hiromi - out there

Hiromi: Out There (2025)

Similar to my last review, the where’s and how’s of my discovering the indelible virtuosity of jazz pianist Hiromi are lost to the fog of age (and probably weed, who are we kidding?). Maybe it was during my heady exploration of the fusion and jazz rock coming out of Japan in the ’70s, but however the path was laid, I’m so glad it led me to Out There, her latest album and collaboration with her full band unit Sonicwonder. It’s a heady mix of styles, exuberant and joyful and packing so much excellence in the performance aspect once I put it on, it’s hard not to let it replay over and over again.

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(Un)Focused Definition Ep. 46: What I Actually Listened To On Vacation, Pt. II

Would you believe I mostly succeeded in shutting the world out while on vacation? It helped that the weather was gorgeous and we ended the trip with a snorkeling excursion that was so good I almost extended our trip. I even was able to use the extremely spotty wifi to get two archive reviews out – I planned on adding Can and Zappa at a minimum but had to make due with the abrupt, kind of braindead writing on The Doors and Neil Young. I’m okay with that – the priority was vacation and hanging with my family, and that rocked. I DID listen to a lot of music while on the beach, so this is the weird aural summary of my trip, I guess…

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