Cousin Silas and his merry band of collaborators continue to impress with massive compilations of ambient music. He, and all bands associated with him, are worth a deep listen.
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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.
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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.
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Friend of the blog Gianpiero De Filippo, who records as The End Of Eternity, goes into a different direction with this recording. It’s less Berlin school and more techno, and very well done.
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A fellow expat, Christian Locke (Magicien Blanc) has come up with one of the best prog rock albums I’ve heard in a while. There are some cues from French and Italian prog bands from the 1970s and 1980s, some influence of bands of the Berlin school and Goblin, and it sounds as fresh as anything coming out of 2023. Very well done!
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There’s little I can add to my dear friend, the Last American Poet, Shane Beck, and heir to the Berlin-School throne, Michael Brückner, so I will let the gentlemen speak for themselves. You can read further at this release’s Bandcamp site: In what turned out to be a spontaneous burst of inspiration, poet / lyricist / spoken word artist Shane Beck and electronica composer Michael Brückner created this circle of five pieces together that are based as much around the mystical splendor of nature as on the vast inner landscape of human longing for eternal love, spiritual transcendence and integration of…
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Our friend Robert Scott Thompson offers a gorgeously minimal take on the Berlin School of Electronic music, something the doctor ordered for today. RST is usually on-point with his long-form compositions, but this one sits perfectly in my ears today. Well done.
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We end 2022 and walk into 2023 with a shimmering, hopeful release. German composer Harald Bertram collaborates with the ‘Last American Poet’, Shane Beck in a collaboration of Berlin School-influenced electronics and poetry. A lovely release to end our year with.
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Bureau B has released so many incredible reissues that it has been hard to document all of them. Artists released this year include Martin Rev (of Suicide), Cluster, Dieter Moebius, Jimi Tenor and Faust among so many others. The label is incredibly prolific, and 2022 was another banner year for the label, and I can’t wait to see what’s in store for next year!
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Zhuang Zhou is the pinyin transliteration of Chuang Tzu, the Chinese taoist philospher who lived some time during the 4th century B.C. during the Warring States Period, and was part of a movement where Chinese philosophy enjoyed an explosive period of development. He is the subject of the album being reviewed, and it’s nice to have composer Pete Swinton bring his name up after such a long absence. Why he is mentioned in relation to the music is a mystery, as the first six tracks, according to Swinton himself, are meant to imitate insect sounds. After a deep listening, I…