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.
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…
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…
Our friend JOHN 3:16 (a quote I subscribe to as well as a band whose work is consistently brilliant) has paired with the Belgian project Be The Hammer and the pairing have produced an album that, while fresh and brutally punchy technologically, also has a flair for reminding the listener of everything from Skinny Puppy to Front 242, and perhaps a bit of Central/Eastern European post-punk. This album is going to get a lot of attention, surely.
Kawabata Makoto is the leader of Acid Mother’s Temple, Japan’s greatest modern psychedelic rock group. He’s also a wildly experimental composer, with this album being influenced by musique concrète and drone as well as the usual psych one expects from him.
Tamarind Winds has to be the best album of 2022 for me to get lost in. Composer and friend of the blog Jeff Gburek continues to awe with the magic he imbues in each instrument he touches, spinning haunting drones, field recordings and soothing the senses with his rebab. From his Bandcamp site: Various parts of the traditional Javanese rebab are made of tamarind wood, hence the flavor, the aromatic suggestion of the title. These are spontaneous compositions, duets and trios created in thye studio among me, myself and I. There are no effects or plug-ins used other than reverb…
Starry Earth is a record label out of the United Kingdom offering lo-fi electronic artists with stunningly beautiful minimalist artwork and packaging, releasing cassettes as well as digital downloads. Of Sun And Rain were of particular interest, as the music is hauntingly sparse and engaging.
Tegh & Adel Poursamadi are a duo from Tehran, Iran, who are bringing a new spin to electroacoustic and experimental music. Sadly, only one track is available for the moment, but it shows how the duo meld string instruments and electronic soundscapes together seamlessly.
Sublime. There’s no other word for it. If you enjoy modern classical music, especially by composers like Gorecki, Ligeti or Penderecki, Canadian composer Adrian Copeland has something here which will appeal to you, with long, mournful drones, sparse instrumentation, and a rough, melancholic feel to the tracks. Track 4, Heir to the Ember Sun, was my favorite track, as it stays within the classical realm, but adds elements and a pop structure that reminded me of the Penguin Cafe Orchestra. A fine album.
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.