Articles by Geno Thackara

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Jazzrausch Bigband: Sinfonie in Cis-Moll: III. Scherzo. Kräftig, Nicht Zu Schnell

by Geno Thackara
October 12, 2026

Gustav Mahler always lamented that nobody understood his fifth symphony, claiming it was cursed. Fair enough; even as this most epic musical form goes, it was a work arguably packed with more layers of emotion than most. Jazzrausch Bigband, however, figured out that those shades can come through just as much with a massive heap of techno beats--nowhere more so than the third movement, where “every note is charged with life" and one of the piece's recurring motifs gets cheerfully ...

Album Review

Rahul Mukerji: Mridhangit

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by Geno Thackara
September 6, 2026

As the great (if fictitious) detective Dirk Gently said, what we are dealing with here is the fundamental interconnectedness of all things. The sinuous scales of Indian and Eastern music, the fluid melodicism of jazz, the mathematical precision of prog-rock and the wailing and pounding of heavy metal: when all are approached with the same focus and deep thought, it becomes perfectly natural to hear how they come from the same roots. Rahul Mukerji's catalogue is one where ...

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Lionel Loueke: Actual Proof

by Geno Thackara
August 28, 2026

Adapting a little Herbie Hancock material is manageable enough for anyone with solid instrumental skills. Doing it without a piano might be a bit more tricky. Adapting it for solo guitar and voice is another challenge entirely, but his longtime sideman Lionel Loueke is more than up to the challenge, not just mastering the song forms but using his innate rhythmic roots to both grasp the melody and bring the funk. ...

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Brian Bromberg: Top Down

by Geno Thackara
August 28, 2026

One might not think there are many places to find a new wrinkle to instrumental guitar rock, but Brian Bromberg manages it on an interesting technicality: not using any guitars. For this 2005 highway cruise, he doubles himself on electric five-string and high-tuned piccolo bass, making a “trio" outing full of wild grooves and sweet fuzz tones that continually sound just a bit different from your usual axe-fest. ...

Album Review

Seamus O'Muineachain: Island of Flowers

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by Geno Thackara
August 18, 2026

A Seamus O'Muineachain recording is part tone poem and part daydream. It mostly consists of notes and melodies, but those ingredients are no more or less important than shimmering drones or stray nature sounds. This is an emotionscape drawn from life. The music is not in the notes but the whole experience, crafted with a slow thoughtfulness that invites deep listening to soak in all the feelings. With a catalogue already centered around calmness and quietude, O'Muineachain generally ...

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Gordian Knot: Muttersprache

by Geno Thackara
August 13, 2026

Sean Malone was the kind of bassist who could never simply stick to the basic support role if his life depended on it. He spun kaleidoscopic bass/Stick parts across a myriad of fusion, prog and/or metal recordings, but his particular harmonic wizardry never came out more eloquently than on this solo outlet. Gordian Knot had a rare knack for building layered structures as twisty as its namesake and yet also just as artful. ...

Album Review

Tu-Ner: Rendezvous Rodeo

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by Geno Thackara
July 28, 2026

There is nothing Western-sounding about this rodeo--very far from it--but it does feel like a sort of rendezvous by virtue of returning to somewhat familiar territory. Granted, “familiar" also means wildly bizarre and occasionally terrifying, but anyone who knows these names should expect nothing less. Pat Mastelotto and Trey Gunn are best known as a beastly rhythm section in the King Crimsons of the '90s and early '00s, while touch guitarist Markus Reuter has plenty of the same musical DNA ...

Album Review

Fergus McCreadie: The Shieling: Companion Pieces

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by Geno Thackara
July 18, 2026

Any hiker knows that walking the main trail is--pardon the mixed metaphor--barely the tip of the iceberg. (Or perhaps scratching the surface? Is that better?) Regardless, the more fascinating and picturesque the journey, the more it merits repeat visits to find variations on whatever side trails and shortcuts there are to discover. And so, after taking us on their most rich folky excursion to date with The Shieling (Edition, 2025), it seems that Fergus McCreadie and friends had still not ...

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Jah Wobble: Memories

by Geno Thackara
June 28, 2026

Reworking a classic album, even partially, always risks turning into a nostalgia exercise and/or a misguided attempt to experiment. The prospect is even trickier with something impossible to recapture, such as the lightning-in-a-bottle chaos of Public Image Ltd's landmark Metal Box (Virgin, 1979). Nonetheless, the inimitable Jah Wobble threaded that needle a few decades later with a hard-grooving makeover that ups the production while keeping the spiky edges. ...

Multiple Reviews

Branciforte & Barbieri: Ghosts in the Machines

by Geno Thackara
April 25, 2026

Here we have a couple very different varieties of electronics: two deep dives into sound-sculpting that remain determinedly human, however technological or spooky things get. Joseph Branciforte & Jozef Dumoulin ITERAE Greyfade 2026 When describing the thinking behind ambient music, Brian Eno famously said that it should be “as ignorable as it is interesting." If anything, the continual challenge is to do the opposite: practically anyone can create something easy to ignore, but ...