Today, my PopMatters review of the new Dance! Skip! Hop! by cellist Tomeka Reid and her longstanding quartet is out. Both albums are on Out of Your Head Records, which is becoming a top label.
You can read the review HERE.
Jazz cello, I know. For the most part, it has been a tough sell throughout music’s history, which I briefly address in the review. But when it is great, man, it’s great. And with Tomeka Reid just about everywhere these days, it is impossible to deny.
Let me also hip you to the new record by cellist Christopher Hoffman, released in January of this year. Both albums, by the way, are out on Out of Your Head Records. More on the label in a moment.
Christopher Hoffman is a cellist in the New York “creative music” world, probably best known for being a part of Henry Threadgill’s band, Zooid. He sounds great and vital in that band, and he has a wider footprint in film (both playing and making films), but I wasn’t entirely prepared for the power and excitement of his new album, Rex.
Rex is a “solo cello” album, which may sound … unexciting. But this recording finds Hoffman playing electric cello, overdubbing/looping parts, and generally kicking ass. The title track, for example, begins with a double-stopped “bass line” over which Hoffman plays a compelling bluesy melody, also plucked in harmony. Quickly, the bass line shifts to a bouncing funk pattern, pizzicato, with a bowed melody then taking center stage. It grooves, this “solo cello”. You will nod your head and feel the beat, I promise.
Similarly, “Maria” puts a syncopated bass line to work, with Hoffman’s electric cello playing a low-end, slightly distorted melody across. The overdrive is particularly kick-ass on “Sabotour,” but the melody actually asserts itself through muscular, undistorted bowing. “Buffalo Mountain” mixes the woody sound of an unadorned cello with a modern synth tone.
Here is “Heavy,” which layers cello sounds from low to high and finds Hoffman in a singing at the top of the pile:
Other tracks are more pastoral — “Snow Owl” is a little bit Bach and a whole lot of Americana, perhaps, with compelling and simple harmonic movement that is appealing and affirmative. “Resting Place” puts a whole chorus of harmonized cellos into your ears, then advances a melodic line on top. This is a cello album to listen to often because you love it, not because you are trying to make sense of it. There is exactly zero meandering avant-garde improvisation and heaps of compelling melody.
Both Hoffman’s new album and Reid’s new one are from Out of Your Head Records. This label should be up for some kind of “Talent Deserving Wider Recognition” award — it has put out incredible music by Hoffman, The Webber-Morris Big Band, Tim Berne, Matt Mitchell, Adam O’Farrill, Michael Attias, Tomas Fujiwara, Caroline Davis, Nick Dunston, Mark Ducret, the Wrens, and label founder, the bassist Adam Hopkins. Hopkins has been on some of my favorite albums in recent years — Kate Gentile’s Mannequins is just one example.
Out of Your Head is a bright light. In a month, it will put out the new Elephant from trumpet master Adam O’Farrill, which is likely to be one of the most exciting albums of 2026. Stay tuned!
Thanks for sharing this stuff about out of your heads, Records. They have a great catalog and are to be commended.