Here is a recap of the reviews we published in August 2026.
AMN Reviews: Punkt.Vrt.Plastik – Kompress (2026; Intakt) (8/31/2026) — The trio stretches the piano-trio format toward tricky arrangements and genre-crossing frontiers while retaining room for ballad-like jazz, counter-melodies, counter-rhythms, and nervous, kinetic energy.
AMN Reviews: New Risen Throne – Of Grey Grounds (2026; Eighth Tower Records) (8/29/2026) — Slow-burning dark ambient varies between deep, glacial passages and denser structures built through the accumulation of drones, ceremonial percussion, whispered vocals, and distorted guitar.
AMN Reviews: Celebration Orchestra – Enchanted Messenger at Cafe OTO (2026; Confront) (8/27/2026) — This 70-minute interpretation of Tony Oxley’s composition moves through 19 sharply delineated sections while leaving ample space for horns, strings, vocals, piano, electronics, and percussion to emerge in changing combinations.
AMN Reviews: Francesca Gaza, Kugelförmigkeit Ensemble – Crown Shyness (2026; New Amsterdam) (8/26/2026) — Gaza’s voice and songs lead an eleven-piece ensemble that places baroque flute, viola da gamba, virginal, and theorbo alongside electric guitar and drums in music retaining traces of chamber jazz, dream pop, and contemporary composition.
AMN Reviews: Goldston / Watkins / Winant – Tension / Release I (2026; sixtyhurts) (8/25/2026) — Two carefully shaped improvisations combine cello, tone generator, and drums in just-tuned and detuned textures that rise from sparse melodic figures toward controlled, pockmarked walls of sound.
AMN Reviews: Carl Ludwig Hübsch / Ignaz Schick – Iglu (2026; Klanggalerie) (8/24/2026) — Hübsch’s sighs, clicks, grunts, yelps, and genre imitations meet Schick’s sampled textures, percussion, and walls of sound in fast-moving improvisations animated by a shared sense of humor.
AMN Reviews: KILTER – Ten Billion Years / Ten (2026; ALTER-NATIV) (8/23/2026) — KILTER combines distorted bass, low-register saxophone, blast beats, drones, long-held notes, and atmospheric passages in dark, contemplative instrumental metal with considerable physical weight.
AMN Reviews: Timothy Fairless – Friction (2026; Dragon’s Eye Recordings) (8/22/2026) — Heavily processed field recordings, shimmering drones, aleatoric percussion, and instrumental fragments build into dense walls of shifting distortion before giving way to a quieter conclusion of voice, viola, and electronics.
AMN Reviews: MoE & Ikuro Takahashi featuring Signe Emmeluth – Live at Børsen Kulturhus (2026; ConradSound) (8/21/2026) — MoE’s punk and noise vocabulary shifts toward free jazz as acoustic bass, gestural guitar, flexible drumming, and Emmeluth’s squawks and repeated alto-saxophone notes meet at changing dynamic levels.
AMN Reviews: Jon Irabagon – WINDS (2026; Irabbagast) (8/20/2026) — Two chamber works pair extended melodies and dissonant chords for woodwind quintet with a more tonal, Braxton-influenced saxophone quintet that leaves selected spaces for improvisation.
AMN Reviews: Glass Triangle – 3 X 1 (2026; Relative Pitch) (8/19/2026) — Mette Rasmussen’s swiftly changing alto lines interact with Zeena Parkins’ textures, drones, counter-melodies, and percussive harp sounds and Ryan Sawyer’s understated accents across 13 concise studio improvisations.
AMN Reviews: Christer Bothén / Oren Ambarchi / Johan Berthling / Andreas Werliin – Serpentine (2026; Black Truffle) (8/18/2026) — Rock-solid bass grooves and slowly developing crescendos make room for Bothén’s clarinet and donso n’goni before the quartet moves into a more exploratory form of minimalism built from textures and organ-like tones.
AMN Reviews: John Hollenbeck and Hot Club Jazz Orchestra – Peace and Justice (2026; Flexatonic) (8/17/2026) — Hollenbeck draws upon Ukrainian and Turkish melodies, a Geri Allen composition, overlapping brass figures, horn choirs, and wordless vocals for one of his relatively straight-ahead yet distinctly orchestrated big-band recordings.
AMN Reviews: Honey Ride Me A Goat – Horns & Hooves (2026; Cuneiform Records) (8/16/2026) — Progressive rock, math rock, fusion, and improvisation collide in staccato blasts, chaotic departures, rhythmic patterns, discordant guitar, and saxophone parts deeply integrated into the trio’s raw but clear production.
AMN Reviews: Patrick Shiroishi – Forgetting is Violent (2025; American Dreams) (8/16/2026) — Across two side-long suites, chaotic layers of spoken word, saxophone, effects, and grinding guitar alternate with melancholy melodies, gentle singing, drones, howls, and ambient passages addressing racism, grief, family, and remembrance.
AMN Review: Mount Shrine – The Yasu Ether Project (2026; Cryo Chamber) (8/15/2026) — Soft, airy drones, deep bass, fuzzy static, arpeggiated chords, and field recordings of the natural world create melodic ambient music marked by melancholy and an understated warmth.
AMN Reviews: Various Artists – Witchcraft & Black Magic In The United Kingdom (Expanded Version) (2019/2026; Eighth Tower Records) (8/15/2026) — The expanded compilation combines dark drones, manipulated electronics, organ, spoken stories, fractured noise, looped structures, and electroacoustic sounds into a collection of haunting landscapes and fear-laden tension.
AMN Reviews: Florian Wittenburg & Carsten Daerr – Blessings (2026; Edition Wandelweiser) (8/13/2026) — Daerr’s warm, appealing solo piano composition is flanked by two electronic pieces in which Wittenburg captures selected moments as icy and foreboding monoliths.
AMN Reviews: Bill Orcutt – Four Louies Live (2026; Palilalia) (8/10/2026) — Orcutt’s mashup of “Louie Louie” and Steve Reich’s Four Organs becomes a live work for 13 musicians, using six organs, guitars, bass, two drummers, noise table, and maracas to turn a simple joke-like motif into forceful minimalism.
AMN Reviews: Enneads (Phyllis Chen / Hamir Atwal / Zach Layton) – Enneads (2026; Bandcamp) (8/2/2026) — Directly plucked piano strings and a 17-string bass generate sympathetic overtones, pointillistic notes, fuzzed-out drones, and chords while drums supply momentum and occasional grooves to the trio’s textural doom jazz.
AMN Reviews: Milton Michaeli / Asaf Shchori / Hamid Drake – Universal Butterfly (2026; 577 Records) (8/1/2026) — Percussive piano and busy, restless bass-and-drum rhythms move between centered tonality and passages seemingly on the verge of spilling over, producing creative jazz that is both challenging and radiantly enjoyable.
