• Music

    Savvas Metaxas – Music for Dance Performance

    July 10, 2022 - By 

    Greek experimental composer Savvas Metaxas has scored music for a choreography project that sounds more like a very relaxed version of electroacoustic music.  It’s sumptuous headphone listening, I have to say.  From his record label Noise Below’s Bandcamp site: “Savvas Metaxas’s music for the choreography/action ‘who knows where time goes – potential destination #1’, slightly modified for this release without losing the sense of experiencing its first steps and its ongoing development, making the listener feel like they are participating in the action. With a cover photo from Sofia Tolika’s amazing ‘mundus’ photobook, that toys with stasis/motion, and artwork by…

  • Music

    Naujawanan Baidar – Khedmat Be Khalq

    July 9, 2022 - By 

    N.R. Safi is the leader of the band psychedelic rock/drone band The Myrrors, yet this side project goes off on into a rather personal trajectory for him.  This particular release combines the drone and rock he’s mastered, but it’s also layered with tapes from Afghanistan, where his roots are.  Imagine Throbbing Gristle and Amon Düül II jamming in the outskirts of Kabul with local musicians, and maybe you’d get close to the vibe this album is giving.

  • Music

    Borut Kržišnik – Lightning

    July 8, 2022 - By 

    I have a proud history with Slovenian composer and guitarist Borut Kržišnik.  Many years ago, I ran a small record label of note called Falçata-Galia, and I launched the label with his album Stories From Magatrea.  He has continued to make amazing music since then, and is currently exploring the point where contemporary classical music and soundtracks collide.  This release is from 2013.  I wish him continued success.

  • Music

    Otomo Yoshihide (大友良英) – We Insist?

    July 7, 2022 - By 

    I had the pleasure of watching Otomo Yoshihide perform live about 30 years ago in Los Angeles, and his turntable wizardry made me a lifelong fan.  It pleases me to see that labels are still carefully releasing his body of work, and this album is among my favorites.  The album is full of short snippets, records mixed together, sound samples layer one on top of the other, blended, stirred and shaken to make one of the best experimental music albums of the late 1990s.  A must for turntablists.

  • Music

    Tewksbury – Brutes

    July 6, 2022 - By 

    Douglas Tewksbury is an ambient musician out of, I believe, Canada.  I am quite impressed with the spacious and elegant nature of his music.  From his record label, HushHush’s Bandcamp site: “‘Brutes‘ serves as a follow-up Tewksbury’s debut album ‘Paths.’ Released by the boutique Dutch label Geertruida Records in June 2021, Paths signaled Tewksbury’s initial intersection of music with his full-time work as a professor and researcher. Currently teaching at Niagara University in Lewiston, New York with a specialization in the media’s role in interpreting and affecting the debate on climate change, Tewksbury’s academic work has taken him on travels…

  • Music

    Donny Vegas – Pharmakós

    July 5, 2022 - By 

    It seems like Donny Vegas has been listening to all the right post-punk records for my taste.  One can hear influences of early Cabaret Voltaire, Suicide, a touch of Throbbing Gristle, and yet, by some odd miracle, it sounds both fresh and lo-fi.  A quirky release, but I like this. Thanks to Filip of Z Tapes for the magnificent suggestion.

  • Music

    Internal Fusion – IWWA

    July 4, 2022 - By 

    I suppose we can coin a new term for this magnificent music out of Breton dark ambient composer Eric Latteux (who composed under the name Internal Fusion): Kosmische dark ambient. I seem to be finding a fair amount of music like this these days, and our dear friends at Mahorka have released another gem.

  • Music

    Birdsongs of the Mesozoic – The Iridium Controversy

    July 3, 2022 - By 

    Cuneiform Records offered this album as a half-price release this weekend, and though I already had the album, I thought it would be good to note what an amazing album this was back in its prime. Birdsongs of the Mesozoic are a band from Boston, Massachussets who have been active for well over 40 years now, and are perhaps America’s best representative of avant-progressive rock, having no difficulty straddling the lines of aggressive prog rock with classical music, much like their European contemporaries Art Zoyd and Univers Zero, among others.

  • Music

    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…

  • Music

    Lauri-Dag Tüür – Waves Of Silent Whispers

    July 1, 2022 - By 

    Lauri-Dag Tüür appeared on my previous blog in 2020 with what I believe was his debut album, and he’s gotten better since.  This album clocks in at a bit over 40 minutes, and it’s one of the better examples of Kosmische Musik I’ve heard in some time done by a modern composer.  The album is spacious and roomy, and takes a leisurely pace winding and unwinding while it travels around the universe, reminding me of artists like the late Klaus Schulze, Robert Rich, and in parts, fellow Estonian Sven Grünberg and his project, Mess.