• Music

    Jeff Gburek – Five Broke Downe Homesick for the Open Road Medley Blues

    November 7, 2022 - By 

    Fresh recordings have been delivered by Jeff Gburek, and there are a few more in the pipeline, apparently, so 2022 will be a busy year for one of the blog’s favorites.  From Jeff’s Bandcamp site: “Five Broke Downe Homesick for the Open Road Medley Blues came to me as the title for tracks I recorded in October bounced off of various field recordings from the Summer 2022 . They are all recorded spontaneously at various locations. One can hear domestic and wilderness noises in the backgrounds (1), campfires, foxes or wolves, crickets (3). The tracks are mostly raw juxtapositions of…

  • Music

    Gleb Kolyadin – The Outland

    November 6, 2022 - By 

    Gleb Kolyadin is the pianist of Russian progressive rock band iamthemorning, but in this release, he has no problem mixing prog rock with jazz fusion.  The album is full of guests, but perhaps the biggest one is King Crimson’s legendary bassist and Chapman stick player Tony Levin playing upright bass.  Solid.

  • Music

    Joyce Moreno – Feminina (produced arranged and conducted by Claus Ogerman)

    November 5, 2022 - By 

    Joyce Moreno (known mononymously simply as Joyce in Brazil) is one of the country’s finest exports, bringing a sultry and joyful voice to bossa nova, Música Popular Brasileira and jazz. She’s been covered by artists like Annie Lennox, Gerry Mulligan and Omara Portuondo, but this piece, a one-track opus, is one her finest works. It is a collaboration with German arranger, pianist and composer Claus Ogerman, and it sizzles.

  • Music

    Peter Brötzmann / Keiji Haino Duo – The Intellect Given Birth To Here (Eternity) Is Too Young

    November 3, 2022 - By 

    Two of the greatest legends in free jazz and psychedelic rock, Keiji Haino and Peter Brötzmann, join forces after a long while in this four-album noise-fest.  My understanding that the vinyl pressing on Black Editions, which includes a 3-inch CD, is long sold out, which is unfortunate, but a standard edition is available for $100, a bit high, but for these two, and for a four-LP set, it just might be worth the price.

  • Deezer - Music - Qobuz

    Uusikuu – Karuselli

    November 2, 2022 - By 

    Welcome to the world of Finnish tango as brought to you by Uusikuu, who celebrate their 16th year with this charmer of a disc.  As this wonderful release from the ever wonderful CPL-Music isn’t on Bandcamp, I would like to point you to their Qobuz website, as I’m not much of a fan of Spotify.  If this doesn’t work in your country, consider going to Deezer here. There is something special about Finnish tango.  One would think that Finland and the Rio Plata area of Argentina and Uruguay wouldn’t have much in common, but, in fact, they share a melancholy…

  • Music

    S​.​E. Rogie – Further Sounds of S​.​E. Rogie

    November 1, 2022 - By 

    This is our second African gem this week, following the marvelously brutal release by Kenya’s Duma.  This release by the late S.E. Rogie is a more relaxed, bluesy highlife affair from Sierra Leone.  According to the Mississippi Records Bandcamp website, Rogie, “…went from running a tailor shop in Sierra Leone to being one of West Africa’s most popular artists. He toured around the country, singing his palm wine music in multiple local languages, created his own record label, and was known as the most handsome man in Sierra Leone. He formed the highlife band The Morningstars in 1965. In 1973,…

  • Music

    Duma – Duma

    October 31, 2022 - By 

    Nyege Nyege Tapes out of Kampala, Uganda, is releasing some of the most brutal music in the world these days.  A case in point comes from Nairobi, Kenya, where the band Duma call home.  Within the first few seconds of this release, you get pummeled by a barrage of drumming and screaming that is so heavy that it would have held its own comparing to any industrial band of the genre’s heyday. From the label’s Bandcamp site: “Martin Khanja (aka Lord Spike Heart) and Sam Karugu emerge from Nairobi’s flourishing underground metal scene as former members of the bands Lust…

  • Music

    Johnny Gandelsman – This Is America – An Anthology 2020-2021

    October 30, 2022 - By 

    Before I left to China in 2018, the last concert I caught was Iranian-Kurdish master Kayhan Kalhor along with Brooklyn Rider.  As it turns out, their violinist, Johnny Gandelsman, was selling one of his albums on vinyl, which I duly purchased (and have nearly worn out).  I’m pleased to say he has new work out, though this album was released on the 1st of July of 2022. From his Bandcamp site: “To say that 2020 was a difficult year for the United States would be an understatement. Covid 19 took the lives of 385,000 people. Racism and police brutality took the…

  • Music - Youtube

    [Video] Mindaugas Piečaitis – Catcerto

    October 29, 2022 - By 

    No, this isn’t a prank.  Lithuanian composer Mindaugas Piečaitis really did make a piece of orchestral music, and the cat, Nora, holds her own in comparison to more bloated practitioners of contemporary music.  Not a bad effort, to be honest, and yes, it’s available through Apple Music, though there is no information on whether Nora is properly compensated for her performance.