Month: November 2022

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Various Artists – Ten Songs from Houshang Ebtehaj

Iranian poet and balladeer Hushang Ebtehaj passed away on August 10, 2022, but left an incredibly rich body of work.  This compilation, released by Tehran-based record label Khosousi, brings together Ebtehaj’s best interpreters, such as Mohammad Reza Sharjarian and his son Homayoun,as well as Alireza Eftekhari, Hossein Ghavami, Mohammad Motamedi and Alireza Ghorbani.  Each is a legend in his own right, and they do justice to the poetry of a bona fide maestro.

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Soyuz (Союз) – Force of the Wind (​С​и​л​а в​е​т​р​а​)

Belarus is not what one would think of as a Brazilian music hotspot, though, if my friends in the country could enlighten me to the local music scene, I would really appreciate it.  Still, Soyuz, led by singer Alex Chumak blend a Brazil-meets-Santana-meets-funk beat and this album engages you quickly, making the listener want to sway with the rhythm.

From their Bandcamp site:

“SOYUZ (which translates as ‘union’) is a creative collective from Minsk, Belarus, led by composer, arranger, and singer, Alex Chumak, multi-instrumentalist, Mikita Arlou, and drummer, Anton Nemahai. SOYUZ’s previous albums explored and reimagined the legacy of jazz-oriented, non-English-language pop music of the 20th century. For their third album, there is a stronger focus, and it is influenced by 70s Música popular Brasileira and building bridges from it to present-day Belarus. Alex notes that from the moment he first encountered Brazilian music, he found in it a kind of concentrated emotion that felt as if it were familiar to him from his childhood. This non-verbal emotion and connection between the listener and musician echoes in the music, regardless of understanding of the language the album is recorded in.”

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Dirty Three – Whatever You Love, You Are

The Dirty Three are Mick Turner, Jm White and Warren Ellis, and between them, they have worked with a who’s who of alternative music like P.J. Harvey, Bonnie “Prince” Billy, and Nick Cave among others.  What’s most impressive about their sound, however, is that they can sew together angular post-rock with a charming, nearly folkish sound.  This is the band’s best album in my estimation, and that’s saying a lot considering the quality of their work, but please do give it a listen and enjoy one of Australia’s finest instrumental bands.

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Jeff Gburek – Five Broke Downe Homesick for the Open Road Medley Blues

Fresh recordings have been delivered by Jeff Gburek, and there are a few more in the pipeline, apparently, so 2022 will be a busy year for one of the blog’s favorites.  From Jeff’s Bandcamp site:

“Five Broke Downe Homesick for the Open Road Medley Blues came to me as the title for tracks I recorded in October bounced off of various field recordings from the Summer 2022 . They are all recorded spontaneously at various locations. One can hear domestic and wilderness noises in the backgrounds (1), campfires, foxes or wolves, crickets (3). The tracks are mostly raw juxtapositions of field recordings/improvisations and dubbed improvisations in other locations without any editing, such that I’ve kept the recording artefacts (turning on the machine and turning it off) inside the final mixes. The final track (Abu Simbal) features a prepared guitar I call the Pseudo-Oud: an old acoustic guitar from which I stripped off some frets, supplied it with an odd assortment of strings, gave it a large metal wood screw atop plastic canister-lid as a bridge and played it quite close to the microphones to get this spacious reverberant sound. In the spirit of DIY and live experience of natural environments and the stardust we are made of.
__JG__”
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Joyce Moreno – Feminina (produced arranged and conducted by Claus Ogerman)

Joyce Moreno (known mononymously simply as Joyce in Brazil) is one of the country’s finest exports, bringing a sultry and joyful voice to bossa nova, Música Popular Brasileira and jazz. She’s been covered by artists like Annie Lennox, Gerry Mulligan and Omara Portuondo, but this piece, a one-track opus, is one her finest works. It is a collaboration with German arranger, pianist and composer Claus Ogerman, and it sizzles.

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Peter Brötzmann / Keiji Haino Duo – The Intellect Given Birth To Here (Eternity) Is Too Young

Two of the greatest legends in free jazz and psychedelic rock, Keiji Haino and Peter Brötzmann, join forces after a long while in this four-album noise-fest.  My understanding that the vinyl pressing on Black Editions, which includes a 3-inch CD, is long sold out, which is unfortunate, but a standard edition is available for $100, a bit high, but for these two, and for a four-LP set, it just might be worth the price.

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Uusikuu – Karuselli

Welcome to the world of Finnish tango as brought to you by Uusikuu, who celebrate their 16th year with this charmer of a disc.  As this wonderful release from the ever wonderful CPL-Music isn’t on Bandcamp, I would like to point you to their Qobuz website, as I’m not much of a fan of Spotify.  If this doesn’t work in your country, consider going to Deezer here.

There is something special about Finnish tango.  One would think that Finland and the Rio Plata area of Argentina and Uruguay wouldn’t have much in common, but, in fact, they share a melancholy in their music that makes for sumptuous listening.  Karuselli is a lively record, however, for a tango album, and you will hear elements of chanson and even a touch of traditional Finnish music.  It’s extremely pleasant and bouncy music.

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S​.​E. Rogie – Further Sounds of S​.​E. Rogie

This is our second African gem this week, following the marvelously brutal release by Kenya’s Duma.  This release by the late S.E. Rogie is a more relaxed, bluesy highlife affair from Sierra Leone.  According to the Mississippi Records Bandcamp website, Rogie, “…went from running a tailor shop in Sierra Leone to being one of West Africa’s most popular artists. He toured around the country, singing his palm wine music in multiple local languages, created his own record label, and was known as the most handsome man in Sierra Leone. He formed the highlife band The Morningstars in 1965. In 1973, he came to the Bay Area to live and expand his base, performing everywhere from local high schools and convalescent homes to festivals and large stages. In his later life he hit the road again and toured the world, eventually passing away while on stage in Russia in 1994.”