When I hear the words Avant-garde in relation to contemporary classical music, I think normally of some me composers who pull out old, clichéd tropes. This release from Kenyan composer Nyokabi Kariuki is so stunningly weird that the album has given itself the right to be termed Avant-garde correctly.
Avant-Garde
Roger Doyle – Oizzo No
Roger Doyle, like his equally talented countryman (and friend) Daniel Figgis, doesn’t get his fair shake inside of his home country of Ireland, yet is better regarded in the U.K. and the European continent as a master of electroacoustic music. This version of Oizzo No is a reworking of the Continue Reading
Nick Sudnick – Opera of the Fifteenth Hour
24 Rush Hours is a series done by Zga composer and multi-instrumentalist Nick Sudnick, and this is #15 of 24. The two long pieces are a pastiche of art-rock (think Rock-In-Opposition like Art Bears or the composers Alfred ’23’Harth and Heiner Goebbels). Add an element of Bertolt Brecht-like lyrics for Continue Reading
Sergey Kuryokhin & Boris Grebenshchikov – Mad Nightingales of the Russian Forest
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 Continue Reading
Jeff Gburek + George Christian – Thrown Extremes
During the next few weeks, I’ll be catching up on releases I could not get to in 2021. This one is really a gem that I’m surprised I didn’t get to earlier, but thanks to Jeff Gburek reminding me of it, I can happily present this release he did in Continue Reading
Bérangère Maximin – Land Of Waves
Land Of Waves, the 6th album by French electroacoustic composer Bérangère Maximin, came out in June of 2020, and when I first heard it, was was left utterly impressed, but I have not had a chance to review it until today. Maximin has an incredible talent to blend together nature, Continue Reading
Alexei Aigui & Arkady Marto – DA
This should be a breakout year for Alexei Aigui, who has released his fourth album of the year in collaboration with pianist Arkady Marto. The album is absolutely sublime. Each track has a gentle touch, balancing violin and piano perfectly. The cornerstone of the album for me is this track, Continue Reading
Flora Yin-Wong – Holy Palm
After coming across an interview over at The Quietus with the London based composer Flora Yin-Wong, I wasn’t quite sure of what to make of her work. The new album they discussed, Holy Palm sounded fascinating, less so by the interviewer’s rather tepid questions but more so by the evocative Continue Reading
Santiago Fradejas – The Light Through The Springs
The guitar, all by itself, can serve as tool for making a haunting orchestra’s worth of sounds. My good friend Santiago Fradejas, now resident in Kent, of all places (!) presents a mini-LP’s worth of brooding, swelling, lilting soundscapes. There is a menacing element tying the album together, as though Continue Reading
Maryam Sirvan – Feast On My Body
We have to wait eight more days to hear the complete work, but given the two tracks Maryam Sirvan has made available, this will be worth the wait. There were two artists which came to mind while listening to the tracks over and over – Tim Buckley at his most Continue Reading