Via Chicago, guitarist Rand Kelly, bassist Ramsey Bell, and drummer Josh Resing are The Slaps. Formed in 2017, the genre agnostic trio are constantly in motion, and, more impressively, consistently interesting. This installment of the Lagniappe Sessions finds the band paying tribute to pre-Dark Side era Floyd with a lived-in, and woolly, cover of Obscured by Clouds’ “Wot’s… Uh the Deal”. AD Manna, indeed! And keeping things local, they deliver an amped up version of friend and touring partner hemlock’s “Under All The Kudzu” …
Category: Lagniappe Sessions
The Lagniappe Sessions :: Trummors/Prairiewolf
A meeting of the minds. Last year saw Trummors lit out for the territories touring some esoteric, off-the-beaten path venues in Colorado and New Mexico with Prairiewolf. This installment of the Lagniappe Sessions commemorates the experience with the following collaboration of the two bands reimagining early ’80s George Strait along with a Joni Mitchell chestnut.
The Lagniappe Sessions :: Modern Nature
Those familiar with this corner of the Internet are likely familiar with the music of Jack Cooper, as we’ve fastidiously covered his recorded output in one form or another since 2014. And for good reason. Following the dissolution of his previous band, Ultimate Painting, and the sole release under his given name, Sandgrown, Cooper has channeled his efforts into the potently shapeshifting outfit Modern Nature. On the heels of the band’s latest LP, The Heat Warps, Cooper and co. return with their third entry in the Lagniappe Sessions, this time paying tribute to a pair of Beatles’ chestnuts.
The Lagniappe Sessions :: Cochemea
Cochemea Gastelum returns with his second Lagniappe entry following up his session from 2021 covering Big Star and the legendary Cuban band, Irakere. This latest installment finds the NYC based multi-instrumentalist and arranger on the heels of his third LP, Ancestros Futuros, released last month via Daptone Records. For his encore session, Gastelum pays tribute to his southern California roots covering War’s “All Day Music,” and Flip Your Wig era Hüsker Dü.
The Lagniappe Sessions :: Phi-Psonics
Earlier this spring, spiritual jazz collective Phi-Psonics released their sprawling, fantastic third album Expanding to One. Led by upright bassist bassist Seth Ford-Young, for their inaugural Lagniappe Session, the collective delivers a pair of Duke Ellington compositions (including “Fleurette Africaine” from the seminal Ellington/Mingus/Roach triumph Money Jungle), early sixties Sun Ra, and “River Man” from Nick Drake’s debut album.
Lagniappe Sessions :: Jeffrey Alexander
It’s easy to imagine Philly’s Jeffrey Alexander never leaving the recording studio. In addition to his work with The Heavy Lidders and Dire Wolves, he also releases spaced out, heady tunes under his own name. His latest Bandcamp drop is The Snailhook Tapes Vol 4, and to celebrate its release, he’s back with another Lagniappe Session, offering supremely stoned and drifting takes on classics by Harry Nilsson, Horace Silver and Salome Bey, The Smiths, and Mike Williams. Liquid drips of guitar, percussion, and Alexander’s craggy Neil Young-ish folk abound—wade into these murky waters for a refreshing feeling indeed.
The Lagniappe Sessions :: Winter McQuinn
Fittingly, I happened upon Winter McQuinn and his associated Melbourne scene right around the time I was visiting Australia in 2023 and have kept rapt attention since. McQuinn’s third album Where Are We Now? is set to drop later this month, via the Sydney based Third Eye Stimuli Records, and with it his first Lagniappe Session. Here, McQuinn works up a full band arrangement of the autumnal 2017 Anna St. Louis chestnut “Fire,” before digging into Charles Brown’s “On The Corner” and Roger Miller’s 1973 adventure in animation courtesy of Robin Hood’s “Oo-De-Lally.”
The Lagniappe Sessions :: L’Eclair
Earlier this summer the Geneva, Switzerland based L’Eclair released their fourth LP, Cloud Drifter, via our neighborhood friends down the hill at Innovative Leisure. We’ve been following the Swiss outfit since Frank Maston turned us onto them in 2019 when the group supported his stateside tour, and later recorded the 2021 collaborative album, Souvenir. For their debut Lagniappe Session, L’Eclair reimagines some 1979 disco heat via Anita Ward’s “Ring My Bell,” embrace the street soul of Lisa Baron’s 1990 “Lovin N Affection,” and engage with something more recent in the form of Beach House’s now decade-old “Space Song.”
The Lagniappe Sessions :: Silver Synthetic
Tracked in New Orleans at Bruisey Peets’ Lake Vista compound on a Tascam 388, for their debut Lagniappe Session Silver Synthetic add their steady brand of choogle to Coney Island Baby era Lou Reed, some late ’70s Chris Spedding and, naturally, give a nod to the mount Rushmore of the genre via JJ Cale’s “Wish I Had Not Said That.” Hit with a near city wide black out while recording, the band packed their car full of gear and went looking for electricity. The lights were on at Funky Nola LLC, where they finished out the tunes.
The Lagniappe Sessions :: Aux Meadows
Aux Meadows, the Oakland-based trio of Steve Dawson (dobro, lap steel), Joe Imwalle (synths, piano) and Chris Royalty (guitar, bass), touch down for this latest installment of the Lagniappe Sessions. As noted in our Midyear Review, the group’s latest LP, Draw Near, is one of our favorite records of 2025, a sentiment that is only reaffirmed by the following three covers. Here, the trio works up Another Green World era Eno, Sonic Youth’s mid-90s high watermark “The Diamond Sea,” and “the killer” himself — Jerry Lee Lewis.
The Lagniappe Sessions :: Cameron Knowler
Cameron Knowler is one of the latest young guns to distinguish himself in the ever evolving world of guitar soli, most readily apparent via his 2025 long-player, CRK, released earlier this year by the eveready Worried Songs. As we noted in our review, Knowler is indebted to his instrument’s history; his playing steadfast, concise, and open to the possibility of the unexpected. For this installment of the Lagniappe Sessions Knowler pays tribute to genre godhead John Fahey, Norman Blake, David Nape and Elizabeth Cotton.
The Lagniappe Sessions :: Nap Eyes
Nova Scotian quartet Nap Eyes have the right stuff: eclectic and clattering rock & roll moves, a distinct zone, and best of all, sly and quixotic lyrics. On their latest, 2024’s The Neon Gate, songwriter Nigel Chapman manages to pull in nods to Nintendo 64 games, Russian poets, French filmmaker Chris Marker, and Goo Goo Dolls megahits, resulting in a work that feels real and lived in in a way that so many of their indie rock contemporaries fail to achieve. For their second Lagniappe Session, they cover Kathy Heideman and The Tragically Hip.
The Lagniappe Sessions :: Adeline Hotel
Under the moniker Adeline Hotel, New York-based musician Dan Knishkowy has spent nearly the last decade releasing one fantastic album after another. A benchmark identity of the project is that no release ever repeats quite the same sonic foray, a deliberate approach taking creative inspiration from the likes of Jim O’Rourke and Arthur Russell, the musician revealed to AD last year. After hearing that sound mutate from fingerpicking guitar to the jazzy orchestral pop of Hot Fruit to last year’s personal concept album Whodunnit, Adeline Hotel’s inaugural Lagniappe Session reveals everything on full display.
The Lagniappe Sessions :: Yves Jarvis
Reviewing Yves Jarvis’ All Cylinders, we wrote, “Where once was a loose attempt at art gospel or chopped-up soul, now there is a conscious, sincere engagement with the classics Jarvis clearly adores—Paul McCartney, Love, Stevie Wonder, and Prince.” Those are clearly classic touchstones, but Jarvis does more than tap into them: he taps into their spirits and synthesizes them into something brand new. Jarvis is a melodic polymath, which is made clear by his first ever Lagniappe Session, which finds him covering material from Porter Robinson, John Mayer, and a standard from Frank Sinatra.
The Lagniappe Sessions :: Ezra Feinberg
Since Ezra Feinberg’s return to making and releasing music at the close of the last decade, he’s been on an unbelievable run. Feinberg’s contributions to our ongoing series of Lagniappe Sessions square the circle of his sound, offering up covers of the shimmering folk-pop vocal group The Roches, on the one hand, and minimalist composer and Philip Glass Ensemble stalwart Jon Gibson, on the other. Feinberg’s gift has always been to endow minimalist process and ambient expansion with a real emotional weight, so the balance here between lovelorn romanticism and new music abstraction seems particularly on point. Feinberg’s covers are alternately heartbreaking and harrowing.