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THE JW VIBE
Music That Sticks To My Soul
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D.L. HUGHLEY, Laughing With A Legend: DL Hughley in conversation with Septimus the Great
What does a comedy album sound like when the comedian isn’t simply performing jokes, but opening the door to the life, philosophy and cultural history behind them? That’s the intriguing premise of Laughing With A Legend: Conversations With Septimius The Great, a 14-track hybrid that finds comedy veteran D.L. Hughley looking back, looking around, taking stock, observing with his trademark raucous wit, obliterating the limits and, naturally, finding plenty to laugh about along
Jonathan Widran
4 days ago


RANDY GUITAR B, "Mr. B"
After decades of honing his craft in Houston clubs, leading The Collaboration Band, sharing licks with heroes like George Benson and Norman Brown, and balancing music with a long career as an electrician, Randy Guitar B is finally discovering what happens when he stops measuring himself against the greats and simply lets Randy Burns play. Following his soulful, brass fired debut “Joy and More Joy” and the intimate vocal ballad “It’s You,” the multi-talented artist’s latest si
Jonathan Widran
4 days ago


HARGUN KAUR & KIRTI VARSANI, Surrender (plus single "Chandaliyo"
There is something quietly radical about music that asks us to stop, breathe and release our grip on the outside world—and Surrender, the deeply immersive collaboration between vocalist Hargun Kaur and composer/music director Kirti Varsani, does so with remarkable grace while surrounding its devotional heart with richly impassioned contemporary sonics. Working together since 2014, the Punjabi-born Kaur and Gujarati composer Varsani bring distinct spiritual and musical traditi
Jonathan Widran
4 days ago


APRIL STACE, Aphelion
For harpist, composer, writer, Episcopal priest and professor April Stace, music has long existed at the intersection of spirituality, contemplation and discovery. On Aphelion, however, that intersection becomes a deeply personal landscape, as fourteen original compositions transform a period of divorce, an empty nest, solitude and a solitary journey through New Mexico into an expansive meditation on loss, uncertainty and the possibility of beginning again. Named for the poin
Jonathan Widran
4 days ago


THE SYMPHONINA FOUNDATION, Symphonina Stories: New Horizons
While a great symphony can transport us across centuries, continents and entire emotional landscapes, Symphonina Stories: New Horizons—an all-star compendium of contemporary composers assembled under the visionary umbrella of the Symphonina Foundation—opens that same expansive journey in an extraordinarily compact way, unfolding eight vividly imagined worlds in roughly ten minutes apiece. That is the fascinating premise behind this ambitious double album, which challenges eac
Jonathan Widran
5 days ago


FAWN IN THE GARDEN, "Find a Way"
What if the thing standing between you and the life you want is you? Sometimes the most transformative songs begin in that uncomfortable space between knowing you need to move forward and understanding exactly what’s keeping you still. That’s the driving tension at the heart of and fueling “Find A Way,” the hypnotic new single - from Fawn in the Garden, the empower-pop project of Los Angeles-based singer, songwriter, actor and multidisciplinary artist Sarah Rosenkrantz. Rosen
Jonathan Widran
7 days ago


TOM CIURCZAK: Rockin’ at The Edge of the World (Antarctica)
Tom Ciurczak has spent the better part of his musical life chasing the next story, the next character, the next unlikely place a song might take him. On his latest album Antarctica, however, the journey feels radically different. The rock-and-roll spirit is still there—restless, irreverent, occasionally reckless—but now it comes with a deeper awareness of what waits at the other end of the road: consequences, mortality, regret, isolation, failed relationships and the people w
Jonathan Widran
Oct 3


ALLY FIOLA & THE NEXT QUEST, Exit 10
Some homecomings are measured in miles, others in the distance between who we were and who we have become. On Exit 10, Nova Scotian saxophonist, composer and bandleader Ally Fiola turns her return to the Annapolis Valley after a decade in Halifax into a seven-track musical landscape where memory, place and reinvention collide in wonderfully unexpected ways. Rather than simply revisiting the sounds of her youth, Fiola takes familiar landmarks and gives them fresh rhythmic DNA,
Jonathan Widran
Oct 1
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