Northern Spy Vinyl, CD & Tape 28 Items

Josh Johnson’s Unusual Object is a world of sound. His fantastically processed saxophone & subtle samples & grooves give this work a sort of cyberpunk ambient jazz feel that crosses into realms akin to classic Warp Records and Jon Hassell. These qualities serve to bring the listener closer to Johnson, to his breath, his sense of song. In 2023, Johnson was grammy-nominated for producing Meshell Ndegeocello’s The Omnichord Real Book (Blue Note).

Travel, the 19th studio album by Australian improvisational trio The Necks, documents their recent practice of starting each day in the studio with a 20-minute trio improvisation. The recordings offer some of their most ecstatic and captivating music cut to tape. As bassist Lloyd Swanton puts it: “It’s a really nice communal activity to bring us together in focus each day, and some lovely music has resulted from it.” Although a straight “live” improvisation has never been recorded in the studio by the band, these tracks (save for some light overdubs/post-production) feel closest to what they’ve been doing live for more than 30 years now. In 2017 Stephen O’Malley’s Ideologic Organ label released the band’s lauded Unfold, which first offered up this uncharacteristic studio work: four sub-20-minute pieces - instead of the typical 60+ minute arc for which the band is known - along with an obfuscated track list which leaves play order to the listener’s hand. The album quickly sold out, and persists as a treasure in collections or as a high-priced ‘Want’ on Discogs. Travel marks a return to this double-LP format, offered in a beautiful gatefold package that features photography by Traianos Pakioufakis and impeccable mastering by Doug Henderson.

After separating from his partner of 10 years, saxophonist Darius Jones set out on tour 'to capture a moment in time, to crystallize the beginning of something at the end of something else.' Born from a live performance -- his last night on tour -- Raw Demoon Alchemy (A Lone Operation) unearths a deep and profound vulnerability that isn't just personal but also delves into the macro-level divisiveness of our current political climate, evoking sadness, rage, and confusion while still holding for glimmers of hope for the future. With four of its five tracks, Jones selects compositions from artists who are not just unapologetically Black but also notably ones that he regards as 'world builders.' From Sun Ra, Ornette Coleman, and Roscoe Mitchell right up through the present with Georgia Anne Muldrow, Alchemy draws immeasurable strength from each of these artists who dared to envision and create an entire universe unto themselves, on their terms. With 'Figure No. 2,' Jones offers us a modern-day version of the blues. Courtesy of Muldrow, her refrain encapsulates the vast breadth of the Black experience in America, transforming our deep-seated pain into our beauty and armor of resilience. Jones also proudly rests on the shoulders of Coleman and Mitchell, two of this music's known improvisers who often stood alone in this music's ever-changing landscape. He pays homage to Mitchell with 'Noonah,' which in the late 1970s was initially met with jeers from an audience, that is, until his 21+ minute long version overtook them. On Alchemy, Jones balances the emotional heft of closure with the simple act of standing alone as he taps into an unknown power of his lone voice, finding a newfound strength and enthusiasm that will carry him ' and its listeners ' beyond the uncertainty and doubt of not knowing.

Record Store Day 2021 Release. Thai Elephant Orchestra, originally released on CD in 2001, features performances by 6 elephants living at the Thai Elephant Conservation Center in Lampang. The elephants’ poignant phrases and beautiful melodies are meditat

James Joyce once said that if all of Dublin was destroyed, they ought to be able to rebuild it brick by brick just from reading his novels. Wilder Maker's Zion is the first chapter in a musical novel that makes the same claim for Brooklyn, NY. Written by guitarist/saxophonist/singer Gabriel Birnbaum and brought to life with long time collaborators Katie Von Schleicher, Nick Jost (Baroness), Adam Brisbin (Sam Evian, Jolie Holland) and Sean Mullins, Zion is a kaleidoscopic snapshot of years hustling for a break in New York City: waking up at 5 am to pour coffee for the brownstone-owning elite, waiting for a drug dealer on a city bench outside a blurry house party, moving catastrophically from apartment to apartment in the garbage scented heat, glimpsing euphoria through the ritual of taking your place among the anonymous crowd at a music festival, having your heart shattered in front of an audience at a bar, drunkenly contemplating bodega window displays, circling ever closer to something that could either be perfection or the drain, depending on the day. Last year's Saddle Creek single New Streets showcased the band in their poppiest Fleetwood-Mac-channeling mode, breezy summer jams for driving with the windows down, and it got them noticed by NPR, SPIN and Stereogum, but Zion hugely expands their palate of tools. Its influences run from classic 70's Dylan to blown out free jazz saxophone, from Dr. John's swampy psychedelia to Ethiopian sounds picked up from Birnbaum's many years as a member of Debo Band, with hints of Coltrane's classic quartet and nods to The Velvet Undergound. Zion is an omnivorous record. Its wide ranging influences have been hinted at throughout Wilder Maker's adventurous catalogue of self-released material but never explored so fully, or with this kind of wild energy and unclassifiable groove. This is a record to dance to, to cry to, to sing along to, maybe all three at once.

Jason Stein is a ubiquitous presence on the world class Chicago improvised music scene and beyond. He's a staunch force with a monogamous passion for his instrument of choice, the darkly sonorous and notoriously difficult bass clarinet. But Stein thrives as a leader also, as witnessed by his critically-acclaimed recent quartet release. However, no other aggregation he works with has quite the road legs, perspective, and intimacy of Locksmith Isidore, his long running trio with bassist Jason Roebke and drummer Mike Pride. Of late, this decade old unit has toured arenas throughout the US opening for comedy star Amy Schumer, who happens to be Stein's kid sister. Presenting avant jazz in such massive venues as Madison Square Garden and LA's Forum has cemented Locksmith Isidore's very special bond, which is more than apparent on their fourth album After Caroline.¨

As a photographer, visual artist and member of the cosmic brain-bending trio Devin Gary & Ross, Ross Goldstein has built a layered catalog of softly psychedelic artistic output, but none has been as personal as the sonic spiderweb of his second solo album Inverted Jenny. The last time Ross showed up solo was in 2007 on the quietly-released Trail Songs, a collection of more Americana-leaning songcraft. A decade later, he picks up on threads started on his debut, but continues in a far more inward direction, blurring deftly arranged instrumental backdrops with patient, bucolic songwriting for a discreetly epic modern classic in headphone music. Ross travels through a glowing internal world with these songs, observing moments of both stillness and the sublime from a distance. There's a sheen of loneliness that runs throughout, but never a bitterness. The record opens with a trifecta of Van Dyke Parks-tinged open road songs, but even in the joyful discovery of these songs there's the sense that they're viewed from a loner's perspective. This feeling only grows as things shift from roadside distractions to the plush instrumentals and gentle vibes that make up the record's second half. Gorgeous arrangements set up a playful conversation between warm synths, stoned guitar leads, meticulously placed touches of chamber pop orchestration, and even sounds of the natural world from Ross' own field recordings, always buzzing with life. By the end of the album we've walked alongside for a while, watching the songs navigate their lonesome internal landscape like a late night wearing blissfully into morning. At the end of this night (and every other night, really) there's no answer to be found, no great revelation besides wandering along into another beautiful morning.

Nobody grows up wanting to be an artist’s artist. Appreciated by the sub sect of the sub sect is like being the beauty queen at the leper colony. Hell, anybody who claims they grew up wanting to even be an artist rather than an astronaut or a Cthulhu is probably lying or was a corny kid. Art is hard and degrading and generally bullshit. Your friends will find you irritating and your parents will certainly not throw you a parade. But if you’re an artist you’re an artist; the soul will fuck you every time, what can you do? Shilpa Ray is, through no fault of her own, one of our unsung great artists. Having made her bones with the gothic Sturm und Drang of Beat The Devil and moving forward to the blues erosion of “…and The Happy Hookers” Shilpa Ray has been, armed only with an incomparable voice and harmonium haunted by the ghosts of dead lovers, perpetually crying in the wind, hoisting both middle fingers in the general direction of god. It’s not a life a wise man would choose. Shilpa Ray kicks against the pricks but the pricks keep coming. But, again, what can you do? Well, that’s been the narrative until now. With Last Year’s Savage (maybe a nod to Leonard Cohen maybe a nod to Barrence Whitfield) Shilpa Ray has taken the pain and dark funk of earlier sounds and made explicit the sublimity that was always there just below the surface. The conversation has become less a break up with doors ripped rom their hinges and more the last pained pillow talk before parting. The obsessions with sex, death, bodily functions, and betrayal (not necessarily in that order) remain but Shilpa has expanded the palate to convey the resignation, the simmering discontent of an artist disenfranchised and held down. This is a quieter rage than the music Shilpa Ray has made before, more plaintive and considered, even if it’s the quiet of a hand gripped tight on the axe handle. The music remains gorgeous and stirring in its directness while Shilpa herself remains, thankfully, entirely and inappropriately threatening. Shilpa Ray has, up till this, point, yes, been a “artist’s artist.” Just about every musician in New York City, who doesn’t hate her, loves her and Nick Cave, in both words and deed (having her open up for him and his Bad Seeds often), sings her praises to all with the ears to listen. Obviously there are some who will always prefer lesser versions of the Shilpa Rays of the world (as if there could be more than one), preferably with blue eyes and On Brand Waifishness, but the truth will, eventually out. Talent this big can only be kept down by for so long before the sky cracks and we all drown in the blood of angels. Either way, this is Shilpa Ray’s year.

Head Body Connector is the third offering from Noah Prebish, Peter Spears, and Brother Michael Rudinski’s Psymon Spine project. It is a record that relishes in the heady, the psychedelic, the abstraction of temporality as we know it. Head Body Connector is a studio record from a band obsessed with production. It’s also a record that more so than any other Psymon release is interested in explicitly sounding live. It’s a guitar-forward album. Something that is ready-made to be performed. It. features Liquid Liquid’s Dennis Young’s percussion and Angel Deradoorian (Dirty Projectors, Flylo, The Roots) on backing vocals as well as long time collaborator Sabine Holler. Head Body Connector also saw the induction of two longtime friends of the band, drummer Zeb Stern and singer/guitarist Sarah Aument, both on tour and in the studio.