To understand the profound depth of Amana Melome's new album, "Recalibration", one must first appreciate the legacy she carries. As the granddaughter of Jimmy Woode, the legendary bassist who was the youngest member of Duke Ellington's orchestra and who performed alongside icons like Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald, Melome' is heir to a monumental tradition in American music. Her latest work is not a simple continuation...

A record can move fast without chasing the obvious route. “EMA”, Sienná’s nine-track experimental electronic album, begins from that possibility. The Kyoto-born, Oslo-based artist builds its premise around ema, the Japanese tool used to communicate directly with the divine. From there, she turns images and impressions gathered in nature into songs. It is a high-concept frame, but it lands because the concept asks a practical question:...