David Arkenstone turns a character theme into something far more universal on “Carry Us Through,” transforming the delicate instrumental “Through the Darkness (Lavender’s Theme)” from his Dungeon Masters Official Soundtrack into a stirring orchestral ballad about friendship, perseverance and the people who help us keep moving when the road gets difficult. Featuring Nashville singer-songwriter Mokita and the Budapest Scoring Orchestra, it has the sweep of a fantasy adventure b

A fantasy adventure can begin with a brass fanfare, a pounding heartbeat, the distant sound of footsteps—or something much quieter: a flute hovering over a few shimmering notes while the listener wonders what might be waiting just beyond the next door. On Dungeon Masters, David Arkenstone understands and embraces all of these possibilities. Across 47 tracks, he creates an expansive sonic realm where heroic orchestral grandeur, Celtic folk intimacy, shadowy electronics, tribal

Some music seems to capture our senses already illuminated. A note appears, catches the ear at an unexpected angle, changes color, disappears into shadow, then returns transformed. That is the sensation at the heart of Strange Lights, the remarkably vivid new Neuma Records collaboration between saxophonist Susan Fancher and pianist Ināra Zandmane. Named for the atmospheric phenomena—auroras, sundogs, coronas and eclipses—that can make an ordinary landscape suddenly seem other

How many lives can one instrument have? Across the 52 tracks and roughly ten hours of The Jin Hi Kim Collection, the Korean-American composer and komungo virtuoso Jin Hi Kim keeps answering that question by refusing to give the instrument a final identity. The ancient Korean zither can sound earthy and intimate, percussive and muscular, meditative and otherworldly, then suddenly transformed by electronics into something that seems to have arrived from another dimension. Spann

What happens when a trumpet enters into conversation with a machine that refuses to behave? On Return to Sender, Ann Arbor-based composer, trumpeter, improviser and electronicist Mark Kirschenmann answers that question by turning a no-input mixer into something considerably more unpredictable than a piece of studio equipment. With its outputs patched back into its own inputs, the mixer generates self-oscillating tones, drones, pulses and bursts of feedback, becoming an electr

Few contemporary artists move as effortlessly between musical worlds as Judith Owen. Over the course of a career that has found her embracing jazz, blues, pop, cabaret, theater and deeply personal songwriting, the Welsh-born vocalist, pianist and storyteller’s trademark has chased curiosity rather than follow convention, allowing each new project to reveal another dimension of her ever-evolving creative identity. While the music industry has long favored artists who fit neatl

Thirty-four years after 2002 first invited listeners to spread their wings, Randy and Pamela Copus and their daughter Sarah return to the place where their extraordinary musical journey began—not to recreate the past, but to discover what those wings mean now. On Wings III – Ambient Bliss, the multi-talented trio transforms the familiar idea of flight into something far more inward and elemental: a state of weightlessness where piano notes drift through clouds of sound, dista

Earthy, soulful and gloriously lived-in, Brightland Shines sounds like the work of an artist who spent years listening from the sidelines before finally stepping into the center of his own musical story. On his debut solo album, Southern California-based keyboardist, percussionist and singer-songwriter Paul Totten draws from blues-rock, Americana, soul, folk and vintage rock textures, delivering ten songs that feel both seasoned and immediate. His raspy, expressive voice carr

There’s something wonderfully restless about American Cosmic Revival Vol. 2: Miles From Nowhere, the latest chapter in Christian Parker and Patrick Cleary’s loving exploration of Cosmic American Music. Where 2025’s Back At Home centered on the International Submarine Band, this 12-track sequel follows a more winding road, gathering songs associated with Gram Parsons, Gene Clark, the Everly Brothers, Bob Dylan, Merle Haggard and even the Rolling Stones. Despite the wide-rangin

There is a restless, back-porch spirit running through Arlen Roth’s Blues Grass, an album where bluegrass, blues, country, gospel and Americana don’t merely coexist—they converse, collide and occasionally kick up their heels together. Roth, the celebrated guitarist long associated with electric guitar mastery, approaches this 12-track collection with an instinctive respect for the songs and traditions while giving them enough rhythmic snap, slide-guitar fire and bluesy attitu

After more than 25 years of making other artists sound great, guitarist, producer and longtime session ace Ricky Z finally turns the spotlight fully on himself with Back to the Truth, a muscular, deeply rooted blues-rock collection that sounds less like a career detour than a long-overdue homecoming. Across these ten tracks, Ricky draws from a wonderfully unruly sonic palette—swamp blues, rock ’n’ roll, Americana, Cajun/zydeco, gospel and flashes of jazz—while bringing along

A deep abiding curiosity about his own origins has taken Matt B farther than he ever imagined, and in 2020, he set out to find answers to two deeply personal questions: Who am I, and where do I come from? On ALKEBULAN III: The Water Remembers—the culmination of an extraordinary trilogy of his deeply personal African-inspired musical journey—he arrives at an answer that is at once intimate, ancestral and universal. What began with an AncestryDNA test and a longing to understan