Westside Cowboy : It Goes On Review
by Shannon Smith
Faithless’s return with Champion Sound in September 2025 is a late-career victory lap, reaffirming what makes their architecture of groove so enduring. Since Reverence and the global eruption of “Insomnia,” Faithless have walked a line between rave’s euphoria, hip-hop’s grit, and pop’s accessibility. With Maxi Jazz’s voice now woven into memory after his passing in 2022, Rollo Armstrong and Sister Bliss have crafted an album that respects the band’s lineage while reaching forward into the club and headphone spaces of 2025. It’s at once a dance record with teeth and a studio sculpture designed for deep [...]
by Steven Miller
Mac Gollehon has always been a formidable force as a trumpet player. He’s a brass mercenary, a sound-weaver whose horn has burned through sessions with Bowie, Madonna, Grace Jones, Nile Rodgers, and Hector Lavoe. If there’s a sound that needs cutting through the mix, Gollehon is the guy they called. With Pistoleros, his latest with Nefarious Industries, he combines the pop dance gloss with the high energy of electric jazz. It dives headfirst into a sonic street fight: part Latin-jazz fever dream, part electronic shootout, part gangster flick. This is an album with a cinematic ride where every note [...]
by Steven Miller
There is a special feeling when a quartet listens as intently as Quartetto Noûs. Their new release, Ravel & Fauré: String Quartets, reflects these as they present two pillars of French chamber music. The eight pieces reveal them as a quartet that lets the music breathe through harmonic color, rhythmic interplay, and an ear for sonic balance.
Ravel’s 1903 String Quartet in F major is the youthful voice of a composer still in dialogue with Debussy and Fauré. Quartetto Noûs makes the music shimmer by leaning into the harmonic transparency of Ravel’s writing. The opening Allegro moderato floats, [...]
By Shannon Smith
From the opening drum roll, Castle Rat’s “Serpent” coils itself around the listener with the kind of vintage-metal authority that is hard to resist. Recorded under the steady hand of Randall Dunn and mixed by Jonathan Nuñez, the track bears all the marks of a band intent on situating itself within the heavy metal continuum while pushing its theatrical boundaries forward.
The Rat Queen (Riley Pinkerton) anchors the performance with a vocal delivery that channels the urgency of early NWOBHM and the gothic charisma of proto-doom. Her voice is commanding with a full-bodied timbre that is serrated at the edges. The vocals have [...]
by Steven Miller
Josh Lawrence’s Still We Dream, released on August 15, 2025, bridges the structural angularity of Thelonious Monk with the lyrical depth of Frédéric Chopin. The twelve songs bring these two composers together through careful arranging and inspired improvisation. The music finds the common thread of form, melody, and risk.
With Diego Rivera on saxophones, Art Hirahara on piano, Boris Kozlov on bass, Rudy Royston on drums, and Mason Bryant joining on guitar for two tracks, Lawrence has surrounded himself with musicians who understand the weight of history and the joy of invention.
The album makes its case [...]
by Shannon Smith
From the first song of Wildflower, Zandi Holup makes it clear she is here to bare her voice to tell stories in song. It’s a debut that feels like a set of songs that understands restraint is as powerful as release. Producer Ryan Hadlock frames her in warm sonic settings of Bear Creek Studios’ warm wood and Pacific Northwest stillness. The album’s mood leaving space for her to work her magic of instinct and craft. You hear her draw from the long tradition of country storytellers, a well of emotional honesty that makes vocal performances stay with you.
“All That’s Left Is Me” is the first seed in this garden, a medium-tempo [...]
Colter Wall is a plains-bred and now based in Nashville-based folk singer. He is blessed with a rich baritone tone and a gift for writing songs that he frames with sparse acoustic instruments. Wall’s music is surprisingly non-commercial in its form and lyrical style.
Songs of the Plains is Wall’s sophomore record. With images of a mythic Canada, a western region of lonesome plains and weathered frontiersmen. The music comes across as honest and his approach to a bigger more complicated story through simple segments of songs is a testament to his evocative style. Wall has caught the ear of Americana luminaries who have stood [...]
Cellist Yo-Yo Ma has been performing and studying Bach’s cello suites for almost six decades. The first piece he learned on the cello was from the suite and through his constant dedication and perseverance, Ma has developed a repertoire and connection with this music that is deeply personal. His tone is warm, beautiful and always projecting confidence in its intent.
