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    Various Artists – A Tribute to Ryuichi Sakamoto: To the Moon and Back

    February 12, 2023 - By 

    Your browser does not support iframes. Our heroes age. After the passing of Yukihiro Takahashi last month, it got me thinking about how long we have Sakamoto-san and Hosono-san with us. Both are due a tribute album of some sort. Thankfully, Milan Records has done a sterling job bringing together Sakamoto collaborators, friends, and those who are indebted to the master. Artists like Christian Fennesz and Alva Noto (Carsten Nicolai), who have collaborated on some incredible glitch albums, are joined by his countrymen Cornelius and Otomo Yoshihide, along with old friend David Sylvian, all of whom do wonders reworking Sakamoto’s…

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    Various Artists – Anthology Of Experimental Music From Latin America

    February 3, 2023 - By 

    Our friends at Unexplained Sounds Group continue their ambient and experimental music travelogue series, this time concentrating on wonderful Latin America.  From their Bandcamp site: “After almost 6 years from the latest compilation focused on experimental music from Latina America, finally Unexplained Sounds Group publishes a cd release including, in addition to some of the musicians who participated in the initial project, many other artists from Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Bolivia, Peru, Mexico, Costa Rica, Chile and Venezuela, thereby providing evidence of continuous aesthetic research beyond all conventional barriers.” The label is a treasure of the genre, and I await what…

  • Music - Qobuz

    Heiner Goebbels – A House of Call, My Imaginary Notebook

    January 19, 2023 - By 

    Your browser does not support iframes.    As a fan of Heiner Goebbels‘ work as far back as the Recommended / RèR Records days, it’s been a joy to hear his music become more full, more dense, and on occasion, more foreboding.  ECM seems to be the perfect home for his works, and the Ensemble Modern do absolute justice to his compositions. High Res Audio posted an interview on their site regarding this latest release, which you can view below:

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    Doc Wör Mirran – Second Try

    October 9, 2022 - By 

    Doc Wör Mirran got its start as a multi-disciplinary project out of Nürnberg, Germany in around 1985, and for nearly 40 years, the band have continued to produce strange, intriguing avant-garde rock and experimental music.  From their Bandcamp site: “Contrary to most compilations which compile the greatest hits of an artist, “Second Try” is a compilation that highlights the drumming talents of DWM’s drummer Stefan Schweiger. He compiled, edited and partially remixed this album himself of his favourite tracks, and added new sounds and samples to make some of the tracks quite different from the “normal versions”. Stefan also contributed…

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    Anna Homler – Breadwoman & Other Tales

    September 19, 2022 - By 

    There are few experimental artists I hold a loving reverance for in the way I do for Anna Homler.  I had the pleasure of meeting and befriending her during the 1990s, and I had the distinct joy of seeing her again when Maja Ratkje performed in Los Angeles several years ago.  Breadwoman is one of her performance art creations, “a being who exists outside of time, yet surfaced on tape during the perfect storm of performance art, renegade DIY avant-garde, gallery culture, and esoteric mysticism of early 80s Los Angeles.” This was the first collaboration on cassette between Anna and…

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    Valentina Goncharova – Ocean – Symphony for Electric Violin and other instruments in 10+ parts

    August 27, 2022 - By 

    Russian violinist Valentina Goncharova is having something of a renaissance these days.  She had an album come out earlier in the year which were unpublished (you can find Volume 1 here and Volume 2 here). Now, we have a full album of recordings last heard on Leo Records many years ago as part of a box set called Document – New Music From Russia – The 80’s, a pinnacle of Russian avant-garde music.  The recordings have been lovingly remastered, and the drony sound is magnificent.

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    Sergey Kuryokhin (谢尔盖·古廖金) – Divine Madness (天赋的疯狂)

    August 22, 2022 - By 

    First, a disclaimer: I am posting this review with the understanding that Leo Records has licensed this astounding collection covering the career of the late enfant terrible of Russia’s then-thriving avant-garde music community, Sergey Kuryokhin, to Old Heaven Books Records in Shenzhen, China.  If this is so, it’s wonderful to know that Sergey’s reach will continue to grow almost three decades after his passing.  Collaborators on this box set include Igor Butman, Sergei Belichenko, Valentina Ponomareva and Boris Grebenshchikov among others.  I’m excited to see Old Heaven Books continue to branch out.

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    Liang YiYuan (梁奕源) – Those That Die In A Dream. A twenty years retrospective

    July 2, 2022 - By 

    It boggles the mind that our friends at Unexplained Sounds Group continue to scour the earth for the best ambient music around. From the label’s website: Liang YiYuan was born in Wuhan (China, 1977), and now living in Lijiang, Yunnan Province. He painted in his early years, and later turned to make music. So far, he has published more than twenty albums, frequently using instruments such as guitar, yangqin, violin, guqin, bawu, and showing a natural attitude to unconventional playing techniques and original timbre. He also creates music for films, plays, modern dances, architectural and environmental scenes, and exhibitions. “Those…