• Music

    SALA – Jurmala Revisited​/​Breath

    Audrius Simkunas operates as SALA, a Latvian composer whose work straddles ambient and nature recordings.  From the release’s Bandcamp site: “Jurmala Revisited/Breath documents SALA’s return to the shores of Latvia, as a sort of audio postcard. The cover photography was taken during the trip and has been treated to look like a fading memory. There are two images, one for each piece. The first is hazier and more feint, suggesting a distant recollection of events, whilst the second image is slightly clearer, as if the memory has been jogged during a listen to this EP.”

  • Music

    Takashi Kokubo & Andrea Esperti – Music For A Cosmic Garden

    We Release Whatever The Fuck We Want Records (charming name, better known by its acronym WRWTFWW) has released a rather unique album.  It pairs Japanese ambient/environmental legend Takashi Kokubo (Ion Series) and Italian & Swiss trombonist Andrea Esperti (Esperti Project) working under the name of Music For A Cosmic Garden. From the label’s Bandcamp site: “Takashi KOKUBO is a Japanese environmental musician who produces healing music that gently resonates with people’s hearts. He has recorded “sound scenes from nature” in countries around the world using a binaural “CyberPhonic” microphone of his own invention, and incorporates these dimensional sounds of nature in his…

  • Music

    O Yuki Conjugate – A Tension of Opposites Vols 1 & 2

    We had the pleasure of O Yuki Conjugate’s release earlier this year reviewing Volumes 3 & 4 of this series.  The old quote still holds: ““Two years after the first two volumes of A Tension of Opposites (ATOO) were issued OYC return to the form they created to house their looser more exploratory works. ATOO allows them to expand their musical horizons and release their music more expediently. The original ATOO was born out of 2020’s virus state where both OYC members were left working in isolation. Two types of music emerged spontaneously, and rather than try to combine them…

  • Music

    Wolfgang Gsell – Soundscapes of the Rain

    German composer Wolfgang Gsell passed away in 2017 at the age of 61, but he left an amazing body of work that could be favorably compared to electronic music from Germany, especially the Berlin School which produced acts like Klaus Schulze and Tangerine Dream.  He was also a collaborator with the estimable Cousin Silas, Martin Neuhold and Eisenlager, among other underground ambient luminaries.

  • Music

    Federico Mosconi – Nocturnal

    Federico Mosconi has produced a perfectly melancholy album, one of those discs you will go to at 4 a.m. when the word feels like it will fall apart, yet magically sticks together through a combination of faith and music.  From his label DRONARIVM’s Bandcamp site: “”Nocturnal” is a trip that takes place during the night and ends at the break of dawn. A lonely and (sometimes) melancholic journey through a calm and deep night.”

  • Music

    Dimitar Dodovski – D​é​rive

    Norman Records does a far more in-depth job introducing the world to the music of North Macedonian composer Dimitar Dodovski a wee bit better than I could.  From their promo sheet: “”Dimitar Dodovski approaches his craft of granular synthesis from a melodic perspective at most definitely the warmer end of the drone spectrum. Opening track ‘I’ introduces, of all things, mallet-struck chimes amongst the digital layers. The mallets recur on the following track (‘II’), but only when you least expect them. Staccato synth rises from a mist-draped lake of sound, each milky chord change rung by a bell. Pixelated textures…

  • Music

    Filalete – Be Enything

    Filalete are a project released on the estimable Borenail Records, who specialize in weirder, more neglected scenes like witchhouse, vaporwave and the like. The band produces a really pleasant sweeping sort of ambient, easy to drown your thoughts in. My favorite track was Sweet Nectar, which manages to balance electronic music and post-rock sublimely. A fine record.