Month: September 2022

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Yanna Momina – Afar Ways

Our friends at Xango Music reminded us about a profoundly interesting album released by Glitterhouse Records out of Germany.  The artist, Yanna Momina, is from Djibouti, a country which very rarely gets any sort of press attention outside of military news (and the fact that it is now one of the most expensive places in the world despite the crushing poverty the average person suffers from.  You can hear the pain in her voice as she sings and wails about with the most minimal of musical backings, as she is accompanied only by an acoustic guitar, calabash and sparse handclaps.  It’s mournful listening, and yet Yanna’s voice is so lively and powerful, almost to the point of being chaotic, that the record engages the listener in a way that makes you feel like you are enjoying a hot drink in her hut as she is speaking/singing to you.

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Anna Homler – Breadwoman & Other Tales

There are few experimental artists I hold a loving reverance for in the way I do for Anna Homler.  I had the pleasure of meeting and befriending her during the 1990s, and I had the distinct joy of seeing her again when Maja Ratkje performed in Los Angeles several years ago.  Breadwoman is one of her performance art creations, “a being who exists outside of time, yet surfaced on tape during the perfect storm of performance art, renegade DIY avant-garde, gallery culture, and esoteric mysticism of early 80s Los Angeles.” This was the first collaboration on cassette between Anna and Steve Moshier and it stands the test of time.

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[The Soundtrack Of My Life] If ~ Live at the BBC

No reviews today as my girlfriend and I will be walking around the Buda area in Budapest, but I’d like to introduce you to Adam Baruch, an exceptionally gifted writer who I have been following for many years.  He has a gift for writing eloquently about jazz and rock, is a director of the Singer Jazz Festival, and on this post, he writes about the legendary jazz-rock/brass-rock band If.  He is worth following, and if you like what you read, consider joining his Facebook group.

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Spammerheads – Tar Blood / Cement Skin

I grew up with Electronic Body Music during my high-school years when my little brother and I would go clubbing in Hollywood, and the music has stuck with me for well over three decades.

Spain’s Spammerheads have made a sound that would compliment early Front Line Assembly, the harsher vocal aspects of Front 242, and a recording technique that was compressed just enough to make me feel like I was dancing around in my old iron “Mad Max” boots over at Club F**k! back in the day.  Well done!

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Esa Ruoho – Collage

Esa Ruoho is a project out of Finland who works with really long, sinewy drones and atmospherics to get lost in on a headphone trip.  Fine ambient music, something rare in a time when the term is so badly abused.

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Duke Ellington – Such Sweet Thunder

Duke Ellington’s Shakespearian masterpiece, Such Sweet Thunder, is the first album I bought for its typography alone.  I had heard older releases by him, had classic discs like Money Jungle, but this album caught my eye because I had had a deep interest in typography around 1994-1995.  The text on the right was so crisp despite its size, and of course the iconic photo of Duke meditating on the piano with big block capital letters made the album look more like an artifact.  The music is, of course, sumptuous, but if you have a Spotify account, you can enjoy it for yourself.