Our dear friend Roman Stolyar has released a new live solo recording with him performing on the piano and recorder from a show recorded literally last weel in Gleisdorf, Austria.
Roman Stolyar – In Gleisdorf
Various Artists – Azerbaijani Love Songs
Music from Azerbaijan comes in many forms, but one of the genres not well-covered on disc outside of the country is its rich tradition of love songs. Caucaso Records, a Baku-based record label, has begun the process to fix this issue.
Chihei Hatakeyama – The Ancient Forest V
I can’t say I’ve ever had the pleasure of introducing Chihei Hatakeyama to my readers before, but he is a master of elegant sound design. These three compositions are based on his travel to Amami Oshima, north of Okinawa.
Magicien Blanc – End The Beginning
A fellow expat, Christian Locke (Magicien Blanc) has come up with one of the best prog rock albums I’ve heard in a while. There are some cues from French and Italian prog bands from the 1970s and 1980s, some influence of bands of the Berlin school and Goblin, and it sounds as fresh as anything coming out of 2023. Very well done!
Various Artists – Longing for the Past: The 78 RPM Era in Southeast Asia
Atlanta-based record label Dust-to-Digital have rescued 90 tracks in this collection from obscurity. Featured on this disc are recordings from Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam and Thailand, for starters.
Nasim Khushnawaz – Songs From The Pearl of Khorasan
Worlds Within Worlds in an Australian record label releasing music from Iran, Afghanistan and India. This album features rubab (or rebab) player Nasim Khushnawaz. From the label’s Bandcamp site:
“As a master of the Afghan rubab, Nasim Kushnawaz hails from one of the most important musical lineages in Afghanistan. The son of Herati rubab maestro Ustad Rahim Khuhsnawaz, Nasim resides in exile in Iran, wherein he continues a four-generation tradition of performing exemplary Afghan, Khorasani and Herati playing techniques. Listeners will easily notice his keen ear for tempo and feeling as he sets up unexpected twists and turns throughout his music, making each segment more emotive and unpredictable than the last.”
Shono – Kolkhozoy Traktor
Our dear friends at CPL-Music will be releasing some solid music from Buryatia in Eastern Russia. From the bio sheet:
“Unheard sounds from Buryatia: Shono revive the ancient rituals of the vast Eurasian grasslands. The autonomous Russian Republic of Buryatia is located in the far east of the country, bordering Mongolia and encompassing the eastern shore of Lake Baikal. Today, less than one million ethnic Buryats live in the republic. Under Stalin’s rule, many Buryats were persecuted and murdered.
Shono (translated as wolf, by the way!) was founded by Alexander Arkhincheev in 2014. The Buryat musician lives in Irkutsk, is a master of throat singing, is considered an expert on Buryat legends and epics, and masters many different traditional Buryat and Mongolian instruments. He is also active as a teacher. The four-member ensemble Shono combines his love for traditional Buryat music with a passion for western rock’n’roll. The first album “Hunters” convinced with a variety of different styles of throat singing. Arkhincheev also contributed original songs to the album.”
A fine blend of traditional music and rock. Solid. This will be released on June 23, so prepare yourselves.
Ayako Shinozaki – Music Now For Harp
Great news, yet again, has been provided to us by our dear friends at Wewantsounds! From their Bandcamp site:
“Wewantsounds is delighted to announce the first international reissue of Ayako Shinozaki’s hard to find LP “Music Now For Harp” released in 1974 by Nippon Columbia. The LP was released on the label’s cult “Master Sonic” series and features Shinozaki’s harp soundscape on works by renowned composer Toru Takemitsu and Katsuhiro Tsubono. The highlight of the album is the spaced-out, ethereal 25-min ambient epic ‘Heterodyne’ featuring cult musician Takehisa Kosugi (Taj Mahal Travellers, Group Ongaku) on electric violin and sound waves. The album has been newly remastered by Nippon Columbia and is reissued here with its original artwork designed by legendary Japanese graphic designer Kohei Sugiura. It includes a 2 page insert with new liner notes by Alan Cummings.
Japanese harpist Ayako Shinozaki was born in Japan in 1946 into a musical family. Her father was a renowned violonist and teacher and she started playing the violin under his wing before switching to harp. She first studied in Japan, then at Julliard in New York and, upon her return in Japan in the early 1970s, she launched her yearly “Harp No Koten” recital (the first or which took place in 1972) with the idea of pushing the boundaries of the instrument and delves into the more experimental side of the spectrum following the recent steps that had been made by Dorothy Ashby and Alice Coltrane to get the instrument out of the classical music ghetto.”
Yuri Vikharev / Juris Āķis / Einārs Raibais – The Lost Latvian TV Studio Sessions 1967
This archival recording is a swinger released from Latvian specialty label Jersika Records. It consists of pianist, jazz journalist and and record collector Yuri Viharev, paired with bassist Juris Āķis and drummer Einārs Raibais. This was the cream of Latvian jazz, and it’s a massive event to see this label reissue such a vital recording. They have quite a few more in store, so we wait with baited breath to hear these.
Christian Fiesel – Avant Que Nous Soyons Tous Partis Pour Toujours
Hail! to our friends at Kalamine Records in France for producing yet another fine dark ambient/drone/post-Industrial masterpiece. There’s a lot of drama and pathos in this recording by Christian Fiesel, sounding very much like it would be a fine updated soundtrack to any good expressionist film of the early 1920s or 1930s. An engaging listen.