Sufjan Stevens – Songs for Christmas
Sufjan Stevens released this album in 2006, and it manages to hold up well. He does a fine job interpreting classic Christmas tunes that are charming, sometimes irreverent and silly, but it makes a fine listen as we prepare for…
Jeff Gburek – Gendhing Rebaban
As we near the close of a challenging 2021, we’re graced with a release by composer Jeff Gburek which features a rebab, a spiked fiddle. It’s an instrument he studied in Indonesia under Pak Suhardi, blended with synthesizers and electronic…
The York Waits & Deborah Catterall – Christmas Musicke
The York Waits are a group out of York, England (no surprise there, right?), who specialize in Renaissance music from the 14th Century. This album is a reissue of a 1996 album where they paired with vocalist Deborah Catterall, who,…
Kiyoshi Yamaya, Toshiko Yonekawa, Kifu Mitsuhashi – Wamono Groove: Shakuhachi & Koto Jazz Funk ’76
Traditional Japanese instruments meet rare groove?? Yes, please! From Wamono’s Bandcamp site: Following the already classic Wamono A to Z trilogy, we are delighted to present an exceptional collection of jazz funk / rare groove tunes recorded in the mid-seventies…
Tindersticks – No Treasure But Hope
What a beautifully bleak, baroque piece of pop-music. You don’t hear too much of the Tindersticks‘ soul-inflected sound on this album, What you get, instead, is music that pulls from folk, goth (yes, if you can believe it), and even…
Raphael Weinroth-Browne – Worlds Within Live
Raphael Weinroth-Browne is a fine cellist from Canada. He weaves together contemporary classical music, post-rock, post-metal and even some hints of ambient. From Raphael’s Bandcamp site: “Realizing Worlds Within in the studio was more of a process of discovery rather…
Lotus – Emergence
Lotus are an instrumental post-rock/post-metal band out of Pune, India. They have a pleasantly heavy groove that has a lot of more modern progressive rock influences. A solid EP.
Fellirium – Burning Boats
Andrey Vasilyev (Piano, Guitars, Effects) recorded a sublime lo-fi drone folk album in February 2021. It’s a wispy album out of Russia that remind me of a grungier take on relaxing psychedelic music.
Bube Dame König – Winterländlein
Our dear friends at CPL-Musik released quite a gem of an album from 2016 that I am only now digging into. Bube Dame König is a German folk group which was founded in 2013. The band mixes German-language folk songs…
Koma Stark – Kelesho
Antonovka Records have had an astounding year releasing not only music from Russia’s hinterlands and Central Asia, but even from places like Georgia. This album documents music by Kurdish-speaking Yezidis, who suffered horribly over the past few years in places…