Great New Music I'm Recommending Right Now
Ten recent albums of outstanding merit
Below you will find my latest roundup of great new music. As always, I cover a lot of ground, drawing on a range of genres, generations, and geographies.
Happy listening!
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Horse Lords: Demand to Be Taken to Heaven Alive!
Cool Microtonal Jams
Back when Horse Lords made my best-of-year list in 2020, I struggled to describe this Baltimore ensemble’s genre—and eventually came up with a clumsy circumlocution: “If La Monte Young Ran a Funky Microtonal Rock Jam Band.”
Six years later, I still can’t give a better description. But, against all odds, this kind of quirky music is now going mainstream—witness the quick rise to crossover acclaim of Angine de Poitrine (discussed here), a band that’s relying on a similar aural toolkit.
I never dreamed that microtonal tunes would come so far. But this group’s latest release will show up on many best-of-year lists in 2026 (mine included). Here’s a deep draught for the adventurous.
Terry Riley / Claire Chaise / JACK Quartet / Samuel Clay Birmaher: The Holy Liftoff
Chamber Music for Eight Flutes, String Quartet, Stones, and Wind
Terry Riley, now age 91, is still such a vibrant force on the music scene. Over the decades, he has done it all—breakthrough classical compositions, jazzy piano, ecstatic chanting, psychedelic trance-rock, alternative tuning systems, and much more. (In the future, I’ll share a list of my favorites from the course of his variegated career.)
Riley started work on The Holy Liftoff in 2022 at the invitation of flutist Claire Chase (also a Harvard professor and MacArthur ‘genius award’ winner). It began, according to her website, as “an open-score sketchbook of brilliantly colored drawings for multiple flutes.” Samuel Clay Birmaher helped turn it into a “multidimensional work blending through-composed material, graphic notation, evocative artwork, and Riley’s signature open-form scoring.”
If those descriptions sound confusing, just bypass the verbiage and go straight to the music. It sounds like a celestial flute choir inviting you into a dream landscape.
I’ll share another track, but first look at this travesty.
This music is reaching a smaller audience than karaoke night at your local pub. That is why you need an honest broker—because the media and music world won’t tell you where greatness truly resides.
Okay, here’s one more track from The Holy Liftoff. Forget SpaceX—this is my type of launch into the empyrean.