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The Modern Jazz & Folk Ensemble – I’ve Got A Feeling (feat. Jacqui McShee)

Sean Khan has a sterling reputation working with jazz legends like Hermeto Pascoal, but the fact that he is pairing with Pentangle chanteuse Jacqui McShee makes this single from Acid Jazz Records crucial listening.  From the release’s Bandcamp site:

“Earlier this year we announced The Modern Folk & Jazz Ensemble, led by saxophonist Sean Khan. Ahead of a special appearance at the London Jazz Festival on 16 November, we are releasing their first single ‘I’ve Got A Feeling’ on all digital platforms on 11 October.

We’re very excited to be working with Sean on this project – one of our favourite albums of the past few years was Sean’s ‘Supreme Love: A Journey Through John Coltrane’. This work pays tribute to the sounds of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s folk revival, recast and reimagined in a jazz setting. ‘I’ve Got A Feeling’ sets the tone perfectly, with Sean’s arrangement and the group performance taking this Pentangle track back to it’s modal jazz origins and beyond.”

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Abu Ama + BedouinDrone – Dawlat L​ī​biyyā

Abu Ama and BedouinDrone’s most recent collaboration, Dawlat L​ī​biyyā, is being presented to the world by Mahorka Records, who have released this album as a well-deserved vinyl edition as well as a adding an extra track added to the digital version.  The duo released several albums both together and individually for the record label before, but this will be their first vinyl release for Mahorka, and we are hoping that many more releases appear.

As an aside, the artwork was done by longtime Mahorka resident designer Angel Draganov, based on calligraphy paintings by Brett Tassenon, which is an absolutely stunning thing to look at on a digital format.  I can only imagine how gorgeous the actual vinyl edition must look.

About the music…  Absolutely crunchy, grinding beats which blend Middle Eastern rhythms and found sound into a post-Industrial gruel that acts like Muslimgauze (these days just a grift of Bryn Jones’ leftover experiments) only hinted at.  I say this as a fan of early Muslimgauze, where the aforementioned Mr. Jones used his imagination and political fervor for the Islamic world cause-du-jour to give his brutal and gritty music a more radical edge, Abu Ama and BedouinDrone imbue their beats with a more honest, authentic feeling.

 

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Clarice Jensen – Ainu Mosir

Brooklyn-based composer and cellist Clarice Jensen has an incredible resume, including performing on new releases from both Michael Stipe and Taylor Swift as well as well as being the artistic director of ACME, the American Contemporary Music Ensemble.  This release is from her first soundtrack.  Information from her Bandcamp site follows:

“The fifteen-minute long 5-track EP was recorded at Jensen’s home in Brooklyn. It was performed on cello and electronics and also sees Clarice expanding her ouevre into works for piano. The material comprises her first feature film comission, since which Clarice has worked on three more, and so marks the beginning of working in a medium in which she is hoping to grow…

Directed by Takeshi Fukunaga, ‘Ainu Mosir’ is a coming-of-age tale set in an indigenous village in Northern Japan, where a community‘s livelihood depends on preserving and performing ancient traditions for visiting tourists. Torn between maintaining the tradition of his ancestors and lured by the mysteries of adulthood, 14-year-old Kanto is on a journey to find a sense of self.”

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Akiko Yano – To Ki Me Ki

There is no better way to tell the story of this gorgeous and lovingly remastered release by Akiko Yano than to let our dear friends at Wewantsounds to explain it for themselves:

“Wewantsounds is proud to continue its Akiko Yano reissue series with the release of the singer’s third studio album ‘To Ki Me Ki’, recorded in New York and originally issued in 1978 in Japan. It follows her cult “Iroha Ni Konpeitou” LP and retains a similar blend of Japanese pop and New York funk. “To Ki Me Ki” features such musicians as Rick Marotta, Will Lee and David Spinozza and also programmer Hideki Matsutake who would soon join the YMO with Akiko for their international 1979/1980 tour before she recorded her next studio album “Tadaima” that year, featuring the YMO musicians. “To Ki Me Ki” is reissued outside of Japan for the first time, remastered in Tokyo by revered engineer Mitsuo Koike and featuring original artwork by Tsutomu Murakami with 4 page colour insert and new liner notes by Paul Bowler.

1978 was a key year for Japanese Music. Yellow Magic Orchestra was about to release their ground-breaking debut album. All musicians involved had also released key solo albums that year (Sakamoto with “Thousand Knives“, Takahashi with “Saravah” and Hosono with “Paraiso“). Akiko Yano  (who would soon join the YMO on tour for their first international tour) was no exception, releasing the brilliant “To Ki Me Ki”. Having started her career with a bang recording “Japanese Girl” in 1976 with Little Feat, Akiko had quickly established herself as a leading force on the Japanese music scene.”

Read the rest of the promo material here. This is rightly seen as a timeless record.

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Ian Vine – Five Strings

Ian Vine, a composer out of the United Kingdom, provides us with a conceptual piece of classical music.  From his Bandcamp site:

“Recently I have written a series of pieces that are concerned in one way or another with the presentation of unique, and yet similar, events or objects. In this work I examine closely a chord played by four guitars and bass guitar. There is no repetition in the piece, except gesturally..

five strings is presented in its original 36-minute version and also as five shorter pieces, five strings I-V.

In January 2021 I asked our mother, my brother and some of his childhood bandmates to record some guitar pitches that I sent to them in a score. My intention was to make a birthday piece for my brother vaguely in the same year as his fiftieth. For various reasons that didn’t happen and this isn’t that piece, it does however use some of the same material. Thank you to Elizabeth, Eamonn, Sean and Richard.”

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Hani from Yunnan China – Hani Polyphonic Singing in Yunnan China

From our friends at Sublime Frequencies:

“Mystic choral beauty drifting far into the outer cosmos, this other worldly traditional music ensemble creates a contemporary-sounding avant-garde vocal fusion combined with strange instrumental accompaniment.

The HANI are linguistically derived from the YI branch of the Tibeto-Burmese and number a million and a half in the southern part of Yunnan province in China above Laos and Vietnam where smaller Hani communities also live.

As with many other ethnic groups of the area, an original traditional singing pattern is used with each singer adapting the words to the context. The choir that gathers all singers at the same time is considered to be a very unique style of vocal polyphony or heterophony. The cascading, mournful feel of this music is powerfully transcendent and you’ve never heard anything like it.

Many of these songs express intimate strong emotions that bring tears to the performers while they are singing.”

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María Cristina Kasem – Obras – (2006 / 2017)

Friends and readers, thank you for indulging your scribe a well-needed rest after 1,000 days of activity.  We relaunch with one of the most gorgeous electroacoustic recordings I’ve come across in a while.  María Cristina Kasem is a composer and violinist from Argentina who has an extensive body of work in academic experimental music.  These three works are eerie, but so incredibly engaging that the sounds managed to soothe my ears.  A very pleasant find.