Month: June 2022

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Jeff Gburek – Tamarind Winds: Songs for Javanese Rebab, 2022

Tamarind Winds has to be the best album of 2022 for me to get lost in.  Composer and friend of the blog Jeff Gburek continues to awe with the magic he imbues in each instrument he touches, spinning haunting drones, field recordings and soothing the senses with his rebab.  From his Bandcamp site:

Various parts of the traditional Javanese rebab are made of tamarind wood, hence the flavor, the aromatic suggestion of the title. These are spontaneous compositions, duets and trios created in thye studio among me, myself and I. There are no effects or plug-ins used other than reverb chosen for one setting for each live recording session. Two songs are left raw in the spirit of ancient field recordings. Some musical figures may seem to repeat as if looped but they are imbal, hocketiing, call and response techniques, created interactivelty in the dubbing process. The occasion for the album was a series of rehearsals undertaken to get back into shape to record the rebab with Orphan Sound System for an album due next year, which seems to be going well. Hope you enjoy the music and are off to a relaxing summer of 2022. Peace.

It’s cliché to say that Gburek makes otherworldly sounds, but for the life of me, I cannot find another set of words to express what effect this album has had on my ears.

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Adrian Belew – Elevator

Legendary King Crimson and David Bowie guitarist Adrian Belew returns with a brand new progressive rock album that emphasizes rock loudly.  It sounds like a very complicated version of power-pop if the song a13 is any indication of what the rest of the album sounds like.  The only off-putting thing is the VERY high price tag for what is a normal-sized album.  The economy back home must be getting ever more brutal, I guess.

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Reinier van Houdt – drift nowhere past / the adventure of sleep

Going through Twitter contacts on my account (which will be changed soon, as I want an account that will only concentrate on music and not any other of my pursuits), I came across the name of a label whose work always left me impressed, but whom I had forgotten about, Erstwhile Records.  Jon Abbey and Yuko Zama have run this label for years, but it looks like Yuko is branching out and running a new label called elsehwere music.

Perusing the catalog, I found a release by Dutch pianist Reinier van Houdt which left me suitably impressed.  From the release’s Bandcamp site:

“Where ‘drift nowhere past’ is a collection of journal entries and focuses on whatever is entering into the mind on a specific day each month, the new piece ‘the adventure of sleep’ concentrates on situations that recur every day: realizing the passing of time, hearing the sounds of neighbors, the moment of falling asleep, the moment of waking up. Like ‘drift nowhere past’, ‘the adventure of sleep’ spans a six-month period and again the material simply came from what was already there, accessible, happening, remembered, imagined or otherwise.”

I have to say I really like this label.  I’m quite happy to hear more from them!

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Various Artists – Síntomas de Techno: Ondas Electrónicas Subterráneas Desde Perú (1985​-​1991)

Buh Records out of Peru has released a compilation which serves as a snapshot of Lima’s grimy techno scene.  From the label’s Bandcamp site:

“The title of this compilation is inspired by the name of a concert held in Lima in 1991, considered to be the first techno concert to have taken place in Peru. Even though not all intervening groups were doing techno at that time, they did share the fact that they all used keyboards. Four of them, however (Cuerpos del Deseo, Ensamble, Círculo Interior and Reacción), were in fact affiliated to an electronic sound (techno-pop, EBM). The concert was a sign of the diversification of musical styles in Lima’s alternative scene, and in particular of the emergence of a micro scene, for which the concert Síntomas de techno [Symptoms of Techno] represented an important step towards the development of a local culture of electronic music during the 90s.

Many of the recordings included here are extracted from demos with limited circulation, practically impossible to find. Other tracks are unpublished pieces which come from the private archives of the artists themselves. The compilation has been made by Luis Alvarado and is part of the Essential Sounds Collection, with which Buh Records is making available a vast archive of avant-garde Peruvian music. This compilation is published in vinyl format in a limited edition of 300 copies, with extensive information and visual documentation. Mastered by Alberto Cendra. Art by René Sánchez. Cover photography by Rogelio Martell.

This project was awarded with funding from the Economic Stimuli program of the Peruvian Ministry of Culture.”

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Henryk Debich – Dyskusja / Busz

What a jazz-funk gem this is!  From the Henryk Debich Bandcamp site:

Despite the ongoing pandemic, the past year was very successful for the celebration of Henryk Debich’s 100th birthday anniversary. The master’s albums: Zbliżenie [Astigmatic Records] and Horyzonty [GAD Records] turned out to be a huge success, bringing great reviews and attracting huge interest. The continuation of the publishing series devoted to archival recordings was a bull’s eye. Jazz Funk from the communist time is still in demand.

Astigmatic Records presented the works of Henryk Debich and the Lodz PRiTV Orchestra in the form of a seven-inch single “Monika / Zabawa w ciemności”, and then a full-fledged “Zblizenie” [eng. closeup] album. Both records are practically unavailable on the market. It is time to close the trilogy with the second 7″ with two compositions by Jacek Malinowski entitled “Dyskusja / Busz.” [eng.Discussion / Bush]

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Noori & His Dorpa Band – Beja Power! Electric Soul & Brass from Sudan’s Red Sea Coast

I can’t say I know much about who Noori, the tambur-guitarist and leader of his eponymous band is, but to learn more, consider reading this article by OK Africa.  From the Bandcamp site:

A soundtrack of Sudan’s revolution and the first ever international release of the Beja sound, performed by Noori and his Dorpa Band, an unheard outfit from Port Sudan, a city on the Red Sea coast in eastern Sudan and the heart of Beja culture.

Electric soul, blues, jazz, rock, surf, even hints of country, speak fluently to styles and chords that could be Tuareg, Ethiopian, Peruvian or Thai—all grounded by hypnotic Sudanese grooves, Naji’s impeccable, haunting tenor sax, and of course, Noori’s tambo-guitar, a self-made unique hybrid of an electric guitar and an electric tambour, a four-string instrument found across East Africa.

A truly ancient community, Beja trace their ancestry back millennia. Some say they are among the living descendants of Ancient Egypt and the Kingdom of Kush. Beja melodies—nostalgic, hopeful and sweet, ambiguous and honest—are thousands of years old.

The Beja community has been on the forefront of political change in Sudan for decades because successive Sudanese governments have turned a blind eye to their calls for recognition and access to the gold wealth of their own soil. Noori believes an unleashing of Beja music would form the most potent act of resistance in their quest for equity and justice.

Ostinato Records continue to impress!