This week’s guide is by CF Smith and contributors Words By Shoaib, Imran Mirza and Irfan Ayaan.
Friday has arrived, bringing with it a brand-new edition of our “Between The Cracks” feature. This week poetry meets protest, ambient meets electroacoustic, experimental folk vibes, and more. Dive into our latest picks and if something strikes a chord with you, show your love by clicking the buy or share link. Enjoy the music, and have a great weekend!
Albums
Mansur Brown – Rihla
Mansur Brown’s new album ‘Rihla’ marks a new chapter as an artist, as his vocals are introduced for the first time, alongside heavier rock and electronic influences. Straddling the roles of songwriter, producer and multi-instrumentalist, Brown is the definition of a prodigy: a classically trained guitarist, curator and multi-disciplinary artist whose music balances virtuoso precision with deft expressions of emotion. ‘Rihla’s’ moods range from uplifting to ruminative, as he moves across sci-fi soundscapes, with echoes of R&B, and euphoric D&B. Brown really is a true breath of fresh air. – CFS
Me Lost Me – This Material Moment
Released via Upset The Rhythm, This Material Moment is Me Lost Me’s most emotionally potent work to date. Newcastle-based artist Jayne Dent crafts 12 vivid, shape-shifting pieces that balance haunting abstraction with grounded vulnerability. Blending experimental folk with drones, atmospheric electronics, and poetic songwriting, Dent explores physicality, burnout, and the flux of the inner world with remarkable grace. The album’s opener, ‘Useful Analogies’, pairs Dent’s soaring vocal loops with flickering electronics, conjuring a sense of searching, a crystallising echo chamber of thoughts. It sets the tone for a record that resists linearity in favour of an impressionistic storytelling approach. Another standout, ‘Ancient Summer’, unfolds with hushed reverence. The clarinet and voice spiral gently, evoking the warmth and ache of fading memories. The track exemplifies the album’s balance of tenderness and surrealism. Dent’s automatic writing approach yields lyrics that feel unearthed rather than written, and her live collaborators add fresh texture. This Material Moment feels timeless yet urgent, an eerie, beautiful drift through emotional terrain few dare to navigate this honestly. – WBS
The Matthew Rivera Untet – Immense Love
What an absolute joy it is to discover something brand new from Matthew Rivera and Stay the Course Records! It’s been three years since the label last blessed listeners with new music via their Bandcamp page, and that sensational outing came from the Rivera-helmed Producer’s Workshop Ensemble. Marking his third release under the Producer’s Workshop guise, Rivera uprooted the label’s music from the familial, gritty soul setting of Chicago and moved it to Japan, where he immersed himself amidst the talents of local musicians for a full-length that sat high amidst the label’s sublime releases. Born out of his time in Tokyo in 2020, as the story goes, Rivera assembled a small studio’s worth of instruments and recording equipment from visiting second-hand stores and then secured studio time where possible to hone and develop his new sound. ‘Immense Love’ finds Rivera continuing his adventures in Japan in what appears to be a loving and deeply moving musical ode to his father. An engaging selection of private messages from his father accompany the Bandcamp description with encouragement in line with the label’s own stay the course and persevere mentality. ‘Immense Love’ features Rivera’s and Stay the Course’s signature lo-fi analog textures and in every sense is a heartfelt triumph. A testament to Rivera’s vision and versatility. Whether you’ve followed Rivera’s journey from the beginning or are just now tuning in, this latest chapter is a reminder of how powerful independent music can be when guided by love, intention and an unshakable creative spirit. – IM
Brittany Davis – Black Thunder
Brittany Davis’ Black Thunder, released via Loosegroove Records, is pure electricity. Recorded over just two days, this 17-track set isn’t scripted, polished, or polite; it’s alive. Davis, joined by Evan Flory-Barnes on bass and D’Vonne Lewis on drums, conjures a sound rooted in soul and jazz, but crackling with improvisational energy. Take All You Get: a six-minute trance of piano, breath, and rhythm. It begins sparse, just a repeated octave, then grows with her vocal scatting, moans, and chants. The track feels like a ritual, like music being discovered in real time. Then there’s Sarah’s Song, which hits with ancestral weight. You hear chains, padlocks, echoes of a past not forgotten. It’s haunting, beautiful, and deeply personal. What Davis achieves here is rare. She sees through sound, and every moment of Black Thunder feels like a translation of that inner vision. This is not an album you play in the background; it demands attention, rewards presence, and leaves a lasting impression. Stream it, get the vinyl, and if you can, see it live. It’s the real thing. – WBS
Saul Williams meets Carlos Niño & Friends at TreePeople
Recorded beneath oak and black walnut trees in Coldwater Canyon Park, Saul Williams meets Carlos Niño & Friends at TreePeople feels less like a standard album and more like a sonic ritual. Williams delivers urgent spoken word steeped in anti-colonial and liberationist themes. At the same time, Niño curates a vibrant “space collage” of percussion, winds, vibraphone, and digital textures. The result is meditative yet fierce, an improvised performance that balances healing ambience with revolutionary energy. The opening track, ‘Sound then Words’, stretches over sixteen minutes, evolving from shimmering chimes and flute tones into hypnotic grooves as Williams chants ‘Land Back!’ with commanding resonance. It feels like a ceremonial call to awareness, both spiritual and political. ‘The Water is Rising / as we surpass the firing squad …,’ featuring poet Aja Monet, deepens the urgency, merging spoken reflections on climate catastrophe and survival with layered instrumentation that swells and recedes like tidal motion. This album isn’t background music; it’s an immersive experience, equal parts poetry, improvisation, and protest, grounded in nature and purpose. – WBS
Pino Palladino & Blake Mills – That Wasn’t A Dream
That Wasn’t A Dream finds two Grammy-winning masters deepening their collaborative chemistry into something quietly revolutionary. Following their acclaimed 2021 debut Notes With Attachments, Welsh bassist Palladino and American producer-guitarist Mills dissolve any sense of hierarchy through spontaneous compositions that balance organic restraint with precisely calibrated inner logic. Recorded over two months at Sound City’s legendary Studio A, this seven-track meditation rewards close listening with intricate beauty. Contour opens with Palladino’s Spanish nylon-string guitar work, immediately answered by Mills’ chord shifts and melodic developments. Taka showcases their kaleidoscopic funk with Chris Dave’s thunderous drumming, while Somnambulista hints at bossa nova through ethereal electronics. The album’s centrepiece, Heat Sink, spans fifteen minutes of exploratory brilliance, demonstrating their mastery of extended form without ever feeling indulgent. Mills’ innovative fretless baritone sustainer guitar, developed with luthier Duncan Price, adds undefinable woodwind-like textures throughout, most notably on What Is Wrong With You? That Was A Dream concludes with Hejira-influenced contemplation, completing a subversive yet naturalistic listening experience that harnesses chaos with intention. This is jazz-rock fusion for the streaming age, transcending categorisation through pure collaborative intuition. – IA
