Zihua Tan / No Hay Banda - What Came Before Me Is Going After Me [No Hay Discos]

Put out on the circuit via No Hay Discos on November 7th, 2k25 is "What Came Before Me Is Going After Me", the first ever collaboration album cooked up between Malaysian-born and Vancouver-based composer Zihua Tan and the prolific No Hay Banda outfit which brings two extended compositions to life over the courcse of 59 minutes. Opening with "Remnants Presents", a solo percussion piece executed by Noam Bierstone, we're taken into a realm reminiscent of electro-acoustic practices with its cold distant scraping and clanging metal sounds in parts accompanied by solemn and meditative, sustained and almost gong-like hits fading out into droning background atmospheres and therefore hits a special spot for us, providing a flashback to the experimental electronic x electroacoustic music we discovered in the mid 90s in all its spatial glory, filled with nerve-wrecking squeals and rasping, well unsettling outbursts. Furthermore the albums main and title piece, rolled out over more than 34 minutes, stays on a path of eerie, minimalist atmospheres and more quasi-electroacoustic scraping, whirling and non-tonal bowing abstractions, yet pairs this foundation with ethereal, well angelic non-vocalisms and harmonic outbursts, echoes of Post-PostRock abstractions, dark, klaxon'esque dronings and retrofuturist off-harmonics, sequences of quasi-white noize and - as a stark contrast - densely layered instrumentation which work their way up to an intense crescendo and infernal climax before slowly and errily fading away into unsettling mad- and nothingness. Highly recommended. We really dig this!

Album artwork on Instagram!

Noah Franche-Nolan - Rose-Anna [Cellar Music]

Released via the Vancouver-based label Cellar Music on November 7th, 2k25 is "Rose-Anna", the latest album release cooked up by piano player x composer Noah Franche-Nolan who, alongside Nicholas Bracewell and Jodi Proznick on drums and bass respectively, presents an eleven pieces and roughly 42 minutes spanning longplayer focusing on a distinct trio setting - and his piano. "Rose-Anna", titlewise a tribute to Franche-Nolan's great grandmother, sees the explorative Vancouverite not only deliver on his usual instrument of choice but also branching out towards classic organ sounds on two occasions, the first one being the droning nocturnal, yet all embracing opening piece "Sublimation I" which feels like an long forgotten echo of the Future Jazz movement blown over from afar whereas the subsequent "Nasz Dom" pays homage to playful etudes in Classical Music with its cascading piano sparkles later on backed by rather muscular Downtempo rhythms and "Hawks" weighs in a rather seductive mid-tempo Jazz groove for the first time this album, with its driving piano lines leaving plenty of room for a complex interplay between the backend drum and bass foundation. Furthermore "Prayer" opens on a surprisingly subdued, tentative and experimental note, offering an ever meandering take on stripped down KrautJazz for those who know and therefore considered a personal favorite for us, "Sublimation II" enters deeply caressing, thoughtful and even dreamy Piano Jazz territories followed by the rather dramatic "A Triangle Is A Bird" - which should be a t-shirt print, btw... - whilst the second to last piece that is "Devotion" is an inward-looking, solemn miniature affair just to name a few. Surely a Jazz album to share with loved one, preferrably in a candle-light setting.

Album artwork on Instagram!

Patrick Smith - Words Underlined [Lit Soc Records 001]

Put out on the circuit as cat.no. 001 of the freshly launched Lit Soc Records imprint, an offspring of the Toronto-based bookstore Sellers And Newell, on December 12th, 2k25 is "Words Underlined", the live in store-recorded album by sax player Patrick Smith who's accompanied by Dan Pitt on guitar and Lowell Whitty on drums. Within the stores intimate confines the trio caters an eleven pieces and roughly 40 minutes spanning session opening with the warm, dreamy, romantic and most of all comforting and all embracing "Hazel" which is as timeless as things can get before the subsequent double feature "Banff (Intro") / "Banff" seems to draw inspiration from raw Stoner x Math Rock as well as classic blaxploitation vibes - and chase scenes in old espionage flics... - with its ever spiralling sax lines, dirty guitar licks and muscular drums. Furthermore pieces like "As Years Go By (Intro)" / "As Years Go By" once again tap into the realm of super smooth late night Jazz with the subsequently following "End Of The Road" trodding a similar, yet even deeper and melancholia-driven path whilst the concluding "Grass In Summer" fully indulges in full on Jazz romanticisms once again just to name a few. Defo one to check for all live Jazz connaisseurs.

Album artwork on Instagram!

Anna Pidgorna - Invented Folksongs [Redshift Records]

Released via the ever active Canadian label Redshift Records on November 21st, 2k25 is "Invented Folksongs", the six compositions and 48 minutes spanning longplay debut by Vancouver-based and Ukraine-rooted vocalist x composer Anna Pidgorna who, with the help of Boston's Ludovica Ensemble, brings forward her own interpretation and take on Ukrainian Folk traditions, pairing the musics original elements with a stylistically broad mosaic of invented x improvised and scraped together dialects and vocalizations and her prior experience in Contemporary Classical and Modern Composition. Over the course of four extended songs and two instrumental pieces Pidgorna's vision oftentimes exceeds the Folk drawer by far, especially in the powerful, muscular and expressive opening piece "What Else Can Gave Him?" which feels closer to certain Rock x Metal genres than anything else despite being backed by a traditonal ensemble setting whereas "Teach Your Daughters" unfolds in a dynamic, ever spiralling and climactic way perfectly suitable for a theatrical or operatic stage performance whilst the "Second Meditation", despite being intrumental, once again touches base with a kind of muscular Avantgarde / Progressive Rock vibe rather than Folk just to name a few examples of what an Avantgarde-savvy audience might expect from this longplayer.

Album artwork on Instagram!

Quatuor Memoire - Chronos, Kairos Et Aion [Mnemosyne Records 001]

Put out on the circuit on December 12th, 2k25 as the very first release of the fresh Mnemosyne Records label is "Chronos, Kairos Et Aion" which marks the longform debut of Montreals Quatuor Memoire, a string quartet comprised of Bailey Wantuch, Meggie Lacombe, Marilou Lepage and Audreanne Filion. Taking on three contemporary pieces with a combined musical arsenal of two violins, a viola and a cello over roughly an hour of playtime the ensemble opens with Florence M. Tremblay's "Inside", a piece focusing on droning swells and oftentimes sustained, carefully layered off-harmonic interplays with a certainly melancholia-inducing overall character speaking not only to fans of Contemporary Avantgarde but also to an audience of Deep Listening Music connaisseurs before further progressing into dynamic, yet stripped down and purposefully accentuated Contemporay Classical territories, followed by Louis-Michel Tougas' "Quatuor A Cordes No.2", not only head and founder of Mnemosyne Records but provider of enchanted movements and playful, explorative interactions which have single instruments perform intricate little dances around each other before occasionally speaking in unison or almost falling silent for a moment. Finally we see the title piece "Chronos, Kairos Et Aion", a composition by Olivier St-Pierre, unfold over the course of 34 minutes, exploring the quartets full dynamic range, exploding with rather agressive strikes and stabs roughly 8 minutes in followed by fast, shrieking, yet highly detailed high frequency movements, tender inward looking episodes, rural tones and even occasionally plucked strings just to lay out a rough outline on this piece of Avantgarde Chamber Music for those who know.

Album artwork on Instagram!

Tim Brady - For Electric Guitar [People Places Records]

Released via the Canadian imprint People Places Records on November 14th, 2k25 is "For Electric Guitar", the latest album outing by long-standing Montreal-based composer x guitar player Tim Brady which also marks his first solo guitar work after more than a decade. Drawing from a remarkable experience after being on the scene for a staggering 40 - !!! - years Brady opens his extended 2CD outing with the title bearing triptych "For Electric Guitar" which explores the possibilities and range of his preferred instrument and FX pedals in a steady, yet comforting ebb and flow of harmonic variations, a steady dialogue between carefully struck chords, tender pluckings and dreamy twangs corresponding with complex and expertly executed fast lane variations and even riffing quasi Improv sequences which in parts might even speak to fans of Avantgarde Metal whereas other elements tell tales of a burning desert sun - or brooding, droning sci-fi dystopia. Subsequently the aptly named "Really, Really Solo Electric Guitar Music" serves exactly that, bringing forth a rather inward looking, yet not less intricate approach not shying away from the occasional twang and echoes of echoes of intimate and slightly Blues-infused vibes for those in the know. Furthermore the second half - and CD - of his longplayer caters a menu of eleven shorter pieces subsumed under the title of "9.75 Pieces About Change" which add an additional looper module to the proven combination of electric guitar and FX, allowing for denser layering and further eperimentation in the field resulting in hovering Deep Listening Music x Ambient cuts like "No. 2", the cascading waves and rather romantic closure of "No.5" as well as the icy, angelic atmospheres of "No.7" just to pick a few examples here. This makes "For Electric Guitar" a deeply multi-faceted longplayer for dedicated and well-informed fans of the genre as well as a strong proclamation of Brady's unbroken will to continue on his path of exploration even though he was confronted with a diagnosis of Parkinson's disease only a few weeks prior to working on this album - which therefore is a well worthy addition to well specialized collections for sure.

Album artwork on Instagram!

2k25 - A Short Recap In A Single Number.

797981. That's the number Blogger stats reveals for the total amount of visitors x views in the past 365 days. From January 1st, 2k25 to January 1st, 2k26. Despite a steadily, yet unfortunately declining number of incoming physical promos and therefore an unprecedentedly and unusually low number of posts on this website in combination with a bunch of admittedly distracting and rather severe adversities that need and needed to be adressed on other fronts of life it seems like these pages - after 21 years of continuously running as a simple no fuzz music blog in this format after we switched to English in April of 2005 and left the rudimentary CMS we ran on in the years prior behind - are still going strong and even exceeded the former mid-pandemic alltime high of activity marked by roughly 600k visitors x views in a 365 days period by far. This is way more than we ever dreamt of, given that nitestylez.de is still run as a fully independent one-man show by baze.djunkiii without a team of collaborating writers and editors, without any revenue generated from advertisements and, probably most importantly, without any further promotion apart from the occasional post on Twitter or Instagram. So we assume this number does reflect organic growth and interest and that's what we are most proud of, especially when taking into account the underground, leftfield and rather experimental nature of the music we're dealing with. So thank you all for coming back on a regular - we're looking forward to bigger and better things to come in 2k26.

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