A Song For Friday: Untethered
Wild electronic jazz from Paul Giess & Co. Also: ShitKid, Cootie Catcher, Sibyl, Mitski, GENA, Molto Ohm, A-Sun Amissa & Lauren Mason, Kent Watari, Robert Humber, Sarah Kirkland Snider, and more!
Trumpeter, composer, and electronic wiz Paul Giess dropped into my inbox last year and caught my attention by dropping the name G. Calvin Weston, a phenomenal drummer who’s worked with Ornette Coleman, Jamaaladeen Tacuma, Tricky, and many others over the years. The album Giess was sharing was called Grasping For The Moon by a quintet he called Untethered, and it turned out to be a wild ride indeed, with furious group interaction and a great sense of humor. I shared it on my podcast, and it will someday appear in my Best of 2025: Jazz, Latin, and Global.
Today, there was no email from Paul, but my Bandcamp inbox turned up a new Untethered release called Phronesis. This time they’re operating as a trio, with Giess only joined by Weston and bass player Timothy Ragsdale. But that just means there’s more room for everyone to go mad in their own way, especially Weston, who plays as a man possessed, often shouting and growling as he digs himself out of one rhythmic cul-de-sac or another. Giess plays as much synth as trumpet, creating otherworldly textures that give the album a futuristic flair.
Fortune Favors The Bold is one of the wildest tracks here, beginning with squishy video-game synth, fractured bass, and drums that are first here, then there. But zero soon becomes 60, then 120, as the song gains more and more momentum, with the speed and precision of Weston’s cymbal and snare work only equalled by the fierceness of his vocalizations. Giess digs deep on his synth to match Weston’s energy while Ragsdale jogs alongside them like a happy puppy. It’s all over in 4:33, just one example of the admirable concision of their approach. Be bold and listen, and you will feel fortune’s favor one hundredfold.
Listen to all the songs for Friday here or below.
Other Recent Releases
ShitKid - The Essential (Vol. 1) (PNKSLM) As teased here, this collection of Åsa Söderqvist’s most rockin’ tunes as ShitKid is out now. Throughout the album, she demonstrates that as long as your bass is fuzzy, your guitar is scratchy, your drums are clattery, and you sing minimalist lyrics in a distorted voice over it all, you can cut to the essence of rock & roll time and time again. In short, attitude is all, and she has loads of it.
Cootie Catcher - Something We All Got (Carpark) It may be playing too much inside baseball to attribute some of the success of this delightfully offbeat jangle-pop adjacent album to Nate Amos, who mixed it. But the stamp of approval by one of our great sonic adventurers (see especially his work in Water From Your Eyes) has to mean something. And the LP does sound terrific, with the bright cheer and forward motion coexisting with quirky little sonic side-quests that somehow sound perfectly natural. In any case, most, if not all, of the credit should go to Nolan Jakupovski (vocals/guitar), Anita Fowl (vocals/bass), Sophia Chavez (vocals/synths), and Joseph Shemoun (drums), the first three of whom all write songs. Something We All Got is Cootie Catcher’s third album and simply radiates creativity and friendship, which we can all use more of in 2026.
Sibyl - s/t (Gold Bolus) This debut from sisters Chloe and Lily Holgate could be accused of seeking to fill a marketing gap, so perfectly does it slot in between Caroline Shaw’s recent albums and the Folk Bitch Trio. But the Holgates are truly forging their own path, with tight harmonies, detailed vocal arrangements, and minimal string accompaniment bringing the words of Edna St. Vincent Millay, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and Emily Dickinson to blazing new life. They also take on the old hymn I’ll Fly Away and the traditional song Down In The Willow Garden, somehow making them very much their own.
Mitski - Nothing’s About To Happen To Me (Dead Oceans) In 2023, Mitski surprised me with The Land Is Inhospitable And So Are We, which I called “her least self-conscious, most connected album yet.” While this album includes some of the Americana approach from The Land (not to mention those sigh-worthy Drew Erickson strings), it’s far more eclectic. At its most successful, Mitski comes across like the person doing ballet at the disco, as the serenity of her voice and sweeping melodies create tension with the sometimes explosive music. When she lets loose on That White Cat, however, she sounds a bit miscast. But most of the album is a beautiful expression of her far-reaching talent and wise, witty personality, which I enjoyed in spades during her concert film, The Land. Perhaps the most surprising song this time around is I’ll Change For You, a slinky ballad that’s reminiscent of what we used to call “cocktail music,” but only in the best way. Sade and k.d. lang should welcome Mitski into the lounge with open arms.
GENA - The Pleasure Is Yours (Lex) I’ve enjoyed Karriem Riggins both solo and in The Jahari Massamba Unit with Madlib. I’ve also liked Olivia Williams, who performs as Liv.e both live and on record. Put them both together, and you get GENA (“God Energy, Naturally Amazing”), who has given us an R&B excursion that doesn’t take itself too seriously, as song titles like theybetterbegladihavetherapy doyouwannabewitastar!? make clear. But Riggins’s grooves are deep, clever, and no laughing matter.
Molto Ohm - Reality Pills (Soap Library) High concept gets no higher than in this second album from Matteo Liberatore’s art-pop project. This time, each track is named for a fictional medication designed to solve some problem people only have because of all the systems designed to work against their health and happiness. The phony pharmacopoeia is set to both ambient electronic tracks and others that sound closer to avant-garde R&B. Take a dose.
A-Sun Amissa & Lauren Mason - Water Scores (Gizeh) This combination of Mason reciting her poetry over and within a doomy yet detailed ambient landscape ginned up by Richard Knox (electric guitar, synths, FX, and processing), Luke Bhatia (electric guitar, Strega, samples, and FX), and Claire Knox (clarinet), along with hydrophone recordings and additional vocals, might seem far out at first. But then it slowly dawns that it’s not that far a leap from Florence Shaw’s work with Dry Cleaning or Sue Tompkins and Life Without Buildings. However, Knox, who also releases excellent stuff under his own name, is not one to wear musical blinders, and Mason used to play bass in the “existential sludge” band, Torpor. Music is much more of a circle than a straight line. As for the words Mason is speaking into existence, according to the liner notes, she’s exploring “the curses of corporate extraction and pollution on our planet’s water, and listens in, as water speaks back.”
Kent Watari - subtraction in spiral (Phantom Limb) Percussion-centered electronic perambulations around the mind of a deep musical and philosophical thinker, Watari’s Phantom Limb debut actively engages the mind as it seeks coalescence and coherence. And with all that, it’s also a fun, playful series of sound pictures. Take a gander.
Robert Humber - into air (Redshift) In four works for multitracked soloists, Humber reveals himself as a deeply thoughtful composer with a light touch. The three intertwined guitars (Ben Diamond) of mothmouth, for example, make intriguing use of harmonics and the body of the guitar to create a tidy engine of sound. Even at his most maximalist, as with the six pianos (Stephen Eckert) of murmurations, Humber’s work evinces an elegance and restraint that is quite distinctive.
Fabiano do Nascimento & Vittor Santos Orchestra - Vila (Far Out) Last year, Nascimento delivered the “sculptural” Cavejaz, and earlier in 2026, he gave us an “inspired” album with electronic musician Ed Ruscha V. Now, he shows off his classicist side on this sweeping collaboration with Santos, a well-traveled arranger. Every note and arrangement seems designed to transport us to a musical paradise, and damned if it doesn’t work.
Sarah Kirkland Snider & Metropolis Ensemble - Forward Into Light (New Amsterdam) In 2020, I praised Snider’s choral work Mass For The Endangered for its “sublime counterpoint and expert architecture,” both virtues in abundance on this collection of orchestral pieces. She also manages to combine sleekness with warmth and complexity with uplift, creating a rich musical environment that continues even after the album ends. Gorgeously produced and commandingly performed by the Metropolis Ensemble under the direction of Andrew St. Cyr, Forward Into Light further establishes Snider as one of our leading composers.