Take a listen now.

Alexander Noice returns with new album Perpetually and Forever

18 May 2026

Photo: Lisette Duran

We’re a little late on this one, but as soon as we pressed play on the new material from Alexander Noice, it grabbed our ears and hearts instantly. We knew it would! He released a wild and extraordinary self-titled album in 2019, which made it to our Album Picks of the Year. The brilliant and endlessly inventive composer, guitarist, producer and bandleader is back with a new album titled Perpetually and Forever. Arriving on June 12th through Orenda Records, the latest chapter in Noice’s wide and ever-evolving world finds him continuing to explore new musical horizons. As the press release describes, the record blends “glimmering synth textures, heavy 808-driven beats, processed pianos, pitch-shifted woodwinds, and inventive timbral manipulations into intricate layers that move between intimacy and expansiveness”. Encapsulating different feelings, the album “captur[es] the collision of past promises and present truths, nostalgia and disillusionment, despair and perseverance.”

Ahead of the album’s release, Noice has teased the album with two singles, ‘Frank Defends Himself’, and more recently ‘Ayler in Loghaven’. Unique, rich and enthralling, both tracks display the boundless scope of the upcoming Perpetually and Forever. Take a listen below.

To tide you over until the album’s release, check out the excellent guest mixtape Alexander Noice put together for us back in February 2020.

Blind Yeo set to release debut album, The Lemoine Point

14 May 2026

Photo: Ellie Ramsden

Blind Yeo have announced their debut album The Lemoine Point, an eight-track release drawing on various genres and influences, including psychedelia, folk, desert blues, Krautrock and North African trance-rock. Based in Falmouth on the Cornish coast, the band have become closely tied to the town’s creative community, growing around local venue The Cornish Bank. Founded by singer and guitarist Will Greenham, Blind Yeo work more as an ever-changing collective of multidisciplinary musicians than a fixed band, with different collaborators passing through the project over time. The Lemoine Point explores themes of grief, spirituality and connection, but there’s also a strong sense of joy running through it all.

The album arrives on August 28th through Bongo Joe Records and as an exciting introduction to it, Blind Yeo have shared lead single ‘Colour Pillow / Kologo’, an hypnotic, warm and rhythmic track, inspired in part by the sound of the kologo, a traditional instrument from Ghana often played during funeral ceremonies. That contrast between mourning and joy sits at the centre of the song, and it captures what Blind Yeo do so well. As Greenham puts it, the project exists to “remind ourselves, and anyone listening, that there are things which connect us… even when everything around us is trying to divide us.”

‘Colour Pillow / Kolog’ comes with an accompanying video directed by Ruby Ingleheart and you can watch it below.

Rizomagic announce new album, Cumbión Planetario; share lead single ‘Plutarco (ft. Conjunto Media Luna)’

11 May 2026

Colombian duo Rizomagic have announced the release of their new full-length album, Cumbión Planetario. Rising out of Bogotá’s fertile experimental scene, Rizomagic are Edgar Marún and Diego Manrique, who first connected in 2020 while studying music. The pair combine cumbia, dub, downtempo electronics and psychedelic experimentation into something they describe as “Psychotropicolombian Futurism.” On the forthcoming Cumbión Planetario, Rizomagic draw inspiration from Cumbia Rebajada, but instead of slowing tracks down after recording, they compose directly at lower tempos. The record also pulls from a wide range of influences and traditions, including Indonesian gamelan, East African mbira music, Colombian Currula, Tanzanian Singeli and experimental electronic styles, all filtered through Bogotá’s contemporary underground scene. Edgar and Diego comment:

“In Rizomagic, cumbia and tropical Colombian rhythms are approached not as a fixed genre but as a living, evolving system — a sonic flow that branches, mutates, and connects with other musical languages. Through the lens of rhizomatic thinking, we weave Colombian tropical traditions with soundscape textures and electronic processes, creating a Pangean-futurist sound where diverse knowledge and cultures coexist without hierarchy.”

Much of the record took shape during a residency at La Becque in Switzerland, where the surrounding landscape became a major influence on the music. Diego explains:

“Nature, and especially birdsongs, guided us in finding melodies. On the album, you will find melodies that are birdsongs heard daily in La Becque, which was also a strong influence on composers such as Olivier Messiaen and of many cumbia composers as Andres Landero (Example: La Pava Congona).”

There’s also a fascination with tuning systems and resonance running through the album. Rizomagic developed parts of the music using planetary tuning concepts inspired by Swiss physicist Hans Cousto, based on cosmic vibrations. The group explains:

“We’ve found that this system induces really calm and trance-like peaceful states of mind, while still rooted in rhythm and dance, we’ve found that this tuning system helps us relate ancestral knowledge with a broader cosmic awareness.”

We’ll have to wait until June 26th for Cumbión Planetario to be out though Soundway Records, but we can already get an hypnotic introduction to it with lead single ‘Plutarco’ featuring Conjunto Media Luna on accordion. Take a listen below.