Expand your taste in music. Based in Beijing, China.
What a joyous release this is! Accordion-based music out of Finland is just what the doctor ordered for our chilly Beijing day. Johanna Juhola is one of many incredible artists on the Nordic Notes imprint who have blown my mind this year. Imagine a collection ranging from traditional music melded with progressive, jazz, and perhaps a pinch of tango thrown into the mix. One of 2023’s most charming releases.
Castles In Space are a label whom I just stumbled into over the past few days, and I’m liking what I’m hearing from them a lot. This particular piece of hauntology comes from Jonathan Sharp, a composer who is, like me, a child of the 70’s. He split his time between Cumbria and London, and the music reflects his memories of those years long gone by.
Deena Abdelwahed is an artist and DJ who hails from Tunisia and cut her chops in the music in the capital of Tunis before relocating to Paris, France. Her sound is brutal, slow, mixing a nearly tribal Industrial sound with authentic music from her homeland. Brutiful, if I can beg your pardon and borrow this portmanteau to describe such heavy music.
Post Doom Romance presents a new album of some of the gentlest “noise” I’ve ever heard. The tones are low, sparse, and somehow calming. Perfect for cold-weather headphone listening.
Magnificent funk/soul/R&B/AOR-influenced vaporwave from Groove Paradise from Spain. We’ve featured the lads before, and they continue to produce, slick, polished, mellow grooves.
Valerio Cosi is an Italian composer I’ve had the pleasure of following for many years online, but this is the first time in a while that I have seen his work commercially available. It is a fine example of musique concrète, and is active enough to keep you engaged throughout it’s 30 minutes in length.
Magnificent Sounds Records is a record label out of Buffalo, New York, and they specialize in rare archival recordings and remastering music from a century ago in a lot of cases. From this magnificent compilation of Hawaiian music, you can read the promo quote on the label’s Bandcamp site.
“A collection of rare original recordings, unheard for over a century, of captivating Hawaiian steel guitar music that influenced the first generation of Delta blues and country artists, changing the sound of music forever. Ghostly transmissions from paradise, beamed across time from a lost century, carefully remastered and restored with extensive historical notes & rare photos. Most tracks have been unissued in any format since their original release over 100 years ago.”
Russian experimental band Disen Gage have collaborated with some of the country’s most notorious experimental musicians. Alexei Borisov, for instance, has been featured on these pages before. MOX and Voronovsky are new names. The music is an impressive mix of early-era Tuxedomoon-influenced music supported by a avant-prog bass, drums and guitar. Experimental enough to be weird, but structured enough to be familiar to the ears.
Thelonious Monk will need no introduction from my readers. He is the quintessential jazz pianist, and this unreleased album comes from a 1963 Danish recording session. It is Monk playing at his peak. From the release’s Bandcamp site:
“Hot on the heels of Impulse’s recently unearthed Coltrane number one hit album comes another beauty from Jazz’s ‘Holy Trinity’. This is a previously unreleased, precious lost treasure from Monk’s most critically acclaimed line-up; Charlie Rouse on saxophone, John Ore on double bass, and Frankie Dunlop on drums. The music was recorded live in Copenhagen in 1963 at the peak of Monk’s career. A year later he was to feature on the cover of TIME magazine, one of only for 4 Jazz artists ever to do so.
The performance, a mixture of Monk originals and interpretations of standards, showcases Monk at his prime: full of avant-garde flair and wit, but always with a swinging feel that explains his title as the ‘High Priest of Bebop’.
The original tapes, saved from a skip and blessed with the approval of the Monk estate, have been faithfully restored, mastered and cut using Gearbox’s legendary all-analogue process.”
Never, ever did I expect this artifact of Beat weirdness, cut-ups and free improv to get reissued, but then again, how many record labels are as brave in their choices as Wewantsounds is?
From the label’s Bandcamp site:
“Wewantsounds is delighted to reissue Brion Gysin’s cult avant funk album produced by Ramuntcho Matta in the early 80’s. The hugely influential Gysin who, with his friend William Burroughs, was revered by the likes of David Bowie, Brian Jones, Laurie Anderson, Genesis P-Orridge, is accompanied here by Matta – on his return from a two-year spell in New York – and French post punk stalwarts Yann Le Ker (from the group Modern Guy) and Frederic Cousseau (from Suicide Romeo) plus special guests including Don Cherry, Elli Medeiros, Lizzy Mercier Descloux, Caroline Loeb and Senegalese drummer Prosper Niang (Xalam). This is the first time the album is reissued, newly remastered from the original tapes. “