It’s nice to indulge in a guilty pleasure on occasion. Growing up in Los Angeles, we were lucky enough to have a pretty good Industrial dance / EBM scene in the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s. The clubs were amazing, the girls stunning, the beats driving. Jettenbach brings some of these older bands of the era to mind. There are elements of Thrill Kill Kult, Skinny Puppy, and innumerable synth-pop bands. For purposes of nostalgia, this was quite good.
There’s not much to say about Matthew Halsall that hasn’t been thoroughly discussed over the past decade. He deserves the accolades, of course, but this live album is quite a treat. This is really going to appeal to fusion fans, especially Bitches Brew and Live-Evil-era Miles Davis, as well as the More modern works of Paul Schütze’s more free form work. Brilliant, but I expect no less from such a giant. For more info on this release, check out his Bandcamp page here.
Breton musician Thierry Jolif (who records as Lonsai Maïkov here) is a fellow Orthodox who also happens to make boomingly dark experimental drone music. It’s quite something to hear both worlds collapse into each other so violently, but if I could trust anyone to pull of such a feat, it is him. This is an EP’s worth of music, time-wise, but genres covered include ambient, drone, noise, darkwave and there are spoken word elements which tie the album together well.
Peter Zinovieff passed away on June 23, 2021, but he left quite a mark on avant-garde music. The British-born son of Russian aristocrats, he sold his wife’s tiara for his first computer, and from there, he would work with some of the greatest bands of the 20th century including Pink Floyd and David Bowie, Todd Rundgren and a host of Krautrock groups before going into composing for computer on his own. This compilation of artists pay homage to the little-known but highly respected performer. All this came together, apparently, as an idea to give Peter a proper sendoff on Facebook. …
No matter how ardent a collector of music you are, there are going to be some brilliant artists and albums you will miss. One could say that that’s part of the fun of discovering music. Credit for our surprise gem of the day goes squarely to Bandcamp’s blog, where Ashawnta Jackson penned an article on soul jazz. One of the names mentioned was a lovely lady, Shirley Jackson, whom you see depicted in the cover art and her weapon of choice, a Hammond B-3 organ. Jackson’s back story is impressive, as is how she came to focus on the organ. …
The spirit of Krautrock has spread well beyond the German-speaking world, and has for some time now. Primitive Air is an American collaboration between Drew Piraino, Jefre Cantu-Ledesma and Emil Amos reminds me of the more freaky (yet still gentle) parts of bands like Popol Vuh and modern bands like The Myrrors. This is a blissful little record, and it would have sit comfortably among the greats of German psychedelic music of the late 1960s and early 1970s had these folks been around during those heady days.
I’ve read over the years about Botswana having a very interesting metal scene, but I knew nothing about the local music. This might not be the purest form of regional music, but this disc by Duncan Senyatso (may his memory be eternal) and the Kgwanyape Band is pretty catchy and infectious. There is a lot of horn work on this disc, and one can hear influences from South African music, and more pop-related artists like Paul Simon and others who were delving into ‘World Music’ during the late 1980s and early 1990s. Pleasant.
LeiLuo Studio is a small record label based in my former home of Beijing, China. The track reviewed today is a fusion of musics from Zhejiang from the She ethnic group. The label/band’s Bandcamp site explains further below: This is a piece of new fusion single composed and arranged by the duo, Wang Lei and Yile, in February 2018. Aria of Yunhe is copyright Beijing Chuanzong Culture Development Ltd., Co. In mid January, the duo had participated in a field trip to Jingning County in Zhejiang Province, China. We were introduced to a type of local music that had existed…
I can’t think of a music more joyful than ska. Jamaica’s finest export (next to reggae and its sub-genres, of course) is wonderfully represented on this compilation put together by the legendary Kingston-based record label Studio One. Lee Perry, Delroy Wilson and The Wailers feature prominently on this comp, and the tracks were produced by the inimitable Clement “Coxsone” Dodd. Pure joy, this one.
This Z Tapes release left me floored. Rapt are a folk band out of London who have an ethereal sound which reminded me of musicians like Nick Drake fronting a band on 4AD. Think, perhaps, of a more airy-sounding This Mortal Coil gone neofolk. The sound is folky without being stale, and adding elements like shoegaze and dreampop make for a rich, rewarding listen. I really like this.