Expand your taste in music. Based in Beijing, China.
I’m delighted to share a piece from my old friend, the Siberian composer and multi-instrumentalist Roman Stolyar. This nearly 20-minute improvisation was recorded live on July 30, 2021 at the MMMESSS studio in Saint Petersburg, Russia. The piano-playing is quick, sharp, with each keystroke coming at you like waves of noise. A great example of Russian free jazz.
Z Tapes is a small-but-mighty label out of Bratislava, Slovakia, who release everything from bedroom pop to properly polished indie music. They have a massive roster of artists they work with, and also, bucking the current trend for vinyl, offer cassette releases. There is a lot of appealing music on this comp, but the track that sold me on how good this record was was 動物園 by Stargirl, which you can hear below.
Our friends at Habibi Funk are becoming legendary as their roster grows. What impresses me the most about the folks who run the label is their absolute passion for music from the Maghreb which has been criminally underrepresented throughout the world for decades. It’s shameful that the labels in the region didn’t think that the rest of the world wouldn’t appreciate such talent, but Habibi Funk are stepping in to right that wrong, and it will hopefully inspire more and more local labels to release their hidden treasures.
Have a listen to the tracks above and sample what’s coming down the pike.
KAUAN hail from Estonia and bring something extra to both progressive rock and post-rock. Long, drone-laden, repetitive music that holds one’s interest throughout. Perhaps the best way to describe this is like a very much slowed-down My Bloody Valentine with a symphonic progressive tinge to it. Unique. I quite like this.
The legendary Shenzhen-based Old Heaven Books released a powerful album from the Chinese-Kazakh band IZ Band. This is listed as folk music, yet the music is brutal, sounding like early 1980s post-punk or Industrial rock. Think of, maybe, a Kazakh Killing Joke or a Central Asian early-period Current 93.
Controlled Bleeding were one of the few bands who could glide from genre to genre easily. They were comfortable working with EBM, harsh noise and experimental music, and would even appeal to some elements in the goth-rock crowd, but this particular album stood out as their magnum opus for me. Paul Lemos, the one constant member of the band, sculpted beautifully minimalistic guitar playing which sounded almost like avant-progressive rock, while the late Joe Papa (of eternal memory) would let his vocals soar, especially on the track Red Stigmata. My favorite album by a criminally underrated band.
For a more complete look at the Band, consider reading this blog post at Old Industrial Music.
I had no idea what to expect with this album except that it was promoted by Carbon 7 record label impresario and former Univers Zéro bassist Guy Segers. His taste tends to be outstanding, so I gave this a shot. Quite pleasant, actually.
Dominique Figaro’s voice reminds me of a lot of 80s female avant-pop which was coming out in the 1980s or 1990s, and though the sound is a bit too compressed for my liking, the music is quirky enough to hold my attention throughout. It is as if Sade fronted Tuxedomoon for a session. Yes, that quirky, and it’s all the better for it.
Will Long is Celer, an ambient music composer living in Japan and therefore, a relatively close expatriate neighbor of mine. He releases a lot of music, as is the fashion with some highly competent composers these days, but his work feels like a cut above. Though this album has 12 tracks, they are rather short compared to some of his other albums, where one track can clock in at over an hour. The material is dark, but not claustrophobic, and quite easy on the ears if you’re listening on headphones. Really, consider following his Bandcamp site. He’s constantly putting out something good.
Dzivia are a project out of Belarus specializing in a music that crosses ambient, Nordic folk music, symphonic progressive rock and regional music. They manage to do all this in one track. Impressive.
Thanks to my friend and Galego brother Andrés, I’ve come across a soundtrack composer and sound designer out of New York called Gil Talmi. He has been nominated for an Emmy Award (presumably in soundtrack music and apparently fond of working on socially conscious projects.
I’m far from a bleeding heart, but it’s good to see someone try to change the world a bit, a project at a time. As for the music, it’s quite good, well-designed, and it holds up surprisingly well when compared to a lot of modern classical music, as well as progressive and electronic music.