Art via Evan Solano
Chris Robinson is going to be MC Hammer Meets Vampire for Halloween.
The end of the year and its corresponding flood of obligatory âBest Ofâ lists is always a helpful time for readers to learn about music they missed, forgot about, or reevaluate records they initially reacted to as âmeh.â
These lists are particularly valuable for musicians who donât receive much pressâalthough with music journalismâs death rattles growing louder every year, most music that deserves coverage goes unnotedâand is especially so for avant garde music.
So now itâs my turn to get in the year-end list game and give some love to avant garde jazz(ish) albums. I make no claim to these being the best and I did not rank them. Aside from the obvious requirement that the album has to kill, there are only three rules for making this list:
1. It must be in the jazz, improvisation, and adjacent universe. Otherwise Iâd have a tough time figuring out how to rationalize including Fatboi Sharifâs Goth Girl on the Enterprise, Raven Chaconâs latest noise/electronic collaboration, and post-minimalism from Icelandic composer Hildur GuĂ°nadĂłttir on the same list as a bunch of weird jazz(ish) records.
2. Except for one or two exceptions, the music has to sound like nothing Iâve quite heard before. If it sounds like Pharoah Sanders could have recorded in 1967 and thereâs no new wrinkle to it, itâs not avant garde.
3. No more than one album per artist or per label so that I can spread the love.
Here, in the order that Iâve listened to them the most, are my favorite ten boundary-pushing gems from 2025.
As a connoisseur of the absurd, The Gateâs Almost Liveâreleased on digital download and cassette accompanied by a zine and YouTube documentaryâis one of my favorite three albums of the year, in any genre. Almost Live starts off with The Gate playing as a moderately weird tuba (Dan Peck), bass (Tom Blancarte), and drums (Brian Osborne) trio that uses a traditional free jazz recipe of a horn player blowing over a bass playerâs fevered strumming or bowing and a drummer doing their best Animal impersonation.
Things quickly become warped. Peck runs his tuba through a tangle of effects to unleash a monstrous morass of growls and horrifying yelps. It could be the soundtrack of a giant metal scrap pile slowly on its way to finding the spark of life. Throw in stretches that I swear contain samples stolen from my circuit-bent Barbie keyboard, a few moments of the Dune soundtrack if reimagined by Pharmakon, and some modular synth bleep bloops, and Almost Live becomes one of the wilder things Iâve ever heard. Itâs a nonstop thirty-five minute slab of what the fuck was that?
The cassetteâs b-side contains a bonus: a remix even more bent than the original. More of everything. More doom, more distortion, more metal, more glitched-out insurrectionary Sega Genesises (Genesii?) demanding their inalienable rights. And the cover art is gravy: The Gate blatantly copped the classical music label Deutsche Grammophonâs iconic logo and album design and crudely photoshopped an alien monster head over the face of a nameless violinist. Demented perfection.
Recommended if you like: feral robots; Sunn O))) but with a tuba; mild intellectual property theft
For the last thirty-ish years, Marshall Allen has led the Sun Ra Arkestra, which he has been a part of for most of his life. As a centenarian, he may not be up for international touring anymore, but his presence is felt whenever he takes the stage and through the legacy he has built both with the Arkestra and on his own. Recorded between 2022 and 2024, Live in Philadelphia was released this May on Allenâs 101st birthday. While New Dawnâreleased this Februaryâmay get the headlines for being Allenâs first album as a solo artist, Live in Philadelphia is by far the most exciting, experimental, and interplanetary of the two.
Arkestra guitarist DM Hotep helped organize the project, bringing on board, among others, the eminent bassist William Parker, tenor saxophonist James Brandon Lewis, drummer Chad Taylor, Wolf Eyes, a batĂĄ drum ensemble, and members from Yo La Tengo, Irreversible Entanglements, and The War on Drugs. The album contains 16 tracks, each with varied personnel and each finding a different sound and vibe. The range is wide: jumping swing, pulsing minimalistic crunchy synths, grinding slowcore, harsh electronics, burning post-bebop with a heavily delayed trumpet and brash tenor saxophone, spoken word over violin and percussion, 50s UFO synth swirls, Allen soloing to a driving fuzzed-out rock beat. Despite the variety, itâs all in the Allen/Sun Ra universeânew combinations of sounds and tones, poetry, the acoustic and the electric, the diasporic and the cosmic.
Itâs the history, spirit, and promise of Black musicâwhat Amiri Baraka called âthe changing same.â What has been, of course, but more importantly, what is and what could be. On the first track Allen recites a Sun Ra lyric: âIf we came from nowhere here, why canât we go somewhere, there?â A good question.
RIYL: travelling the spaceways; imagining things otherwise; four generations of cosmic dreamers
Anthony Braxton, who turned 80 this year, is one of the great avatars of avant-garde music in American history. A composer, philosopher, and virtuoso performer on just about every woodwind instrument, Braxton has touched nearly all corners of the experimental musical world: unruly operas, cheeky marches for wind ensemble, electronics, a composition for an army of tubas, a piece to be played simultaneously by two orchestras located on different planets, and even one where the performer uses an amplified shovel to move a pile of coal. At the same time heâs made numerous albums of jazz standards dedicated to figures like Charlie Parker. Given his enormous stature and endless output, itâs only fitting that several ensembles have made albums of his music.
Saxophonist and composer Steve Lehman is the latest to pay tribute to the master. Lehman and his bandâtenor saxophonist Mark Turner (who is one of the unlikeliest saxophonists I would have thought to appear on a Braxton repertoire album), bassist Matt Brewer, and drummer Damion Reidâcharge through seven Braxton compositions, Thelonious Monkâs âTrinkle, Tinkle,â and two Lehman originals. Recorded live in Los Angeles, this album hits from the first downbeat and keeps on hitting like Hagler and Hearns.
The quirky â34aââa fast waltz if you could call it a waltzâopens the album with angular lines and skip-step stops and starts. Brewer and Reid thump through â23câ as the saxophonists strut and snarl. â23b + 23gâ finds the saxophonists trying to nimbly outsprint each other. Lehman and Turner close proceedings with an abstract Braxtonian duo interpretation of Monkâs classic that transforms into a hard swinging quartet version. An album worthy of its inspiration.
RIYL: gateway drugs; thoroughbreds that jump straight out of the gate; a good hit of unexpected static electricity
When I bought this on LP I didnât even know if I liked the music, at all. I had stumbled on it while browsing the Constellation Records Bandcamp page and I just knew everything about the album spoke to meâthe strange title and band name, the compelling artwork. The Dwarfs of East Agouza (Sam Shalabi, electric guitar; Maruice Louca, keyboards, beats, electronics; and Alan Bishop, alto sax, acoustic guitar, vocals) play a strange amalgamation of electronica, psychedelic avant rock, and jazz fusionâkind of. The scales, rhythms, and percussion give the whole album a Middle Eastern flavor.
âSwollen Thanklesâ and âSaber Tooth Millipedeâ (the song titles are their own trip) are both built on circular, disjointed grooves. Shalabiâs over-caffeinated guitar is spikey and angular. The âbeatsâ that Louca is credited with must be the various tablas and other hand drums that appear throughout. The trioâs defiance of convention and original mix of inspirations and sounds makes Sasquatch Landslide an irresistible listen that confounds me in a new way every time I listen to it.
RIYL: taking a shot of liquor of unknown origins and hoping for the best; watching Anthony Bourdain get lost in the bazaars of Tangiers
Classically trained cellist Lori Goldstonâs numerous credits include work with Nirvana and drone metal innovators Earth. On her Bandcamp page she describes herself as ârigorously de-trainedâ and possessing a ârestless, semi-feral spirit.â This semi-feral spirit runs throughout her latest solo album, which she recorded in one continuous take. With just her cello and a distortion pedal, Goldston laid down a heavy seventy-plus minute drone that is as crunchy and fuzzed-out as it is wide open and inviting. Her unceasing and enormous sound shifts as she changes and bends notes, switches between playing single and multiple strings, and lets the distortion twist her rich cello into a deep throated yowling beast. I first played this on my shitty computer speakers at medium volume. Even then it was enough to shake the walls.
RIYL: pushing the needle into the red; testing the structural integrity of your apartment
Bassist Thomas Morganâs Around You Is a Forest is a captivating meeting between machine and man. Morgan, who has been interested in computers and coding since he was a child, used coding languages to create a new virtual instrument in the Supercollider softwareâan open source program that electronic and computer music composers, including Anthony Braxton, have been using for decades.
For people with serious coding chops, Supercollider provides endless sonic possibilities. Morgan calls the instrument WOODS, which sounds like an acoustic plucked string instrument that lies sonically somewhere between the harp, ngoni, kora, and koto. It almost sounds natural, but the complexity and rapidity of the lines it plays suggest its full potential may lie just beyond human capability. While WOODS improvised, Morgan reacted to it and edited its code in real time. After editing and finishing the individual WOODS tracks Morgan invited several musicians ranging from avant garde legend Henry Threadgill to more mainstream jazz rising stars to record a duet with the material. In a minimalist fashion, WOODS tends to repeat and mutate short phrases over time, which gives its human partners a somewhat predictable grounding or familiarity to play with.
The nine tracks vary greatly. Synthesist and pianist Craig Taborn took WOODS into the world of Blade Runner, while drummer Gerald Cleaver had a spacious and open ended discussion with the instrument. Alto saxophonist Immanuel Wilkinsâs overdubbed mix of bird calls and balladic melodies wound their ways in and out of WOODSâs attempts to run him down. Electronic and computer music can often be cold and impersonal. Not here. WOODS doesnât necessarily âsoundâ electronic and it wouldnât surprise me if people assumed a person was playing it. On Frisellâs duet I sometimes lose track of what/who is doing what. The programming of WOODS is a triumph on its own. That Morgan was able to use it so musically and his collaborators could play along with it to create distinct and inventive works make Around You Is a Forest all the more special.
RIYL: embracing the more-than-human; the idea of coding but having someone else do it
Recorded at the 1981 Jazzfestival Zurich and available now for the first time, IrĂšneâs Hot Four is a summit meeting between four distinguished free jazz heads of state. A lot of European free jazz might get a bad rep, although sometimes deservedly so, for a âgrip it and rip itâ approach where the band dials up the wailing, bashing, and banging to 11 and keeps it there. Swiss pianist Irene Schweitzer, Dutch drummer Han Bennink, German saxophonist RĂŒdiger Carl, and South African by way of England bassist Johnny Dyani take a different approach.
Over three long romping tracks and a spirited encore, the quartet creates new scenes and vignettes each with their own story. There might be a duet between Carl and Bennink that quickly moves into a wild manic ride with just the rhythm section. Or Schweitzer, who passed away last year, might play the inside of the piano. Sure thereâs some bombast and wild abandon, but thereâs playful absurdity, melodicism, and moments of quiet as well. Carl swaps out his saxophone for accordion here and there to change the entire group sound, often leading into good natured parody and farce.
Twisted oom-pah bass and polka? Yes please. Bennink can be the worldâs loudest or softest drummer, and there isnât anything he wonât try to get away with. The voice on the megaphone on âAll Inclusiveââthatâs his. There is a sense of joy throughout the concert, as the Hot Four never seem to run out of ideas or the technique, energy, and musicianship to pull them off. Every moment is fresh and inspired. To me, this set demonstrates the height of free improvisationâEuropean or otherwise.
RIYL: All-Star games; a shit-hot good time
So a poet reading their work accompanied by a jazz musician, maybe a cheesy saxophonist or some Beatnik hipster on a set of bongos, is a terrible cliche. But thereâs a great tradition of poets and musicians hooking up to create something special. Revision is one of those something specials. It features Brandon Lopez, who is one of the great young bass players, and MacArthur genius Fred Moten, who in addition to being a poet is one of todayâs eminent philosophers and critics. Moten is at home explaining Immanuel Kantâs Critique of Judgment as he is writing about contemporary art or Curtis Mayfield.
I have the same experience listening to Motenâs poetry as I do listening to billy woods. His work is immediately heavy and affecting. I get some references, I know that I miss others, and I just want to hear it again and again until I start to put my own picture of the sound and words together. Moten is an astonishing reader of his work. He has a soft, careful, and deliberate delivery. The rhythm of his words and lines is inherently musical. He speaks to the Black experience, music, colonialism and slavery, love, thought, dance, prayerâthe contractions, pains, and pleasures of what it means to be alive. He is both vernacular and intellectual, erudite and on occasion, crude. The penultimate track, â#11â is a stunning swirl of words and bass, multiple meanings and multiple utterances, linguistic misdirection and redirection. Meanwhile, Lopezâs accompaniment is just right. Whether turning his bass into a hand drum, strumming chords, or letting individual notes linger, he provides a strong foundation for Motenâs words. Together, Lopez and Moten have made an albumâalso in the way that billy woods doesâthat is almost impossible to not keep going back to.
RIYL: the mystery and magic of language; figuring out how the pieces go together
Disquiet is the 20th album from the legendary Australian trio The Necks. Pianist Chris Abrahams, bassist Lloyd Swanton, and drummer Tony Buck have been making nearly uncategorizable music together since 1987. One of the trioâs signatures is its open ended, long form improvisations. On this album the band goes long. Really long. Like three discs that run over three hours long. Each of the first two discs is a single track while the third is split into two cuts.
The Necksâ music is generally long, slow, and if not quiet, then subtle, as it evolves over geologic time. Disc one (âRapid Eye Movementâ) is full of shimmering and repeating organ drone tones. Bass notes and light cymbal crashes ring out in a reverberating sky and then repeat again, and again, somehow staying weightlessly aloft. Disc two (âGhost Netâ) starts faster, louder, and thicker than the rest of the album The busy polyrhythmic drums work against the piano and bass to create slight tension.
As time goes on that tension is worked out as Abrahamsâs organ and piano take a dominant role that converts Buck from the bandâs provocateur to its engine. Disc threeâs âCausewayâ begins with quiet ambience and by the middle it is about as full throttle as The Necks get, with Abrahams going full church organ playing over Buckâs pulsing drums. âWarm Running Sunlightâ sounds just like its name. The Necks have a great ability to alter the listenerâs perception of time, sound, and space. While the bandâs indebtedness to the minimalism of people like Terry Riley or Harold Buddâs ambient compositions is apparent, its music is wholly original. Disquiet is as good an album as any to get into The Necks.
RIYL: turning off the world; melting into the couch
The label Balance Point Acoustics has a high enough batting average that each year several of its releases could be up for consideration for many peopleâs year end list. Recorded in 2004, Wheat Fields of Kleylehof happens to be my favorite recording from the labelâs batch of 2025 albums. The since deceased alto saxophonist Marco Eneidi was joined by trumpeter Darren Johnston, guitarist John Finkbeiner, bassist Damon Smith, and drummer Vijay Anderson. The Eneidi Quintetâs vocabulary is steeped in the languages of people like Ornette Coleman and Eneidiâs huge alto saxophone growls and yawps come straight from Pharoah Sanders and Albert Ayler. What makes this recording special is the energy and commitment with which the group plays. These traits are evident in âPart 1â and âPart 4,â each of which snap and crackle with electricity while having that loose exuberance that Ornette pioneered. The quintet demonstrates the breadth of its vocabulary in other ways. âPart 2â is based on a long drone that Eneidi lets sit for quite some time before jumping in with wails and fractured cries.
A common aesthetic approach across many of Balance Point Acoustics releases is an embrace of soft and quiet utterances that are just loud enough to be heard. Here the quintet looks for the fissures and the in between spaces to place a chirp, a squeak, a muted trumpet gurgle, or a pulsing and firm but barely there bass line. Aside from the spirited and impeccable ensemble playing, what comes through most in this album is Eneidiâs raw charisma as a player as well as the sadness that he, along with the more recently deceased Finkbeiner, are both no longer with us.
RIYL: building on what came before; tributes to lost friends
Also worthy: Fieldwork, Thereupon; Brandon Lopez, Nada Sagrada; Elias Stemseder/Christian Lillinger, Umbra III; Myra Melford/Michael Formanek/Ches Smith, Splash; Peter Evansâs Being and Becoming, Ars Ludica; Tomas Fujiwara, Dream Up; Saul Williams meets Carlos Niño and Friends at TreePeople; WRENS, Half of What You See; Mary Halvorson, About Ghosts
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