• Music

    Frames – In Via

    September 6, 2021 - By 

    Frames aren’t quite a new name for me, but it seems I missed this post-rock gem.  I was amused to read that a lot of post-rock fans don’t see much good in this album because it doesn’t fit their pre-conceived notions of what music in the genre should sound like, I suppose.  For me, I like that it goes nowhere in particular, a bit like a drive down a highway on a Sunday afternoon with no particular point you’re traveling to.  Musically, this is a solid album, not as metal as other post-rock bands (which for my taste is a…

  • Music

    Jodi – Spherical Distortions

    September 5, 2021 - By 

    Guerssen Records out of Catalonia, Spain is known for putting out some amazingly weird psych and lo-fi music, but this one has to be one of the most charmingly weird ones in their catalog. Two Paraguayan brothers of German origin, Joern and Dirk Wenger, self-released an album in 1971 called Pops de Vanguardia and had a deal with EMI-Argentina for a series of albums which came out and gained them a bit of fame, but Joern was also a student of Karlheinz Stockhausen, so you know his weirdo bona fides were going to be solid.  This album does not disappoint at…

  • Music

    Various Artists – Anthology Of Exploratory Music From India

    September 4, 2021 - By 

    India is a country with such an embarrassingly rich musical history that it boggles the mind as to how good it is, and it’s not merely their traditional music.  Jazz, pop, progressive rock, metal and everything else you can imagine seems to flourish there, yet there is only one problem.  There is very little effort exerted to spread their fine music culture outside their borders in the way, say, South Korea or Japan have. As this blog is focusing more on outside music, Budhaditya Chattopadhyay and our friend Raffaele Pezzella have compiled a list of the best experimental musicians from…

  • Music - Youtube

    Alèmayèhu Eshèté – Alteleyeshegnem

    September 3, 2021 - By 

    Another day, another great loss to music.  The legendary Alèmayèhu Eshèté, known lovingly as the “Ethiopian Elvis,” passed away yesterday at the age of around 80.  I came across his work on this particular album, Éthiopiques 10: Tezeta – Ethiopian Blues & Ballads, and though I didn’t hear much Elvis (despite some physical similarities), I was floored by how beautifully Ethiopian music, rock and blues could blend into each other.

  • Music

    Enji – Ursgal

    September 3, 2021 - By 

    Enji Erkhem is a jazz singer who is originally from Mongolia, but who currently calls Munich, Germany, home.  She has quite an interesting personal story, growing up in a yurt to a working-class family, traveling to Germany to study music pedagogy, and getting utterly inspired by jazz singers like Carmen McRae, Ella Fitzgerald and Nancy Wilson, while adding folk elements into this framework. Though vocal jazz fans will find much to enjoy in this album, the track which most piqued my interest was the track Aya, which swings and sways in a way that reminded me of Björk’s jazz album,…

  • Music

    Yoyogi Koen 代々木公園 – Hyakki Yako 百鬼夜行 ひゃっきやぎょう

    September 1, 2021 - By 

    Hong Kong’s 4’33” Records (named, of course, for American avant-garde composer John Cage’s most notorious composition) specialize in experimental music which crosses into drone and ambient fluidly.  This release is by Yoyogi Koen (Yoyogi Park) and though reference information isn’t listen anywhere, I would assume them to be also out of Hong Kong, though I’ll publish a note if I am in error. The music is really dubby for experimental music, something I wasn’t quite expecting.  There are folkloric sounds which mesh incredibly well in said genre, and the inspiration for this album comes from Japanese folklore.  If you’re familiar…

  • Music

    Align In Time – On A Spiral

    August 31, 2021 - By 

    This release came out in 2020, and Align In Time’s John Boles sent this to me during a time I was flooded by a wave of emails that I’m still, after all this time, going through. Align In Time are an American post-rock band out of Providence, Rhode Island.  The band’s sound reminds me of impressive post-rock bands like Caspian, We Lost The Sea and other instrumental rock bands.  Surprisingly, I can hear a touch of Fugazi in here as well, at least in some of the guitar playing.  It’s mellow, sumptuously recorded and a generally fine listen.

  • Music

    John Coltrane – Coltrane ’58: The Prestige Recordings

    August 30, 2021 - By 

    As the Bandcamp site states, 1958 was John Coltrane’s breakout year, coming into his own after partnering so successfully with pianist Thelonious Monk and Miles Davis, though his heroin addiction slowed his progress up considerably.  He is in fine condition musically in this 8-LP collection of his first recording session with Prestige Records, and it would be the beginning of an creative explosion for both Prestige and then Atlantic Records before moving on to Impulse! Records.  2019 marked the 70th anniversary of the launch of the legendary imprint, and the 60th anniversary of this session, so this beautifully-remastered collection sparkles.