• Music

    Jeff Gburek – The Dunning​-​Kruger Effects

    Today is an auspicious occasion as this post will mark 1,000 consecutive days of posting music for my readers and friends.  It’s most appropriate that number 1,000 would be someone who has appeared quite a few times on the blog, but Jeff Gburek offers an album that is as (primitive) bluesy as I’ve heard in some time.  The playing is mournful in parts, but it wraps your ears up and demands your attention.  Most importantly, I think this is the first time I’ve heard Jeff sing.  His voice sits perfectly in the point where blues, psych and acid folk all…

  • Music

    Skyphone – Oscilla

    Our friends at Lost Tribe Sound have released yet another gem in their catalog.  This release is from the Danish group Skyphone, and their Bandcamp release page explains further: “The new Skyphone record original began as a project to explore long form close-miced acoustic sessions. The trio worked to record and capture the intimacy of various acoustic instruments. The recordings were very meticulous and long, and were largely meditations over harmonies and fugue-like movements of guitars, bass, synths, piano as well as mandolin, bells, wind instruments and acoustic drums. The trio spent a lot of time building the right sound,…

  • Music

    Victoria Wijeratne – Graces & Muses

    Dragon’s Eye Recordings tends to put out high-quality modern classical and ambient music, and now, they are introducing the world to serious talent.  Take Victoria Wijeratne for instance.  Her background is in scoring music for film and television, and this is her first proper release.  It does a great job fusing almost clinical experimental music with a modern classical flair to it.

  • Music

    SALA – Jurmala Revisited​/​Breath

    Audrius Simkunas operates as SALA, a Latvian composer whose work straddles ambient and nature recordings.  From the release’s Bandcamp site: “Jurmala Revisited/Breath documents SALA’s return to the shores of Latvia, as a sort of audio postcard. The cover photography was taken during the trip and has been treated to look like a fading memory. There are two images, one for each piece. The first is hazier and more feint, suggesting a distant recollection of events, whilst the second image is slightly clearer, as if the memory has been jogged during a listen to this EP.”

  • Music

    Takashi Kokubo & Andrea Esperti – Music For A Cosmic Garden

    We Release Whatever The Fuck We Want Records (charming name, better known by its acronym WRWTFWW) has released a rather unique album.  It pairs Japanese ambient/environmental legend Takashi Kokubo (Ion Series) and Italian & Swiss trombonist Andrea Esperti (Esperti Project) working under the name of Music For A Cosmic Garden. From the label’s Bandcamp site: “Takashi KOKUBO is a Japanese environmental musician who produces healing music that gently resonates with people’s hearts. He has recorded “sound scenes from nature” in countries around the world using a binaural “CyberPhonic” microphone of his own invention, and incorporates these dimensional sounds of nature in his…

  • Music

    Benjamin Aït-Ali – Essai sur des sons oubli​é​s

    This is perhaps one of the most beautifully stunning acousmatic works I’ve ever heard.  Every percussive strike of the piano had me transfixed while listening, so much so that I wasn’t able to do my normal routine of working while listening to music.  Our dear friend Benjamin Aït-Ali took a bit of time away from composer serious music, but has come back to it with a vengeance.  It’s a gripping work, this.

  • Music

    Groove Paradise – Rodrigo Cano

    Groove Paradise are a Spanish vaporwave band that sound like the smoothest of smooth jazz.  “Rodrigo Cano” would have been a radio-friendly smash in the late 1980’s, when pastel clothing was the norm and life wasn’t so full of modern complications.  The cover art looks like it should be for a remake of the soundtrack to the Italian classic Zombi, but nonetheless, the music steals the show.

  • Music

    O Yuki Conjugate – A Tension of Opposites Vols 1 & 2

    We had the pleasure of O Yuki Conjugate’s release earlier this year reviewing Volumes 3 & 4 of this series.  The old quote still holds: ““Two years after the first two volumes of A Tension of Opposites (ATOO) were issued OYC return to the form they created to house their looser more exploratory works. ATOO allows them to expand their musical horizons and release their music more expediently. The original ATOO was born out of 2020’s virus state where both OYC members were left working in isolation. Two types of music emerged spontaneously, and rather than try to combine them…