Expand your taste in music. Based in Beijing, China.
Though this is a one-track release clocking in at over three minutes, it gives a nice taste of the music of Maltese electronic music composer Robert Farrugia. There are some similarities to his work and that of, say, Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Harold Budd, but he is equally comfortable in working in a post-rock frame. Impressive.
Sublime Frequencies never ceases to amaze me with the gems they dig up. From their Bandcamp site:
Sublime Frequencies finally unleashes it’s ESSENTIAL compilation from 1970’s Egypt. Modal instrumental tracks from Baligh Hamdi – one of the most important Arabic composers of the 20th Century (writing for legends Umm Kalthum, Abdel Halim Hafez, Sabah, Warda, and many others). Features his legendary group the “Diamond Orchestra” with Omar Khorshid on guitar, Magdi al-Husseini on organ, Samir Sourour on saxophone, and Faruq Salama on accordion. All of these musicians were discovered and recruited by Hamdi to interpret his vision of a modernized, hybrid Arabic music. Under Hamdi’s direction, this orchestra charted a new melodic direction and created a new musical language. This compilation is culled from a specific era of Hamdi’s long career, a decade where he fully realized an international music which incorporated beat driven Eastern tinged jazz, theremin draped orchestral noir, tracks that feature searing guitar solos from none other than Omar Khorshid, and a selection of buzzing, sitar driven, Indo-Arabic tracks establishing a meeting of mid-east and eastern psychedelic exotica, and a vision that created some of the hippest music coming out of the Middle East from the late 1960’s and throughout the 1970’s.
A magnificent composer paired with an obscenely great label. What a perfect match.
This one came as an unsolicited pleasant surprise. I love Afrobeat and am slowly developing a healthy respect for Afro-House, and if I delve further into the genre, it’ll be because of artists like Cameroon’s Nkom Bivoué.
What is best about the disc is the absolutely sharp percussion of the album. This is dance floor-ready material that you can also appreciate on its own merits.
The last week I was in the United States before heading off to China, I watched MEV (collecting Alvin Lucier with Frederic Rzewski and Richard Teitelbaum, may their names be ever remembered) and Kayhan Kalhor the weekend before. It was an incredible week of music before heading to more surreal surroundings.
Jeff Gburek’s latest album comes at a time where Alvin Lucier, whose mark on contemporary classical and experimental music in general is impossible to overstate, continues to inspire musicians as time passes. It is a ghostly work, at once warm and organic, but imbued with a vibe of a 1950’s-era sci-fi movie.
Jeff expands further on the album at his Bandcamp site:
Apparently, this will be the last ediition of radio works under the Trans-Beskid monicker, and it’s a sumptuous
This will likely be the last edition of radio works with the appellation Trans-Beskid in the title. Although I am still working with radio captures from the summer of 2020 which were made in Poland near the Slovakian border, I have refined my process to include captures from last summer in Romania and Bulgaria and live input form radios here in Poznan on the evening the two pieces were performed. Adding the microfreak synth and adding working with tones derived from the overtone series of the Schumann frequency changes the game entirely. It’s more of a contemplation — which in the etymologies is like putting many temples together — contemplon of earth resonance. There is something in this that involves a 25 year cycle of work with shortwave radios and my plunge into deep listening strategies. As the light of Alvin Lucier leaves our sphere, I can only heave an electro-magnetic sigh and moan at the passing of someone I never met and yet celebrate, with this offering, one whose work helped me feel that same resonance more profoundly. Word up Alvin. Over and out. For those still Earth-bound: the download is pay what you wish, what you can afford, for the next 48 hours.
Jeff, as far as I am concerned carries the torch passed on by Lucier and Robert Ashley. It would be good to see him eventually work with a label which will give him the exposure he deserves.
Hungarian band CMC have been recording albums since 1989, and, had they received their fair due during the heydey of post-Industrial Electronic Body Music (EBM), they would have been recognized as competitors of such luminaries as Front Line Assembly and Front 242, but with a darker groove.
The band’s main actors, composer Vince Kósa and György Szász, have reactivated the band. The grooves are still as powerful as they were nearly 30 years ago, and it feels like they never went away. Three tracks are available to check out, and each will remind you of the days where EBM dance floors resonated with such music.
I’m proud to have been asked to participate in helping to decide which albums would top the Russian World Music Chart. Here is a press release on this event:
Russian World Music Chart 2021Making Russian world music visible to the world
In October 2021, Russia’s first world music chart, the Russian World Music Chart (RWMC), was launched. The purpose of RWMC is to attract the attention of the world music community to the novelties of folk music of multinational Russia, as well as popularization and assistance in promoting unique musicians from remote corners of Russia in the Russian Federation and abroad. With this project we want to celebrate the independent recording world, the music label business and the media that brings the artists to the community.In total, 40 albums in the genre of world, ethnic and folk music, published in 2021, participate in the chart including 12 albums of authentic music from 15 labels.The international jury, which includes 16 representatives from Australia, Norway, the USA, Hungary, Slovakia, Germany, Belgium, Catalonia, the Czech Republic and Russia, selected and announced the 20 best albums by the end of the year.Among them there are radio journalists, authors of music columns in the best publications of the world devoted to folk music. We invite to the jury only those experts who really put in their rotation or write about Russian artists on a regular basis. For the participants of the chart — this is a real chance to sound to the whole world!The top-20 Russian world music albums of 2021 are:1) Staritsa – Klyukva – CPL-music2) Vedan Kolod – Gorodische – CPL-music3) Khöömei Beat – Changys Baglaash – ARC Music4) Namgar – Nayan Navaa – ARC music5) Yat-Kha – We will never die – The Lollipoppe Shoppe6) Shoodja-Choodja – Shooldyrak – CPL-music7) Uutai – Dope – Mars records8 ) Opycham – Where to find peace of mind – Sketis music9) Tatyana Molchanova – Songs for Lidia Ruslanova. Part 1 – Self-released10) Khara – Mandragora – Sketis music11) Kazachya sprava – The sun will give the morrow birth – Izba records12) Gudimir & Shulyakovskiy — Russian album — Gudimir13) Smorodina Reka – Foreshadowing – Self-released14) Gralitsa – Little Mosquitoes Are Sleeping This Night – Self-released15) Alexey Khovalyg – Reincarnation – Self-released16) Mila Kikina – Verbochka – Self-released17) Balkhar Ensemble – Lakku Balai: Songs of Lak People, Dagestan / Russia – Antonovka Records18) Gudba Vadzana – Folk Trip – Self-released19) The Acoustic Boots – Kare – Pravda Music20) Zakaria – Berge – GvinRecordsThe best record label of 2021 – Antonovka recordsRWMC team 2021:1. Arne Berg (Norway), «Jungeltelegrafen», «Verdensscenen», WMCE2. Artemy Troitsky (Russia), «ROCK FM STEREO VOODOO», «NEW MUSIC FOR Grow-UPS» in Tallinn on Raadio2, «Music of Freedom» on Radio Svoboda.3. Angel Romero y Ruiz (USA), worldmusiccentral. com4. Lev Belyakov (Russia), radioshow «FolkRoom»5. Ludwig Liebhardt (Germanу), «FOLK&WeltMIX» on radio LORA6. Daryana Antipova (Russia), TWMC7. Rudolph A. «Rudy» Carrera (USA), MusicYouNeedToHear.com8. Marc Bauduin (Belgium), «Le Canard Folk»9. Dani Heyvaert (Belgium), Rootstime.be10. Jorge Garcia Patón (Catalonia, Spain), «Demésenllà», TWMC11. Milan Tesař (Czech Republic), radio Proglas, «Slyste, lide!», «Jak se vam libi», WMCE12. Christian Pliefke (Germany), «Folk Galore»13. Toni Pennacchia (USA), MergingArts Productions, «Transworld Airwaves», «Donne del Mondo», TWMC14. Tamás Galgóczi (Hungary), ekultura.hu15. Vladimír «Potkan» Potančok (Slovakia), WMCE, «Hudba sveta_FM» on Radio_FM16. Roger Holdsworth (Australia), «Global Village» on PBS-FMOrganizers:Daryana Antipova & Irina BrykovaContacts:Site: worldmusicchart.ru/Instagram: www.instagram.com/russianworldmusicchart/Facebook: Russian World Music ChartE-mail: russianworldmusicchart@gmail.com
I’ll be taking a day off for health reasons, but I thought I would leave you this pleasant Sunday with some music of the Lepcha people of India (also represented in Nepal). The band, Sofiyum, have a very pleasant, joyful sound, reminding me, curiously, of Celtic music. May it carry you through this day!
Perila i(Alexandra Zakharenko) s a composer from Berlin of Russian roots releases one of the heaviest and, frankly, bleakest albums of the year. I spent today trying to unwind a bit as the snow looked pleasant, but after watching Juraj Herz’s The Cremator, hearing this album left me in a somewhat dark place.
The sounds are deep and cavernous. It is, in fact, my favorite style of ambient music, as it becomes easy to get lost in the sonic abyss the artist is projecting through her lens. There are two standout tracks on this album; Vaxxine, with gives me the image of some hallucinogenic nurse injecting me with something horrible while singing the eeriest of lullabies. The final track, Fallin’ Into Space, ends the nightmarishly good album in the way a heavy trip is ended by gently floating down back to earth. A stellar, if creepy, album.
Nurbek Serkebaev is a well known Kyrgyz folk musician who plays virtually all Kyrgyz traditional music instruments. The venerabl Antonovka Records have released yet another fine album of traditional music.
We have a new band to follow, and they’re out of Bulgaria. E.U.E.R.P.I. produce a sonorous and pleasantly dark ambient music that sounds heavily influenced by the works of Steve Roach, Matthias Grassow, or even Lustmord. E.U.E.R.P.I. have proven to be as masterful at using field recordings, blending them into their live performance as documented on this record. One to watch out for.