French TV’s latest CD, The Spanish Caper, is the 16th in their long history and their 2nd for Cuneiform. Disc One is new songs recorded in Spain featuring charter member bassist/composer Mike Sary, guitarist Kasumi Yoneda (also from the Japanese band TEE), long-time drummer Jeff Gard, plus members of the French band Mentat Routage (who […]

Researchers digitizing ancient cuneiform tablets at the University of Copenhagen uncovered records ranging from beer receipts to anti-witchcraft rituals, offering new insight into how early civilizations kept tabs on spirits.

Continue reading Ancient Tablets Describe Beer, Witchcraft, and Bureaucracy at The Wild Hunt.

Guitarist and composer Mike Johnson has co-led or led Denver-based avant-rock ensemble Thinking Plague since 1982. The band’s music has been roughly within the aesthetic orbit of Henry Cow and Art Bears, but with a distinct compositional bent. In that sense, it is arguably a more “American” sound based on tightly notated angularity, abrupt pivots, […]

Heat On is Lily Finnegan’s debut as a bandleader and composer. In fact, while this CD is credited to a band called Heat On, the quartet played several gigs under the name Lilly Finnegan Quartet before it took on its current moniker. Finnegan is an emerging presence on the Chicago scene. Since moving back here […]