Lav's Music Corner

Review by Lavender: Colin Stetson is a saxophonist whose experimental compositions have soundtracked some of the definitive horror movies of the past 10 years, while he's spent nearly twice that time collaborating with a wide variety of acclaimed artists. Simultaneously he's been releasing solo albums of his uncompromising sound. The newest is The love it took to leave you  his first purely solo recording since 2017's All This I Do For Glory . It also follows last year's standout When we were that what wept for the sea , one of my favorite of Stetson's projects to date.  Coming into this album I was pretty excited based on both Colin's reputation and the two singles. Opener and title track The love it took to leave you  didn't blow me away at first but it's at its best serving as a table setter for the album. It's got a surprisingly methodical undertone pacing away while bizarre and blurry sax passages wander over top of it. That leads perfectly into...

5.  Gold Coast  - Moses Sumney Moses Sumney's immense talent has persisted through basically everything he's ever done. That's why it's nos surprise that he once again delivered a hit on a second consecutive single. With  Gold Coast  he dials things back a bit with a near whispered tenor met by some fluttering strings. But underneath it all the track is still a beautiful, swaying and irresistibly elegant R&B jam.  Listen 4.  Electra  - Public Service Broadcasting The incredibly strange career of Public Service Broadcasting has taken the sample-driven and largely instrumental rock outfit to all kinds of strange places. But this time they're going back to something we all know they can do well, a song about a plane. Much like one of their breakthrough tunes  Spitfire ,  Electra  is a beautiful and fittingly soaring tribute to aircraft that comes with all their emotional instrumental poise and perfectly selected samples.  Listen 3....

Probably my last rapid fire for a while with a lot of great new music coming out, maybe. Love In Exile  - Arooj Aftab, Vijay Iyer, Shahzad Ismaily Even though I was late to formally cover the album, I really enjoyed Arooj Aftab's 2021 breakout Vulture Prince  and I was really looking forward to how she was going to follow it up. What I didn't expect, though I maybe should have, is this trio of veteran musicians linking up for a deeply compelling explorative jazz record. The group take a pretty sparse approach to filling in the cracks with their sound, serving up just vocals, keys, and bass with almost no studio interference to their original live recordings. The record is also thematically sparse with compositions built around short lines of poetry often repeated throughout and expanded upon through the developing instrumentation. Take the opening track To Remain/To Return  whose vocal diatribes often take a backseat to long wanderings on the piano only to return at surpr...