Staff Picks for September 2025

An inspired union between two innovative, understated guitarists, Lost Futures combines Marisa Anderson's textural playing with William Tyler's bucolic melodicism, resulting in a revelatory collaboration.
- Timothy Monger

Minstrel in the Gallery, released 50 years ago this month, was Tull's most artistically successful and elaborately produced album since Thick as a Brick and harked back to that album with the inclusion of a 17-minute extended piece ("Baker Street Muse"). Although English folk elements abound, this is really a hard rock showcase on a par with -- and perhaps even more aggressive than -- anything on Aqualung.
- Bruce Eder

The Midwest indie rock scene lost drummer Jim Kimball recently, and though his stints in Laughing Hyenas and The Jesus Lizard were remarkable, he never felt as purely fierce and menacing as he did on this album. The brainchild of sly backwoods cityboy P.W. Long, Mule was a sonic gut punch fueled by snarling guitar riffs and Long's country drawl, with the rhythm section holding down a heavy flatbed underneath it. The opening growl of "Mississippi Breaks" kicks off the album and it rarely slows after that.
- Zac Johnson

In a city that produced some of the most party-starting music of the 1950s and '60s, Huey "Piano" Smith cut tunes that could spread joy in record time, and hits like "Don't You Just Know It," "High Blood Pressure," and "Rockin' Pneumonia and the Boogie Woogie Flu" still delight decades after the fact. This is a superior single-disc collection of his hits and near-misses, boasting 18 New Orleans classics.
- Mark Deming

Expanding on the double-CD singles collection put out by Evidence in the '90s, this triple-CD set is a more definitive selection of Sun Ra's singles, ranging from early doo wop and rhythm & blues tunes to bugged-out Christmas carols and the infamous "Nuclear War." Essential.
- Paul Simpson

Black Fire, Andrew Hill's debut record for Blue Note, was an impressive statement of purpose that retains much of its power six decades after its initial release. Hill's music is quite original, building from a hard bop foundation and moving into uncharted harmonic and rhythmic territory. Hill's complex chording is thoroughly impressive, and Joe Henderson's bold solos are more adventurous than his previous bop outings would have suggested.
- Stephen Thomas Erlewine