Shay Hazan "When It Rains It Pours"
Bassist, composer and producer Shay Hazan returns with his third solo album, ‘When It Rains It Pours’, on Batov Records. Following the critical success of ‘Reclusive Ritual’ and ‘Wusul’ وصول, Hazan takes a bold step forward, shifting from the guimbri-led sound that established his reputation to a broader palette of bass, guitar, and synth-driven compositions.
Where his earlier work foregrounded the raw, earthy textures of Gnawa tradition, ‘When It Rains It Pours’ reflects Hazan’s evolution as a producer and multi-instrumentalist. Across eleven tracks, Hazan deepens his exploration of layered grooves, spiritual melodies, and experimental textures, resulting in his most expansive and personal statement to date.
The album’s title embodies Hazan’s experience of being tested by life when multiple challenges arrived at once – musically, personally, and physically. A painful period in which he was unable to play double bass or guimbri due to joint issues became the spark for rediscovering the electric bass, reconnecting him with an instrument he had set aside on personal projects for years. The record documents this transition, capturing the tension between struggle and renewal.
NOMON "Echoes of Breakage"
Echoes of Breakage is the debut album from New York’s NOMON, the sister duo of percussionists Shayna and Nava Dunkelman. Building on the deft collision of traditional Asian sounds, electronics, and contemporary percussion music established on the duo’s 2021 EP Card II, the new album captures dramatic artistic growth and sonic expansion. The duo’s deep roots in percussion music have been increasingly complimented by the seamless incorporation of electronics and long-form compositional ideas. They’ve arrived at a bracing marriage of past, present, and future, making sense of disparate individual musical practices. Echoes of Breakage boldly elides any sort of stylistic convention, instead tapping into instinct and careful listening to bring seemingly incongruous ideas together, whether it’s how gamelan-inspired breakdowns are subsumed by moody electronic soundscapes or the way they build slow-build dramatic tension through meticulously measured interaction where every gesture is carefully weighted.
Echoes of Breakage is a celebration of family that uses a wide assortment of tools, styles, and rhythms unbound by any single tradition, era, or aesthetic. In NOMON Shayna and Nava Dunkelman push one another and coalesce, trusting their guts to meld their ideas into richly unified pieces that don’t concern themselves with genre. Instead it delivers a perfect marriage of pleasure, rigor, and experimentation, rejecting any notion that such things are mutually exclusive.
Via "Via"
From Dromedary Records:
That’s a pretty big statement – he was, of course, referring to Thalia Zedek (Come, Live Skull, Uzi) and Jerry di Rienzo (Cell, Nuclear Theater). Of course I’d never heard of Via, but soon after, I had a folder of rough mixes emailed to me. And soon after that, I was sitting with Thalia and Jerry – again in Catskill – discussing releasing this music together.
Listening to it was like opening a time capsule – a group of 8-track recordings from 1987, before Come, before Cell, when these amazing musicians were just discovering themselves. The music was loud, aggressive, and actually ferocious in spots, these two brilliant guitar players coming into their own, with a rhythm section of James Apt and Adam Gaynor of the band Nuclear Theater and Phil Milstein of Uzi providing tape loops. I could instantly hear what Chris described to me months before.
Via splintered after playing just two shows – one in Boston, one in New York after the band members moved there to be closer to Thalia, whose work with Live Skull was becoming a more full-time endeavor. The only documents left by Via are these six songs, recorded in Jerry’s basement studio in Somerville, MA, along with one gig flyer and some lo-fi live cassette recordings.
Chris Brokaw, who wrote the liner notes to the album, states, “The music bears some cosmetic resemblances to Sonic Youth, but the songs are way more raw, primal, seething, coiled – inexorable. I still can’t get over it.”
We’re proud to introduce you to the music of Via.
-Al
Moriah Plaza "Própolis"
With effortless cool, Moriah Plaza blend Brazilian samba, cinematic Latin jazz and psychedelic 60s pop on new EP ‘Propolis’.
Moriah Plaza’s self-titled debut album, released on Batov Records in 2023, garnered critical acclaim and widespread airplay, across BBC Radio 6 Music and NTS in the UK, FIP in France, Bandcamp Weekly, and Apple Music, positioning the group as one to watch in the worlds of global pop and contemporary jazz.
‘Propolis’ EP picks up from the where the debut album left off, except now presenting more of a collaborative effort from the relatively settled Berlin-based group of Tamir Chen (bass) and Moosh Lahav (keys, flute), originally from Tel Aviv and formerly of the shoegaze band Soda Fabric, alongside Gretchen Schadebrodt (vocals, guitar) from Chile and Alice Moss (drums) from the UK.
Title track “Propolis”, co-written with Brazilian poet and singer Cecília Erisman, carries a joyful Brazilian tone, recalling Os Mutantes and Hermeto Pascoal with its bossa meets psych “la la la
la la” hook, flying flutes, and organ riffing.
“Dizendo” exudes the effortless cool of a Latin American cafe, cigarette and coffee at the ready. The laid back jazz organ, subtle Latin touches and Gretchen’s carefree vocals carry an irresistible charm.
“Besos en La Playa” takes the listener further across the continent into a more pronounced Latin jazz mode, with Spanish lyrics whispering romantic beachside tales.
The EP closes on the slow-building, “Dom Dom”, gradually blossoming into an epic vocal crescendo, drawing reflections of Stereolab and Zero 7. Alice Moss’ drumming and Moosh Lahav’s gentle flute provide the balance.
‘Propolis’ sees Moriah Plaza take strides into widening their influences and redefining their genre defying sound, and could very well appeal to fans of groups as seemingly disparate as Calexico and Khruangbin.