Poland’s For-Tune Records have been consistently releasing high-quality jazz and improv music for some time now, but their latest has a special place for me. This collection, with the exception of Por Una Cabeza (composed by Carlos Gardel) was composed by the inimitable Ástor Piazzólla and arranged Bester Quartet leader and accordionist Jarosław Bester. It’s remarkable to hear how fluidly tangos by the masters can be translated so well into jazz and improvisational music.
For the Halloween season, our friends at Reverse Alignment Records (now run by the Unexplained Sounds Group Empire) out of Sweden and Italy have released an album which has roughly the same spirit as such post-Industrial/dark ambient musicians as Lustmord or Steve Roach. Taphephobia is the brainchild of Norwegian composer Ketil Søraker, and on this album he is joined by the Iranian sound designer Behnoud, working on this album as IDFT. The tones one this album are long, sweeping, and as bleak as black water pouring out of a nightmare. Perfect for the season.
The name Circuit des Yeux has come across the laptop several times over the past year, and each review and interview (see this one at The Quietus) raved about her work, so I decided to give it a listen. It was, undoubtedly, a rewarding experience. Haley Fohr is the singer and the Yeux in question. With a four-octave voice and the most lush production values I’ve heard out of an album that isn’t ethereal or prog rock, I have to say that this left me floored. It is as if Fohr has the husky, dusky voice of a female Scott…
The first time I had the pleasure of hearing Afrobeat was in Skopje, Macedonia, of all places. There isn’t a lot of variance to the music on this comp, though there are a few gems on this comp, but I have to be honest – how do you better Fela Kuti and Tony Allen? It’s a tough sell. This is the future of Afrobeat you’re listening to on this compilation, and the best part is that the genre is exploding everywhere. You will find bands from Nigerian diasporas in places like France and Spain, but it was interesting to see…
Italian artist Lorenzo Bracaloni composes under the name The Child of A Creek / Fallen, and this release on ROHS! Records is quite a treat for fans of ethereal music. It reminds me deeply of when Harold Budd collaborated with the Cocteau Twins, but in an instrumental form. A truly calming release.
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 answers Flora was giving. I cannot say that she is or isn’t a religious woman (though as a rationalist, perhaps she would enjoy the works of the Cappadocians), but her fascination with sacred spaces adds something interesting to this album, where drone, field recordings, and a warm take on something…
This is one I’ve been waiting to hear for some time, and it did not disappoint. American poet Shane Beck (who happens to be a very old friend) paired up with British electronic musician Dave Onley as Oceanic Vibrations to join their worlds together elegantly. Beck’s voice lends itself to the soundscapes Onley produces, melding a clear, heartfelt and pensive poetry draped on top of music that reminded me of early-period Tangerine Dream or even Cosmic Jokers in the more pulsating parts.
Alejandra Salinas and Aeron Bergman have been working together as sound and multimedia artists since at least 1997, and perhaps farther back, though their prodigious corpus vitae isn’t so clear on when, exactly, they began recording together. One can surmise that they have been collaborating on CD since 1998, if this compilation is anything to go by. What do we find from their oeuvre? Electroacoustic music that has a hazy, dreamlike quality to it. There are gentle rumblings, drones and bits of electronic music that have a nearly magical quality to them. It’s pleasant music with which to daydream –…
Sunday is going to be hectic, so today, I wanted to impart to you an album by The Myrrors, easily one of America’s finest psych bands. The music is all instrumental and sounds like the outtakes of a more relaxed Blue Cheer or some of the modern drone composers like Terry Riley. I never would have thought would be referenced by a psych band, but has been done so perfectly). Let the hot Arizona winds flow on top of you today. This album is worth your time.
Our dear friends at Kalamine Records have surprised me with yet another fine release. This album comes from the project Lezet, which is the working name of my friend Igor Jovanović. It is fair to say that this is true experimental music, or perhaps it’s better to call this sound art. The album is, as Igor puts it, “an album of assorted sounds made in mic’s physical interactions with various surfaces and other accidental sounds recorded during these interactions.”