D. Mawl is already back with a new mixtape and single. His style of hip-hop is vastly under-represented nowadays. It’s “conscious” without wearing that label as a marketing tool.

Saxophonist Billy Harper is the leader on the second volume of the Blueprints of Jazz series.

Springsteen’s fans have always wondered what would happen if he and his band cut loose a little more.

Volcano Suns was started by Peter Prescott, drummer for (late, great and now reformed) Mission of Burma.

Death [deth]: n. Proto-punk trio from Detroit comprised of African-American brothers David, Bobby and Dannis Hackney, formed in 1971.

Bottom line: Good but not excellent, familiar but not memorable. As the ringleader of New Pornographers, one would (rightly) expect a bit more from A.C. (or Allan Carl, as his mother calls him).

I’m on the record about Ohio: I don’t like going there, I don’t like to watch OSU play and I definitely don’t like 98 Degrees (Cincy natives, the lot).

Drummer Mike Clark caught the attention of drummers when he played with Herbie Hancock’s Headhunters on Thrust. His hyper-syncopated funk set new standards.

From the moment that “Fear and Loathing in Mahwah, NJ” mutates from lo-fi murk to a pounding, wall-of-noise sea chantey, Titus Andronicus make their intentions clear.

Jim Hall, a grand master of mainstream jazz guitar who has always maintained a sense of adventure, and Bill Frisell, who integrates digital loops with rustic Americana, have joined forces for a sup