In honor of returning to lovely Belgrade, I salute the occasion with Serbian electrostatic composer Manja Ristić, now based in Croatia.
Manja Ristić – The Black Isle
Vangelis (RIP) – Blade Runner (30th Anniversary Edition)
Vangelis has passed away in Paris at the age of 79. His reputation needs no introduction to connoisseurs of music, especially those into soundtracks. For my money, Blade Runner was the jewel in his crown. May he Rest In Peace.
Ajate – Abrada
Ajate are a Japanese band who have the Afrobeat sound down. They’re one of the best bands working in this style while seamlessly blending Japanese percussion, funk and soul into their milieu.
Dirk Fock (composer), Irene Maessen, Mattijs van de Woerd, Maurice Lammerts van Bueren – Songs and Sketches
Dirk Fock was a Dutch-American pianist with a very interesting musical history, including working with Richard Strauss. From the Bandcamp site:
Dirk Fock (1886-1973) In 1945 the Dutch-born conductor and composer Dirk Fock (also: Foch) became an American citizen. Before that – during the interwar years – he conducted many orchestras all over Europe. Living in New York from 1919-1924 he was first conductor to the New York City Symphony Orchestra and guest conductor to the New York Philharmonic. He also was co-founder and first conductor of the American Orchestral Society. In 1924 Richard Strauss requested him to work as first director of the Wiener Konzertverein, where he performed with Igor Strawinsky. From the thirties – while living in Paris – he focused on composing.
In 1939 Fock moved back to New York. His patriotic song cycle Songs of Glory (1945) on texts by Joseph Auslander – then Poet Laureate of the United States – is inspired by the events of World War II. This cycle had several performances in the United States with Todd Duncan, the first Afro-American opera singer of the New York City Opera. Fock died in 1973 while living in Switzerland; he left behind a small but extraordinary body of work which expresses his love of the human voice.
Jerzy Milian – Optima Fide
Jerzy Milian is one of the most important jazz musicians to ever come out of Poland. In this rather expensive album, he is collaborating with the BRT Radio (now VRT Radio) Orchestra during the late 1960s. The release showcases Milian’s vibraphone talents, but also shows how multi-faceted his music was, incorporating beat, rock and soundtrack music into his oeuvre.
Michel Banabila, Cengiz Arslanpay, Oene van Geel – Waking Memory
Dutch composer and experimental musician Michel Banabila is joined on this one-track release by duduk player Cengiz Arslanpay and violist Oene van Geel for a warm, haunting take on improvisational music.
Luna Abu Nassar – I’ll Tell You [أحكيلِك] [ספר לך]
Israeli singer Luna Abu Nassar produces a darkly mellow sound, singing in both Hebrew and Arabic, and her lilting voice fits well with such heavy instrumentation. The only problem with this gem is that I don’t understand either Hebrew or Arabic, and from what I understand, the lyrics are quite profound. Still, this is so sonically pleasant that it was worth sharing with you, my friends.
[Video] DCC…..There Is Still Music Left To Write. The Digital Compact Cassette Documentary.
One of the perks of being a teacher in the Czech Republic has been the fact that I run into students who are both bright and interesting. I have to offer a hat tip to my student Michal Szabó for hipping me to this appreciation of the Digital Compact Cassette (DCC), a format which should have taken off far more than it did.
Strawberry Switchblade – 1982 4-Piece Demo
Strawberry Switchblade were my first musical crush, and perhaps the most charmingly twee band I heard during the 1980s and there was a lot of competition in those days.
This EP from 40 (!!) years ago sounds as fresh as their eponymous debut album, but the sound is far rawer, more post-punk and less synth-sounding. Rose McDowell, of course, went on to work on many worthy solo projects and collaborate with acts like Current 93, and Jill Bryson started writing music in 2013 with a new band called The Shapists, but this album reminds me of just how good Strawberry Switchblade actually were, and what they could have sounded like had they maintained themselves as a four-piece band.
Nechochwen – Algonkian Mythos
While reading Bandcamp Daily on my feed, I came across a black metal band out of West Virginia called Nechochwen. The article is enlightening, but it got me interested in exploring their music a bit deeper. This particular album, Algonkian Mythos, is technically a ‘metal’ album, but it is so atmospheric that it could almost count as a neofolk album. The instrumentation is sparse and has a spirit of foreboding. This, for my ears, is metal done right.