Dedicated to fierce, mind-bending improvisation, Trio Subliminal brings together three of Southern California's most inventive improvisers. Featuring Daniel Rosenboom on cornet and trumpet, Jake Vossler on strat and baritone guitars, and Tina Raymond on drums, this bold triumvirate stretches into the subconscious to channel wild expressions and dream-like explorations. Filled with abstract sonics, riling grooves, heavy riffs, and wild virtuosic abandon, Trio Subliminal presents an unrestrained exploration of the subconscious that is as earnest as it is radical.

The trumpeter and composer Samantha Boshnack isn’t a geologist by trade, but she certainly thinks a lot about earthquakes and volcanoes. Over the past 15 years, while living in her adopted hometown of Seattle, Boshnack has hiked the environs of Washington’s Mount Rainier and Mount St. Helens with a kind of unnerved fascination. During her travels in places like Mexico and Indonesia, she’s made a point to visit the storied volcanic sites. Throughout her journeys, a couple of questions have persisted: What causes these astounding landscapes and events, and how are they all connected? And how can these vistas be so unspeakably beautiful yet also harbor such a profound potential for catastrophe?

For much of his youth, keyboardist and composer Bryan McAllister wanted to be a human rights advocate at the United Nations. Just before college, the desire to pursue a career as a jazz musician overtook these plans and his life took a sudden detour. In his debut album release, Very Stable Genius, McAllister draws on his passion for social justice and examines our current American cultural landscape through sardonic compositions inspired by the bizarre statements and actions of the man elected to the presidency.

Out of Orbit, the bold new album by saxophonist and composer Jim Piela, is a celebration of the unknown. It’s about embracing fears with honesty and resolve, not running from or pushing them out of mind. With trumpeter Joey Lamb, bassist Bob Sabin, and drummer Josh Bailey, Piela's adventurous quartet navigates his original compositions, as well as a couple of salient classics, with grace and ingenuity, fully embracing Wayne Shorter's famous definition: “Jazz means, ‘I Dare You.’” 

Burning Ghosts returns to their improvisational roots and delivers a raw, untethered, and passionate response to our current national experience on "American Circus." 

In the spirit of the mad whirlwind that is modern American culture, Burning Ghosts recorded, mixed, and mastered this album in only 72 hours. Because, who knows what tweets will rattle the world tomorrow...

Composer, flutist and conductor James Newton is a verifiable legend in the avant-garde music world. Amongst his contemporaries, his name is synonymous with dedicated and adventurous exploration of the deepest expressions through both composition and improvisation. His latest album The Manual of Light is a gorgeous collection of chamber music and solo pieces written over the last decade, book-ended by two stunning renditions of “Amazing Grace” for string orchestra. Enlisting some of Los Angeles’s best instrumentalists to deliver masterful performances of his spiritually rich compositions, Newton’s new opus is a journey into the divine.

Sometimes a mask is as revealing as what lies beneath. Written over eight years, Mask, the new Orenda Records release from composer, bandleader and brass player David Dominique, bounds between styles, strategies, attitudes and textures. Somehow, the project furthers the language Dominique developed on his enthralling 2013 album, Ritual, while offering a perpetual sense of surprise.

The idea for this project started back in 2008. I would take two related bands that I’d been writing for—The Mentones (Tony Atherton, Bill Barrett, Joe Berardi, me) and the Tee-Tot Quartet (Dan Clucas, Scot Ray, Joe Berardi, me)—and combine them. I started to write the music, I started the artwork, I had the album title—but life and the world intervened. 

Then in 2017, I had the opportunity to play a fairly high-profile gig and I asked to do this, my deferred dream band. The presenter put faith in me (thank you, Lisa Mezzacappa!) and Men-Tot Six was back. 

On their debut album Watt Doom, the instrumental group Twin Whales synthesizes disparate landscapes, divergent sonic backgrounds, and a shifting musical direction. Think improvisation, think modularity, think inspiration. Formed in 2015, the group has found a voice in music that they refer to as “pure survival mode” – frenetic and complex stuff that allows for unpredictable stylistic shifts and moments of quiet beauty.