For Your Consideration
Music is always evolving, and this week’s picks show how powerfully artists reshape tradition. Julius Eastman’s Femenine pushes minimalism to its emotional extremes—hypnotic and untamed, a long-overdue reckoning with one of America’s most radical musical voices. Víkingur Ólafsson breathes new life into Goldberg Variations, approaching Bach with an improviser’s curiosity and a philosopher’s patience. And Makaya McCraven, ever the “beat scientist,” fuses past and present, reworking Blue Note jazz into something both rooted and alive. Individually, these albums reveal new dimensions of their traditions; together, they spark a conversation about legacy, reinvention, and the ever-evolving power of music.
Julius Eastman – Femenine
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube.
Julius Eastman’s Femenine is a slow-burning force—minimalism pushed to its ecstatic extremes. Composed in 1974 but only recently rediscovered, it unfolds in shimmering repetition, its cascading motifs stretching over an hour, growing into something both meditative and urgent.
Eastman, a radical presence in both music and identity, filled his work with raw intensity, rejecting the sterility often linked to minimalism in favor of something wilder, more alive. Femenine isn’t just an experiment in form—it’s a reclamation, a demand to be heard, its relentless energy hitting just as hard today as it did nearly fifty years ago.
Vikingur Ólafsson – J.S. Bach: Goldberg Variations
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube.
Víkingur Ólafsson’s Goldberg Variations is an exploration of clarity, curiosity, and quiet revelation. With a pianist’s precision and a storyteller’s instinct, he shapes Bach’s iconic variations into something fluid and deeply personal, balancing intricate structure with a sense of discovery. His touch is luminous, his phrasing effortless, allowing each variation to unfold with a natural, almost inevitable grace. Rather than imposing interpretation, Ólafsson lets Bach breathe, revealing the music’s endless capacity for reinvention—intimate yet expansive, familiar yet strikingly new.
Makaya McCraven – Deciphering the Message
Listen in full on Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube.
Makaya McCraven’s Deciphering the Message is a masterclass in sonic time travel, where past and present blur into a seamless groove. Reworking classic Blue Note recordings with his signature rhythmic fluidity, McCraven doesn’t just remix history—he reanimates it, weaving contemporary production into the DNA of mid-century jazz. The result is both reverent and radical, a living conversation between eras that feels effortless in its execution. Swing melts into head-nodding beats, solos stretch and reshape themselves, and the essence of these recordings—blues, bop, and beyond—feels as alive as ever.
Julius Eastman – Femenine
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube.
Julius Eastman’s Femenine is a slow-burning force—minimalism pushed to its ecstatic extremes. Composed in 1974 but only recently rediscovered, it unfolds in shimmering repetition, its cascading motifs stretching over an hour, growing into something both meditative and urgent.
Eastman, a radical presence in both music and identity, filled his work with raw intensity, rejecting the sterility often linked to minimalism in favor of something wilder, more alive. Femenine isn’t just an experiment in form—it’s a reclamation, a demand to be heard, its relentless energy hitting just as hard today as it did nearly fifty years ago.
Vikingur Ólafsson – J.S. Bach: Goldberg Variations
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube.
Víkingur Ólafsson’s Goldberg Variations is an exploration of clarity, curiosity, and quiet revelation. With a pianist’s precision and a storyteller’s instinct, he shapes Bach’s iconic variations into something fluid and deeply personal, balancing intricate structure with a sense of discovery. His touch is luminous, his phrasing effortless, allowing each variation to unfold with a natural, almost inevitable grace. Rather than imposing interpretation, Ólafsson lets Bach breathe, revealing the music’s endless capacity for reinvention—intimate yet expansive, familiar yet strikingly new.
Makaya McCraven – Deciphering the Message
Listen in full on Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube.
Makaya McCraven’s Deciphering the Message is a masterclass in sonic time travel, where past and present blur into a seamless groove. Reworking classic Blue Note recordings with his signature rhythmic fluidity, McCraven doesn’t just remix history—he reanimates it, weaving contemporary production into the DNA of mid-century jazz. The result is both reverent and radical, a living conversation between eras that feels effortless in its execution. Swing melts into head-nodding beats, solos stretch and reshape themselves, and the essence of these recordings—blues, bop, and beyond—feels as alive as ever.
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