Live/Compilations / Reissues
And finally, this additional selection of Live, Reissues and Compilations completes my Best of 2025.
Fuubutsushi – Columbia Deluxe (Live) (American Dreams)
Born from the isolation of the pandemic, the ambient-jazz quartet Fuubutsushi (Patrick Shiroishi, Chris Jusell, Chaz Prymek, Matthew Sage) released a prolific string of remote recordings without ever meeting. Columbia Deluxe documents their first and only live performance, capturing a “new-found wildness” as their material evolves beyond its studio constraints.
Tracks like Bolted Orange expand from brief haikus into ten-minute improvisations, blending “Reichian minimalism” with devotional chants. Whether incorporating testimonies from Japanese American WWII prison camps on Loop Trails or the pastoral reverie of Shepherd’s Stroll, the group sounds simultaneously like strangers and lifelong collaborators. Beautiful and increasingly complex, this record is a celebration of human interaction, proving that music formed in isolation can bloom spectacularly on stage.
Setting – at Public Records (Self Released)
Instrumental drone trio Setting—comprising Nathan Bowles, Jaime Fennelly, and Joseph Westerlund—captures a darker, more urgent energy on their live album, at Public Records. Recorded in Brooklyn, this set serves as a vital sibling piece to their at Eulogy release, showcasing their telepathic blend of drones and complex rhythms.
The performance moves from edgy beginnings, combining eerie beeps and insidious drones with a super cool, penetrating drum part in the opening section. The subsequent tracks explore different poles: II builds a ramshackle, euphoric groove over bright drones, while III introduces a loved rustic, acoustic character via Bowles’s strange, spidery banjo playing. Culminating in the dark, rumbling soundscape of IV, the album is an intense and accomplished final piece of a live trilogy.
Saul Williams meets Carlos Niño & Friends at TreePeople (International Anthem)
Recorded live at LA’s Coldwater Canyon Park, Saul Williams meets Carlos Niño & Friends at TreePeople is less a traditional album and more a “sound ceremony” released by International Anthem. The conceptual document fuses spiritual jazz, poetry, activism, and New Age music to celebrate place and community.
Williams, a genre-hopping creative, and Niño, a prolific percussionist/producer, are joined by Kamasi Washington and others. The four long, improvised pieces find music and poetry existing symbiotically. Williams’ intense, rhythmic delivery confronts colonialism, the climate crisis, and racial inequality, appealing to spiritual power. From the percussive hum of Sounds Then Words to the climactic collaboration with poet aja monet on The Water is Rising…, this is an eloquent, angry, and groundbreaking work that delivers a fierce, hopeful message for a revolutionary future.
Goblin Band – A Loaf of Wax (Live from MOTH Club) (Broadside Hacks Recordings)
Goblin Band are at the forefront of London’s thriving experimental folk scene, a movement defined by inclusivity and cross-pollination. On their debut, A Loaf of Wax, recorded entirely live at Hackney’s MOTH Club, the quartet (featuring hurdy-gurdy, pump organ, and recorders) channels a fierce DIY ethos, treating the band as a radical queer space.
The performance is electric, moving from the frenzied folk-punk instrumental Goblin Theme to the camp, macabre glee of The Worms. Blending medieval influences with a distinct punk spirit, the group masters kinetic energy and momentum. A Loaf of Wax is more than just a concert recording; it is a stirring celebration of shared space and companionship, marking a spectacular arrival for these “best of all possible companions.”
Various – Imaginational Anthem vol. XIV : Ireland (Tompkins Square)
Curated by Cian Nugent, Imaginational Anthem vol. XIV: Ireland showcases the unassuming yet diverse instrumental acoustic guitar talent flourishing across Ireland. This Tompkins Square compilation is marked by modesty and purity, presenting many tunes as miniatures that deliver a melody in its clearest form.
Nugent’s own contribution, the finely nuanced traditional tune I am Asleep and do not Wake Me, sets an intimate tone. Highlights include Caoimhe Hopkinson’s lament, Jamieson’s Favourite, and NC Lawlor’s beautifully sad original, Laurie Rose. Guitarist Aonghus McEvoy stretches the boundaries on the nearly five-minute Cry, Want, channelling an edgier, improvisational spirit akin to Marc Ribot. The set, bookended by David Murphy’s hazy pedal steel and Sean Carpio’s languid electric guitar, is a quietly exciting testament to the acoustic guitar’s versatility.
The Ancients (Isaiah Collier, William Hooker, William Parker) – The Ancients (eremite records)
Released on Eremite, The Ancients features a formidable multi-generational free jazz trio: young firebrand saxophonist Isaiah Collier alongside legends William Parker (bass) and William Hooker (drums). Comprising four side-length improvisations recorded live in California, the album captures a group originally formed for a Milford Graves exhibition.
The chemistry is explosive. Tracks evolve from a “low hum” into a “life-threatening comet” of sound, with Parker and Hooker’s primal rhythms driving Collier’s sledgehammer sax lines. Evoking the intensity of the Cecil Taylor Unit, this is challenging, cacophonous music that retains a solid structural core. It is a thrilling, gravity-defying debut for those willing to explore the outer limits of jazz.
Shane Parish – Solo at Cafe OTO (Red Eft Records)
Guitar adventurer Shane Parish switches from acoustic standards to electric re-imaginings on Solo at Cafe OTO, recorded live while touring with the Bill Orcutt Quartet. Playing a Telecaster, Parish tackles ballads by artists like Anne Briggs, Shirley Collins, and David Lynch, imbuing each track with his signature technique and expansive style.
Unlike his short Repertoire instrumentals, these six tracks are lengthy explorations. The final song, the John Jacob Niles number I’m Goin’ Away, takes its rhythm at leisure before introducing gnarlier bends and anxiety-inducing sharps. The David Lynch and Angelo Badalamenti piece Sycamore Trees is particularly wild, featuring the jagged edges akin to the Bill Orcutt Quartet’s looser numbers. The original compositions are pleasingly obscured, giving the music a great sense of freedom.
Lunatraktors – Quilting Points: Invitations and Open Calls 2019–2025
Lunatraktors (Clair Le Couteur and Carli Jefferson) delve into their archives for Quilting Points, a mesmerising collection of “broken folk” collages born from artistic collaborations, museum commissions, and open calls. The album brilliantly fuses fractured traditional song with innovative sound art.
The duo’s range is vast, from the brooding, cavernous echoing of Diffraction Pattern, which incorporates a Turner Prize performance, to Larentalia, a dark invocation blending haunting woodwind with an ancient Roman chant. The powerful live recording Now The Time tackles LGBTQ+ repression, while Museum Studies (Queen Street Mill) utilises clog dance and overtone singing over a drone. Whether reinterpreting an 1885 music hall classic (The Boy I Love) or conjuring pagan ritual (The Hoard), Lunatraktors craft a marvellously inventive and utterly idiosyncratic body of work.
Bob Dylan – Through The Open Window: The Bootleg Series Vol 18 (1956-1963) (Columbia Records)
Through The Open Window is an “indispensable” excavation of Bob Dylan’s formative years, spanning his first recording as a 15-year-old in 1956 through the height of his folk protest era. This eight-disc set exhaustively documents the period when Dylan found his voice and evolved from a Woody Guthrie disciple into the world’s most potent protest writer.
The collection features essential archival jewels, including the complete, committed Carnegie Hall concert from October 1963, rare live tapes from Gerdes Folk City, and session outtakes revealing his masterful harmonica work with Carolyn Hester and Harry Belafonte. From a ramshackle Let The Good Times Roll to an “more than passable Elvis styling” on That’s All Right, this meticulously crafted volume is the definitive artefact for exploring Dylan’s crucial early period.
Alick Nkhata – Radio Lusaka (Mississippi Records)
Mississippi Records’ compilation, Radio Lusaka, provides long-overdue focus on Alick Nkhata (1922–1978), a pivotal Zambian singer, scholar, and freedom fighter. Nkhata’s life bridged the colonial era and independence, crafting a sound that became the voice of a rising nation.
Fluent in several languages, Nkhata synthesised traditional Bemba idioms with global styles—from South African jazz to American country & western, honed while serving in the King’s African Rifles. Working at the colonial-controlled Central African Broadcasting Service (CABS), he blended urban dance rhythms with village songs, subtly promoting nationalism. Exemplified by the lead single Nafwaya Fwaya and its “impossibly tight vocal harmonies,” the album showcases his masterful fusion of influences, creating harmony from conflict and grounding a people during intense transformation.
More to come…