Telephone Ex

Price Tony: Interview / Discount [Vinyl LP]

Portrait de l'Artiste, the second album from Gatineau's Album, feels far murkier and slipperier than their self-titled debut. Here, they intentionally embrace aspects of jazz, but contrary to expectation, this only makes their unclassifiable essence more apparent. Olivier Fairfield (FET NAT, Timber Timbre) and his co-conspirator Simone Provencher (VICTIME ) are well aware of how elusiveness can be wielded persuasively. Their inimitable sound is often a difficult one to describe.

Sharif Jairus: Water & Tools [Vinyl LP]

Badge Epoch: Furry Worried Ape (Midi Green) [Vinyl LP]

Badge Epoch: Furry Worried Ape [Vinyl LP]

Toronto-based octet Eucalyptus has been steadily gathering a devoted cult following since the release of their debut 10" in 2012. Led by acclaimed saxophonist and composer Brodie West, the band's languid, kaleidoscopic jazz is very much a collective endeavour, the product of an internal network of improvisational synergy they've built over more than a decade together. Topology Of Time & up Express Etc. is their seventh release, and somewhat of a milestone. In addition to it being the octet's most psychedelic and arrestingly soulful release thus far, it's also their longest-their first, in fact, to cross into bonafide full-length territory.

On November 3rd, Toronto's Badge Époque Ensemble return to Telephone Explosion Records with their new album Air, Light & Harmony. The release keeps up the jazz-funk group's torrid pace of releases for TER; A,L&H being their 6th LP release, and 4th proper album for the label since 2019. The release completes a trilogy of triptych-titled works, following 2019's Nature, Man & Woman, and 2021's Future, Past & Present. All 3 of these releases feature compositions which resample loops and stems from prior albums. Air, Light & Harmony takes this gambit further with in-house recycling of snippets from dusty LP copies of their own work (ala Portishead's famed approach) featured throughout to create warped and ambiguous moodscapes. This emphasis on texture is befitting of BÉE's only entirely instrumental album.