Grey Sky, bassist and composer David Tranchina's debut album as a leader, is an impressionistic cycle of somnambulant movements that wander freely from a base in jazz to psychedelic ambience and beyond. An unmistakable sense of curiosity and exploration is prevalent throughout the seven pieces on the album and is shepherded by two wordless vocal performances by singer, Argenta Walther. 

Red Oak Duo is the sound of the modern American West: vast rural landscapes, one-stoplight towns, suburban sprawl crawling up foothills and valleys, freeways, strip malls, rugged coastlines, volcanic rock, alpine lakes, dry arroyos, and a diverse, multicultural population.
 

Road Songs, the debut recording from the Android Trio, is a collection of instrumental reflections of the hazy experience of an American band touring abroad. The set of eight original compositions was written and arranged by drummer, composer and percussionist, Andrew Niven, and covers a wide landscape of stylistic terrain including doom metal, third stream jazz and progressive rock.

GUP LIFE, the vibrant and subversive debut of progressive jazz quartet SNOW NERDS, comes onto the Los Angeles improvised music scene with attitude, ernest, and no shortage of absurdist humor. With devilish hooks, hard-hitting instrumental performances, and thought-provoking composition, this record is a breath of fresh air to those who seek an alternative to the desire-to-impress that so often plague the world of academic music.

Generally speaking, there is nothing remarkable about the idea of a brother and sister playing together. Images of children involved in some privately invented game spring to mind. In the case of brother and sister Scot and Vicki Ray, included in the idea would have to be playing music together in their Great Falls, Montana, living room, Scot on brass instruments—eventually settling on the trombone—and older sister Vicki on the piano. At that point in their young lives there may have been little in their imaginations to predict that each of them would eventually occupy a spot at the vanguard of creative music making.