Makaya McCraven - Universal Beings

This one's actually one of the better nu-jazz releases this year. A little bit of trip hop here, a bit of avant-garde jazz there; it really makes up for the Mansur Brown and Szun Waves albums.

Tommy Guerrero - Road to Knowhere

An interesting fusion of instrumental, Latin-tinged jazz rock and nu-jazz electronics. Takes a lot of influence from Guerrero's more recent downtempo works as well, making for a pretty groovy yet laidback album.

Sungazer - Sungazer Vol. 2

The second EP from nu jazz duo Sungazer, which consists of YouTubers Shawn Crowder (probably best known for his "Learning Japanese in a Year" series) and Adam Neely. I can't say I'm a fan of Neely's videos but this is a fairly cool release. Very heavy on the glitchy, syncopated dubstep-ish percussion and conventional fusion elements. It's super technical in a really unique way. 'Drunk' is a banger.

https://i.postimg.cc/tR8xfDnz/a4138537978-10.jpg

BYTY - 1EP

Interesting little debut EP from Polish act BYTY. Lackadaisical and hypnotic with splashes of trip-hop. '30.10' could have been trimmed down a minute or two imo but other than that pretty solid.

This actually comes from Warsaw-based netlabel Przesada, who've been releasing some pretty cool and interesting stuff since around May of last year. Check 'em out.

This was super enjoyable! My first experience with Neely, though I've heard his name thrown around a lot. I look forward to listening to more of their stuff.

The thing most memorable for me by Neely is when he talked about not liking Whiplash because it was a work of dramatic fiction and not a pinpoint accurate documentary on the type of music schools that he went to.

I watched that video and one of his points is that Buddy Rich can't be an idol of a college aged jazz drummer because he knows a college professor who says that he hears jazz majors talking about newer artists. Adam Neely treats trends and guidelines as law which leads him to a lot of really stupid conclusions.

You're like the K addict of this thread lol. Like this a lot ^

Well at least I post in the appropriate thread and add some content to my posts. I also encourage any discussion of the genre cause I love talking about it.

I thought the McCraven album was good but its main problem was its length.