The jobs of “electronic producer” and “saxophone player” don’t often go together, but Brian Allen Simon’s musical trajectory suggests they can. The Anenon mastermind and Los Angeles native picked up the sax while studying music history at UCLA; a hip-hop devotee, he also interned at the prodigious Alpha Pup label and took classical composition courses. Simon’s own Non Projects imprint released a handful of records that intriguingly blurred the lines between contemporary composition and electronic production.

His Anenon project broke out with its Friends of Friends debut, 2016’s Petrol, which used smears of his chosen woodwind instrument like brushstrokes in a loving postcard of his hometown. The follow-up, Tongue—recorded during a fellowship in the Italian countryside, with nods to Steve Reich and Keith Jarrett—feels at once more raw and less beat-connected. With drifting field recordings and hypnotic loops surrounding Simon’s breathy playing, it’s a transportive exercise in ambient minimalism. –Marc Hogan