Our dear friends at Lost Tribe Sound start the year with two powerful releases, though I’ll concentrate on one today (with the other in the next week or so). This one is by Belgian composer ‘t Geruis (a rather unusual name, which, in Dutch, means “The Noise” or “The Murmur“). The album, at least the four rather remarkable tracks available to hear, have a grainy, organic quality to the loops which build and collapse in a still-life manner. The music has more in common with graphic art or experimental film than it does with cold, staid experimental music. Quite an…
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I will be airborne most of today as I go from Moscow to Los Angeles to handle some personal business, so In honor of this momentous event, I present you with what was one of the first Russian jazz/improv/Avant-rock albums I ever heard, from two legends: Sergey Kuryokhin & Boris Grebenshchikov
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From the label’s Bandcamp site: Wewantsounds continues its collaboration with Bob Shad’s formidable label Mainstream Records, to present a selection of 12 turntable-friendly tracks recorded between 1971 and 1975 and showcasing the label’s superb blend of Spiritual Jazz, Funk and Soul by the likes of Buddy Terry, Sarah Vaughan, LaMont Johnson and Johnny Coles. Most of the tracks are released on vinyl for the first time since their original release in the early 70s. What makes this comp so incredibly tasty is the heavy spiritual jazz vibe crossing wires with Melodie’s that easily evoke singers like Marvin Gaye’s most crucial…
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England’s Pressure Sounds continue to release mind-blowingly good reggae compilations. This one features the production work of Bunny Lee pairing up with such luminaries as Eric Donaldson (whose raw version of Cherry Oh Baby adds grit to the warmly produced original. From the Bandcamp release website: “In 1971, despite his run of hits, Bunny Lee was still having to support himself with freelance producing at Dynamic Sounds, but by 1974 he was fully independent and poised to dominate Jamaican music in the mid 70’s. The tracks on this compilation capture that moment of transition, when the smaller ghetto producers were…
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A friend whose work I’ve had the pleasure of reviewing in the past, Rettward von Doernberg, pointed me to a podcast from December of 2005. The music is well-done, deep electronic music, the sort I remember from the 1980s cassette scene. Slightly freaky tracks with hints of Tangerine Dream influence among others, it’s a rather charming compilation, and even though I’m 17 years late to the party, I’m always pleased to share good old Berlin School synth music. If you want to hear the podcast or subscribe to it via Apple Podcasts, click here. Otherwise, Archive.org can point you to…
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From Kaliningrad, Russia (formerly my material ancestral Linn homeland of Koenigsberg, East Prussia) hail one of the most impressive psychedelic folk records I’ve heard in some time. From the cacophony of the violin starting the album, it morphs into a Beatlesque horn arrangement. Those few seconds set the tone for what I figured would be a very heavy listening experience. Sunset Wings, led by singer and multi-instrumentalist Aleks Popov team on this album with fellow singer Evgeniy Brodsky. What makes the album crucial listening, along with the impressive instrumental array you will see below, is the adaptations by poets and…
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Our dear friend Drem Bruinsma, the BlindººCoyote in question, provides a 20-minute track of ambient loops, eerie rhythms and and enchanting soundscapes. From his Bandcamp site: “Inspired by personal hikes into various shadowless desert arroyos, to meet with silence, coyotes, antelope, dust and rocks, leveling with tumbleweeds and sagebrushes from a different perspective, walking on those eroded, shallow dry riverbeds, meandering arid nature’s hidden trails when you lose track of time and where you encounter hiding parts of your identity. This track simulates the immersive, enveloping experience of slow- changing minimal landscapes observed from a ground-level perspective, the shallow dry…
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Jan 疆 Hasker is a folk musician out of Xinjiang, China, but this is a bit of a twist, as he uses Altaic and other folk melodies for his musical base rather than Uyghur. From his Bandcamp website: “Jan made this album collecting, sorting and adapting musical elements from China Xinjiang’s Altai nomadic horse people’s culture. Pastoral song’s lyrics are all about the attachment and nostalgia for this homeland and its folk culture. Jan sings in several Altai languages including Kazakh, Tuva (Russian Altai), Kirgiz and Oirat (Mongolian tribe). These nomadic folk songs and melodies travelled through lands and time.…
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2021 was a very solid year for electro-industrial record label Artoffact Records out of Canada. Some of the more incredible cuts from this compilation come from The Hafler Trio & Reptilicus, Cevin Key (from Skinny Puppy), Kælan Mikla with Alcest and of course, Canada’s own Front Line Assembly-related project, Noise Unit. A really good introduction to a pivotal record company.
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This album is magnificently weird. Imagine a band out of Thailand with minimal, ghostly musicianship, slightly ghoulish, off key vocal dronings, the plinky-plonking of piano and spoken words that sound like it might have been influenced by Godspeed You! Black Emperor. This sublime mixture comes from the band a world wondered full, and I have to saw that the album is creepy gorgeousness to it. I’m now a convert to their music.