Yamila – Visions

Mexican composer Yamila produces music similar to Rock-In-Opposition legends like Art Zoyd, Univers Zéro and fellow countrymen Decibel. The music is heavy, brooding, and dense. From her label, Umor Rex’s Bandcamp site:

“Her voice and music –sometimes torn and others buoyant– could resemble the score for a biblical passage (ie. visions of the Apocalypse), for they are overflowing with physical ecstasy and sounds that one can touch. Visions is composed of different forms and rhythms. Pieces like “Visions V” evolve intensely with sharp and systematized hits ––powerful layers that bring us closer to Alessando Cortini’s Forse era. “Visions II”, for its part, shares intensity and power with flamenco ritual patterns, as if it were an old Andalusian scene dripping with oscillations and electric shocks. Yet there are luminous vocal pieces such as “Visions I” (featuring Rafael Anton Irisarri), inspired by Manuel de Falla’s Suite Española composed in 1922. Here, an aural chiaroscuro with beautiful voices and choirs is deeply fused with daring drones. And it is in the ensemble of moments of Visions where Yamila’s conceptual axis is rendered solid. Pain and glory, lacerating religiosity, feminism cauterized by power, and hallucinations as a source (or pretext/tool) to be heard.

Y Bülbül – Fever

What a charmingly weird discovery this is!  Yiğit Bülbül is a London-based musician whose roots are in Turkey, and this mini-album combines the experimentation of artists like Holger Czukay with the dulcet sounds of Serge Gainsbourg’s backing band in their calmer moments.  A surreal release this one…

noemienours – The Dry Path

It’s hard for me to make out the influences of this album, but I can say with certainty that listening to this rather weird album was a pleasure.  From noemienours’ Bandcamp site:

““The Dry Path”, noemienours’ 5th LP, developed around a Gobi Bear narrative of barren edge conditions as an access point to supra-natural realities, is definitely a turning point in the noemienours discography, notably because of its introduction of harpsichord in the noemienours instrumentarium, but also because of its recourse to a widened approach of its lo-fi musical approach, by creating a new musical form somewhere between Swedish post-black metal influences (Hypothermia, Armagedda,…) and the 17th century dislocation of musical forms through the ”Vanitas” topos as developed by Froberger or Louis Couperin, while retaining its magical Scandinavian forest hue. But of course noemienours’ musical approach to genre has never been anything else than a way of submitting apparently meaningless musical forms to the very meaning of its ursidae qualities.”

Wordy, yes, but the music is sparse and, in its own way, sublime.

All proceeds of digital sales are donated to Gobi Bear Project to support the conservation effort of the about 40 remaining Gobi bears. www.gobibearproject.org
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gobi_bear

iBroadcast.com

No review today because I’m out this evening, but I did want to let my friends know about a platform called iBroadcast.com.  I have collected thousands of FLAC and mp3 files over the years, but they serve no purpose sitting in a collection of disc drives.  The site has been a breeze to use, and if you choose the subscription option, you hear your files in their original format, rather than the standard 128 kbps.  It’s worth a look.

Rodion G.A. – Misiunea Spatiala Delta (Delta Space Mission)

This gem is from one of Romania’s strangest composers.  The music sounds made by Rodion Roșca range from a more industrial-era Cabaret Voltaire and Suicide to the wilder music of Giorgio Moroder.  He passed away in March of 2021 at the age of 68, but he left a truly unique body of work behind, including this wonderful record.  Derek Anderson of Derek’s Music Blog wrote a long and deep tribute to Rodion, and Derek was responsible for helping get his name out to the international public.  A commendable article and truly, a commendable record.

Various Artists – The Dystopian World of J​.​ G​.​Ballard

Our dear friend Raffaelle Pellezza has curated another masterful compilation of dark ambient music focused on the British writer J. G. Ballard.  From the release’s Bandcamp site:

“In April 2009, J. G. Ballard died at the age of 78. By the end of his life he was recognized as one of the greatest British writers of the latter half of the twentieth century. The acclaim his work has garnered stems from its unsettling ability to describe the present in collision with near but unexpected futures. His narratives operate according to the temporalities of car crashes, epidemics, and physiological shocks. The word ‘Ballardian’ has entered the Collins Dictionary as a term denoting ‘dystopian modernity’.

The fiction of J. G. Ballard delves deep into the human psyche, not only by exploring the relationships between its characters, but also by conveying the cityscape in terms of the mind. Either real or imaginary, the urban spaces reflect and are reflected by the minds of the protagonists. Influenced by the psychoanalytic theory of Sigmund Freud, the Jungian model of the psyche, the experiments in anti-psychiatry initiated by R.D. Laing, as well as the technological advancements of the new millennium, Ballard proposes a new type of fiction. The aim of his pursuit is to answer some of the pressing issues that the self is confronted with in an urban milieu which is gradually becoming more dehumanized and impersonal.

Hermeto Pascoal & Grupo – Só Não Toca Quem Não quer (1987) – Remastered

Brazil’s finest living export (to my ears, anyway) has been quite active over the past few years, but it’s nice to see some forgotten releases getting some exposure.

The personnel on this album plays some wonderfully, uniquely Brazilian fusion.

Hermeto Pascoal: Bandola, Piano, Teclados (Keyboard), Flugelhorn, Harmonium, Flauta Baixo (Bass Flute), Craviola, Acordeom (Accordion), Bombardino, Clavinet, Piano CP-80
Jovino Santos Neto: Piano, Flauta (Flute), Piccolo, Harmonium, Piano Rhodes
Itiberê Zwarg: Baixo (Bass), Tuba
Carlos Malta: Flauta (Flute), Piccolo, Sax Soprano, Sax Tenor, Sax Alto, Sax Baritone
Marcio Bahia: Bateria (Drums), Percussão (Percussion)
Pernambuco: Percussão (Percussion)

Kosta T – крип

Kosta Trokai is a Russian violinist whose work I’ve followed for several years now.  He has a massive catalog behind him and it straddles comfortably between classical music and free improvisation.

 

Al-Qasar – Who Are We?

The bad news about the release of Al-Qasar’s new album is that there is currently only one track available to hear at the moment.  The good news, however, is that it features Sonic Youth guitarist Lee Ranaldo as well as Dead Kennedys frontman Jello Biafra.

From the band’s Bandcamp site:

““Al-Qasar was born in the Barbès neighbourhood of Paris,” explains band leader Thomas Attar Bellier. “I’ve lived in Los Angeles, Paris, New York, Lisbon… I wanted to start a project that was in tune with the daily life of people living in these international cities, something diverse, radically colourful, with a fresh, contemporary outlook on what societies really look like today”. The musicians came together, from France, Morocco, Algeria, Egypt, and the United States. Shows followed, first in France, then in Europe and the Middle East. They put out an EP, the widely-lauded Miraj, recorded in Cairo. In the same time frame, Attar Bellier collaborated with the likes of Emel Mathlouthi and Dina El Wedidi, two of the most exciting names in contemporary Arab music.”