Off his upcoming new album Traveling Light, Rafael Toral unpacks a stunning new single today: “Solitude.” This Duke Ellington number has received many unique treatments over a near-century — from jazzers including Thelonious Monk, Marc Ribot, Matthew Shipp and Mary Halvorson — though this version owes the most to Billie Holiday’s matchless vulnerability. Commencing with an almost sacred air, as if reflecting upon ages of consciousness from a great height, Toral lingers along a reconfigured melodic path, his guitar refining the... (read more)

Tomorrow, we wake up to a new album from Sir Richard Bishop! YES! And today, the six-stringed woodshedder shares a new music video for “Head Bone in the ‘Tater Hole.” Opening with the kind of galloping figuration that once might have constituted a waltz or a kind of Latinate dance, Sir Rick quickly boils his ideas down into a steaming stew of theme and variations. He slashes and hacks from the guitar’s neck and body with impromptu energy and unstoppable propulsion, losing nothing of... (read more)

Jim White proudly announces a new single, "I Don't Do / Grand Central," a marvelously turbulent vocal duet between Jim and Zoh Amba. The new music video, edited by Eve Sussman, demonstrates Jim and Zoh in lineage with the great vocal pairings such as Birkin/Gainsbourg, The Human League, and Goyte/Kimbra. The spirited exchange takes the pair straight to the Oyster Bar of Grand Central Station where the two commune and parry in delightful form a la Belmondo... (read more)

As we sail toward Inland See (out this Friday), the saporous sounds of Bitchin Bajas only grow louder! Their new album was a live endeavor, written on the road and tracked with barely any overdubs — so it’s only natural that this 8-minute live video of “Skylarking,” directed and edited by Michael Gaertner, looks and sounds like Bajas on full blast. Watch it on YouTube now!

Bitchin Bajas is the trio of Cooper Crain, Rob Frye, and Daniel... (read more)