Eight New Albums to Dig Into
The second installment of Listening Sessions' ongoing new-music recommendations for 2026
Below is my second round-up of new music for 2026. I’ve found eight new goodies that I think you will really dig. I hope you check out at least a few of them and will let me know which of them you like the best.
April this year for me is going to be about collaborations and two passion projects. For the former, stay tuned for three things in the hopper with members of our great MusicStack community. For the latter, one is outside of Substack (Kevin Alexander of On Repeat Records alludes here to what I will be up to) and the other will be right here: writing a long essay on an artist Rolling Stone recently called “unsung,” asking if anyone remembers Laura Nyro.
Long-time readers know that Laura Nyro is my favourite singer-songwriter and I have written about her music twice before (read my essays here and here). I recently purchased Madfish’s 19-CD box set collecting almost all of her recordings as well as Michelle Kort’s biography on her and feel compelled to try to put together my attempt to explain why she continues to matter and why her music moves me as much as it does. I’m not sure how long the essay will be or how many parts it will be. There will be at least two and they will be arriving on April 17 and May 1. I want to take a little more time here because I want to push myself to write as well as I possibly can. No shortcuts here!
Until next time, may good listening be with you all!
Eight New Albums to Dig Into
By: Robert C. Gilbert
How can one cope in these frenzied days? So much seems to happen but how much of it is of consequence, how much of it is really worthy of attention? At what point is simply tuning out the noise a survival mechanism as opposed to sticking one’s head in the sand?
All pretty heady thoughts for the latest edition of my round-ups of new and upcoming albums but they are close to mind as I have been exploring Bill Callahan’s latest My Days of 58 (Drag City), released at the end of February. As with a lot of my listening of current music, Callahan is an artist that I hadn’t heard of until preview tracks from his new album began to trickle out, including the epic ‘Stepping Out for Air,’ in which at one point he sings, “now hand me down my riding crop / hand me down my gliding cape / hand me down my black boots that bebop.” What imagery, ominous yet strangely commonplace when sung through Callahan’s deep yet conversational voice, imparting a style that is impossible to shake.
Loneliness, aging and death are woven throughout My Days of 58. The hollowness of our digital age is also a preoccupation. ‘Computer’ likens the machine to “the village guillotine,” pillories autotune and proclaims, “I am not a robot and never will be.” I’ll say that’s as suitable a rallying cry as can be for these days that also acts as a balm.
On occasion, the music of harpist Mary Lattimore has been as soothing. It resists categorization. New age, ambient, neo-classical, etc. don’t really capture the experience of hearing it. Labelling it as healing music may be more to the point. It would also serve as a sufficient descriptor for the work of singer and keyboardist Julliana Barwick and it seemed inevitable that they would team up to record a full album together. The result, Tragic Magic (InFine), out since mid-January, is a succession of motifs and melodic fragments within each composition. The repetition of them creates a calming sensation such as on ‘The Four Sleeping Princesses’ with a graceful part played by Lattimore or on the opening, ‘Perpetual Adoration,’ with Barwick offering a soaring lead vocal.
‘Stardust’ is the most expansive composition. Barwick’s technicolour synthesiser chords dominate a soundscape that also soon includes a shimmering contribution from Lattimore, a drum machine and Barwick wordlessly floating on top. Again, categorization fails here. What is it? Ambient dance music? Beats me. It is music that follows its own mysterious logic.
Equally challenging to label is singer-songwriter Pearl Charles’ newest, Desert Queen (Taurus Rising). It has a gloss that is burnished by Charles’ double-tracked vocals creating a sound that instantly differentiates it from the cacophony that sometimes can be felt when trying to keep a reasonably firm pulse on what is new and exciting in music.
How reassuring it is then to hear something familiar, something that provides an easy entryway. That is not to say that Desert Queen is an insubstantial listen. It’s more to say that Desert Queen is an impressive harkening back to the good-sounding singer-songwriter albums of the seventies with the occasional psychedelic flourish as on ‘Smoke in the Limousine.’
‘Jackie Paints,’ one of the tracks released to preview Spencer Cullum’s just-released Spencer Cullum’s Coin Collection 3 (Full Time Hobby) is another instance where its connections make it stand out. There’s a loose rhythm played using brushes, two flutes, steel guitar, an echoing keyboard line among other atmospheric touches that bring to mind Pentangle and other groups that took a leisurely, rustic approach to folk.
The whole album has this feel. It’s the kind of approach that seems to often interest me, old soul that I am. It strikes the important balance between commenting on the past while also saying something about the present day. What an intriguing album to have stumbled upon.
I wouldn’t say that it was also serendipity that brought Zimbabewan guitarist Mark Greenwood’s second album, Daybreak (self-released) to my attention. It was instead Greenwood getting in touch with me and kindly offering to send me a CD copy of the album my way.
I’m grateful he did for it’s an often soaring album of guitar-driven jazz with a light fusion touch. If you have dug Pat Metheny’s newest, Side-Eye III+, you’ll also dig Greenwood’s music. On Daybreak, he’s joined by Mike Downes on bass, Mark Kelso on drums and on two tracks, Othnell ‘Mangoma’ Moyo on percussion. What I especially like about the album is the more introspective moments such as on ‘Paper Planes’ and ‘La Damoiselle élue.’
Another musician who recently got in touch with me was saxophonist and composer Joel Miller. He’s based in New Brunswick and he wanted to share with me news on What If? (self-released). It’s been out digitally since last September and received a physical release early this year. The album features Miller on multiple saxophones with Silvio Pupo on piano and the ensemble Resonance New Music with his brother Andrew Reed Miller on bass, Dani Sametz on violin and Joel Cormier on percussion. The aim here is to capture a kind of chamber jazz and Miller succeeds mightily.
Compositions by Debussy, Chopin and Pachelbel as well as Bob Thiele’s ‘What a Wonderful World’ rest along furtive originals by Miller, the most intriguing of which is the subtle blues of ‘Wait For It.’ Andrew Reed Miller’s arrangement of Debussy’s ‘Clair de Lune’ is a good example of why I like What If? so much. It doesn’t go all in to wring every ounce of majesty out of the sweep of one of Debussy’s most famous pieces but instead treats it as material to investigate and improvise upon. In here, I find a happy resistance of the obvious. What If? offers a contemplative breather for our modern age.
Offering up some action is a new album coming from New York pianist and singer Champian Fulton that’s arriving on April 10. She’s an artist keeping the flavour of the Great American Songbook alive. Fulton may not be breaking new ground but she’s not offering anything glib either and that’s what counts.
Her new album, House Party (Turtle Bay Records), was recorded live at the home of producer Scott Asen and is meant to evoke the live-in-the-studio albums that Dinah Washington recorded in the fifties. Fuller is heard with her triomates: Hide Tanuka on bass and Fukushi Tainaka on drums with Klaus Lindquist on alto saxophone and Cory Weeds on tenor saxophone also joining in.
There is a relaxed atmosphere here and plenty of room for improvisation. The program has a mix of the familiar: Hoagy Carmichael’s ‘Stardust’ and Charlie Parker’s ‘Billie’s Bounce’ with other gems from the repertoire, including (yes!) Wayne Shorter’s ‘One by One.’ House Party is one enjoyable session.
As if answering a need, there’s also a new addition to the parade of top-notch albums recorded at the Village Vanguard. It’s actually the first of three volumes from the club by alto saxophonist Immanuel Wilkins. Volume 1 (Blue Note) came out in March and the subsequent volumes are following in April and May. This first hit of music is explosive and exploratory—no track is under 10 minutes.
In Wilkins’ quartet is Micah Thomas on piano, Ryoma Takenaga on bass and Kweku Sumbry on drums. My favourite of the first volume is the closing ‘Eternal’ which begins as a knotty original and then settles into an ambient, hypnotic repeat of a spectral line for over 10 minutes. What a bold, exhilarating thing to do. That’s one way to make it through these modern times.