Welcome to the August 2026 edition of Listen to Music. A monthly walk across the musical spectrum.
“The Other Side” is a 2025 single by the UK art‑pop band These New Puritans, released on 11 November 2025. It’s a sparse, atmospheric piece built around Jack Barnett’s improvised piano, George Barnett’s drums, and a soprano vocal line.
Genre: impressionist, post‑minimalist, and choral experimental music.
“What Is and What Should Never Be” is one of Led Zeppelin’s most quietly radical early tracks — a blend of hard rock, blues rock, and psychedelic rock that shows the band experimenting with studio effects, dynamics, and narrative songwriting. It appears as the second track on Led Zeppelin II (1969) and was written by Jimmy Page and Robert Plant.
Genre: The Greatest Rock Band….EVER.
Fred again.., the British electronic producer and Brian Eno the ambient-music pioneer collaborated on the album Secret Life and the song “Cmon”. The album released by Text Records in May 2023.
Genre: Ambient / ambient electronic / ambient pop.
Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong collaborated on Porgy and Bess, a 1959 Verve album of jazz interpretations of George Gershwin’s opera. Recorded in Los Angeles on August 18, 1957.
Genre: Vocal jazz / orchestral jazz, with blues, spiritual, and operatic influences.
Pharoah Sanders, “Movement 1” opens Promises, the 2021 collaborative album with British electronic composer Floating Points and the London Symphony Orchestra. Recorded at Sargent Recorders in Los Angeles in June 2019. The orchestral strings were added in London during summer 2020.
Genre: Spiritual jazz / ambient electronic / post-minimalism / contemporary classical.
Nai Palm, the Australian singer, guitarist and frontwoman of Hiatus Kaiyote, covered the Hendrix classic “Have You Ever Been (To Electric Ladyland)” on her 2017 solo debut, Needle Paw. Recorded during the album sessions between April and August 2017 and released on October 20, 2017.
Genre: Neo-soul / acoustic soul / psychedelic R&B.
Lakou Mizik, the Haitian roots collective, and British electronic producer Joseph Ray recorded “Ogou (Pran Ka Mwen)” on the 2021 album Leave the Bones. The single was released May 18, 2021, and the album followed on August 6, 2021.
Genre: Haitian roots–electronic fusion / organic house, with mizik rasin, Rara and Afro-house elements.
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