Otherly Love Records

09/17/2025

CHES SMITH CLONE ROW LPs are shipping soon and your dates are just around the corner!

We couldn’t be more excited to see the album landing on a turntable near you. Catch Clone Row on tour starting 10/3 in CT.

NYC heads can enjoy an incredible bill on 10/5 for the album’s official release party alongside three-layer cake’s and a killer trio of Ikue Mori, Tomeka Reid and Craig Taborn.

It all winds up on the West Coast with appearances in San Francisco and Los Angeles . Don’t miss the action when they come to your town!

Ches Smith “Clone Row,” his newest project featuring Mary Halvorson and Liberty Ellman on guitars, with Nick Dunston on bass. Percussionist/synthesist Smith builds here on his reputation as a gifted new voice with an important vision, while showcasing some of the most creative musicians of our time.

“Ches Smith continues his trajectory as one of the more cerebral and unpredictable bandleaders in creative music… Clone Row disorients in just the right way.” — Victor Aaron, Something Else Reviews

“An uncompromising set that fuses noise, ritualistic percussion, electronics, and compositional complexity into something stubbornly his own.” — Kurt Gottschalk, The Wire

Listen now wherever you stream your streams and order the LP via Bandcamp (link in where else the bio)

Engineer / Mix by Ben Greenberg , Mastered by Dave Gardner
Artwork by John Herndon .
Halvorson

Tour Dates
10/3 New Haven, CT @ Firehouse 12
10/4 Amherst, MA @ Pioneer Valley Jazz Shares
10/5 NYC @ Public Records
10/6 Minneapolis, MN @ Icehouse
10/7 Madison, WI @ Art Lit Lab
10/8 Chicago, IL @ Constellation
10/9 Ann Arbor, MI @ Edgefest
10/10 Vancouver, BC @ Coastal Jazz
10/11 Seattle, WA @ Earshot Festival, Royal Room
10/12 Portland OR @ Revival Drum Shop*
10/13 Portland, OR @ Holocene
10/14 Salem, OR @ WU (workshop)
10/15 Denver, CO @ The Pearl
10/16 San Francisco, CA @ SF Jazz
10/17 Los Angeles, CA @ Angel City Jazz

*Ches Smith Drum Clinic

09/12/2025

Big thanks to Martin Johnson for this lovely 4-Star review of three-layer cake’s Sounds The Color Of Grounds! Pick up the September issue to see what else has caught their discerning ears as of late, and head to our bandcamp page to pick up a copy of the LP (link is in the ol’ bio).

“Taut, lean and rambunctious to the point that it’s occasionally primal, the new recording by the virtual trio three-layer cake is as retro as it is contemporary. The sounds made by the group sprawl in all manners that music that claims punk, funk, jazz and a host of international sounds might. The retro sensibilities recall the early ‘80s when previously sacrosanct genres collided and merged on downtown New York stages until they became full-fledged hybrids.”

09/09/2025

Couldn’t be more excited to share that Ches Smith’s Clone Row and the Chad Taylor Quintet will be at this Spring!

This year’s lineup is absolutely STACKED 😳
Looking forward to seeing so many pals in TN

Tickets and info at https://bigearsfestival.org

09/05/2025

Bandcamp Friday is here once again! Today Otherly Love invites you to School Yourself on our back catalog with a one day sale!

We’ve also added a discounted 3x cassette bundle for our tape releases by Houndsteeth, Star Rover and Dustin Wong & Gregory Uhlmann, all highly recommended in the superior pocket-sized analog format.

Just use promo code BACKTOSCHOOLYOURSELF at check out for 15% OFF your order*!

*Please note promo does not apply to preorders for Chad Taylor Quintet’s Smoke Shifter and Ches Smith Clone Row LPs - though obviously we can’t recommend those two enough!

09/01/2025

08/22/2025

Shoutout to the for giving a shoutout to our man KENNY WOLLENSEN for his incredible residency at The Stone NYC going through Saturday night.

FOR THIS EXTRA SPECIAL FOUR-NIGHT RUN OF PERFORMANCES EXCLUSIVELY FOR THE STONE KENNY WOLLESEN HAS ASSEMBLED A BAND OF HIS DEAREST FRIENDS TO TELL THE INCREDIBLE STORY OF HIS GRANDMOTHER—PRAIRIE SONGSTRESS ROSE THORNE, THROUGH ROSE’S OWN RECENTLY DISCOVERED SONGS AND WORDS FROM THE 1920’s 30’s & 40’s!!!

GET THERE EARLY! LIMITED SEATING

WEDNESDAY 8/20 - SATURDAY 8/23
All shows at 8:30pm
@ The Stone
Located in the New School Glass Box Theatre
55 West 13th St near 6th Ave

THE MUSIC OF ROSE THORNE
Kenny Wollesen (drums) Sami Stevens (voice) Dida Pelled (voice, guitar) Sasha Dobson (voice, guitar) Doug Wieselman (guitar, tenor saxophone) RIchie White (trombone) Will Shore (bass marimba, marimba, song bells) Tony Scherr (guitar) Vicente Archer (bass) Jesse Harris (guitar, banjo) Micheal Coleman (electric piano, synthesizer) Yusuke Yamamoto (electric vibraphone, steel pan) Elizabeth Pupo-Walker (congas, percussion) Steven Bernstein (trumpets) Julia Elsas (narration, wollesonics) Briggan Krauss (alto saxophone) Charlie Burnham (electric violin)

As if finding a stash of 100 year old incredible family compositions wasn’t enough, OLR has recently unearthed some black vinyl editions of Kenny’s incredible LATRALA LP at our warehouse and they are now AVAILABLE ON OUR BANDCAMP AT A DISCOUNTED PRICE!! Hit the link in our bio to get yours today!

08/18/2025

Many thanks to the sages whose Best Jazz Albums of 2025 (So Far) list includes not one, but TWO recent titles from the Otherly Love family!

Andy Robson says of Ches Smith’s Clone Row “A wiser jazz correspondent than I, steeped in Ellington and Shorter, stared into his cups and sighed, “lt’s no good: the sound of jazz is no longer the saxophone. It’s the guitar”. And he need look no further than this extraordinary, innovative quartet debut from composer Ches Smith. Who is of course a drummer.”
(cue rimshot 🥁💥 -OLR)

Daniel Spicer praises the diverse space-fire music of maestro Marshall Allen’s Ghost Horizons - Live in Philadelphia (co-released with ), noting “Noiseniks (and Anthony Braxton collaborators) Wolf Eyes brew a subterranean stew of squelches and throbs over which Allen’s Electronic Valve Instrument (EVI) soars like a UFO. Irreversible Entanglements’ dynamic rhythm section of bassist Luke Stewart and Tcheser Holmes lay down burning free bop. Alt-rockers James McNew (bassist from Yo La Tengo) and drummer Charlie Hall (drummer from The War On Drugs) unfurl a motorick vamp for Allen to let loose some characteristically cramped alto squonk on. There’s so much to love.”

Ain’t that the truth. And speaking of truths, stock on the Ghost Horizons 2xLP looks like it may be starting to dwindle. Hit the link in our bio to get yours before they leave planet earth. 🛸

Ches Smith Clone Row is out digitally now and the LP is up for pre-order, dropping October 3rd.
🌀Happy listening out there! 🌀

✨ 🪐
🔊🔊🔊

08/13/2025

Where there’s smoke, there’s fire music.
Otherly Love proudly presents the Chad Taylor Quintet’s Smoke Shifter!

Drummer extraordinaire Chad Taylor leads an exciting new quintet of Philly and NYC’s finest players on Smoke Shifter, out everywhere on 11.14.2025.

First single and lead-off track “Broken Horse” is now streaming and pre-order is now live for the full album and 12” black vinyl LP.

Featuring Jonathan Finlayson on Trumpet, Bryan Rogers on Tenor Saxophone, Victor Vieira-Branco on Vibraphone and Matt Engle on Bass.

There is a cohesive vision around the five players, all unique in their understanding of the jazz landscape but united by context. Partly this is due to the leader’s encouraging contributions to the group’s book, a practice which carries over from his previous recordings.

“Broken Horse”, written by Rogers, has a meaty bass line and swinging polyrhythms set against burnished unison horns, the saxophonist’s gruff clamber circling around snatches of melody as vibraphone, bass, and drums churn and refract. Rogers remarks that “I wrote this song specifically for the group. I also had some idea of the particular character of our playing that I wanted to develop. Writing something that acts as a seed is a pretty good way of doing that, and in that case the content isn’t as important as the space and feeling it establishes. So with that goal in mind, the bass line was something that just popped into my head. Once I had that, I just tried to imagine how I thought we would play something compositional over it. What might Victor’s chords sound like if I could ask him to play what was in my head? What would the horn line and counter line sound like over it?” The result is a striking introductory cut, an emphatic dance of pulse and motion, burnished trumpet and tenor wheeling and diving, Finlayson an assured foil with nods to Freddie Hubbard and Enrico Rava, while Vieira-Branco’s globular chimes create a web of activity within and across the tune’s center.

Recorded at Samurai Hotel Recording on May 9th, 2024 by Grady Bajorek
Mixed by David Stoller 
Mastered by Dave Gardner

Artwork by John Herndon

Hit that link in our bio to listen/order.

08/04/2025

👄WEIRD OF MOUTH👄
EURO TOUR KICKS OFF 8/15!

The stellar trio of Mette Rasmussen, Craig Taborn and Ches Smith are hitting the road this month! Catch them at the following stages and snag a copy of their self-titled LP on at the merch table. You’ll be all smiles





August 15: JazzWerkstatt, Peitz, Germany.
August 16: Oslo Jazz Festival, Oslo, Norway.
August 18: Cafe Oto, London, United Kingdom.
August 20: PArdon Ta Tu, Warsaw, Poland.
August 21: De Nor, Antwerp, Belgium.
August 22: Jazzfestival Saalfelden, Saalfelden, Austria.
August 31: Jazz Festival Willisau, Willisau, Switzerland.
September 2: Cologne Jazzweek, Cologne, Germany.

03/13/2025

Though he has held many jobs in his 25+ year career, Otherly Love Records founder Stephen Buono has long been a music obsessive. It was only a matter of time before he started his own label. In late 2023, that became a reality and just over a year later, we were thrilled to get a story in the February 2025 issue of DownBeat Magazine, a publication Stephen has been reading for over two decades. Thanks to publisher Frank Alkyer and writer Phil Freeman for their attention to telling our story faithfully.

12/21/2024

Great new article up with Karl Blau & Paste Magazine.

https://www.pastemagazine.com/music/karl-blau/karl-blau-lessons-in-luck-and-hope

12/02/2024

Church Chords tops the charts !
#100 song of the year.
Thanks Pitchfork & Jeremy Larson.