Okolo Poludnya are a band out of Russia who have mastered the art of nostalgic synth-pop. Well done, and considering how old synth-pop is, it’s nice to hear bands keeping the genre sounding fresh.
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Your browser does not support iframes. Our heroes age. After the passing of Yukihiro Takahashi last month, it got me thinking about how long we have Sakamoto-san and Hosono-san with us. Both are due a tribute album of some sort. Thankfully, Milan Records has done a sterling job bringing together Sakamoto collaborators, friends, and those who are indebted to the master. Artists like Christian Fennesz and Alva Noto (Carsten Nicolai), who have collaborated on some incredible glitch albums, are joined by his countrymen Cornelius and Otomo Yoshihide, along with old friend David Sylvian, all of whom do wonders reworking Sakamoto’s…
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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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With the passing of Richard H. Kirk last year and Stephen Mallinder keeping himself busy with his own projects, Cabaret Voltaire will be no more. This final album, basically with Kirk alone programming the music, is a fifty-minute track that has much more in common with it’s early Industrial past than it does with the techno-funk sound that made them so popular in the 1980s.
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Two small ambient/orchestral pieces have been released by the composer ǽfv, of whom I know nothing except that she is an experimental composer and cellist whose short compositions left me wanting much more.
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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…
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The Spanish ambient music label Faint brings together some of the best modern electronic music composers like David Cordero, Pepo Galán and Robert Farrugia.
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From Bahía Mansa’s Bandcamp site: “Bahía Mansa is the sound project of musician Iván Aguayo. He has released a series of albums emphasizing the textural exploration of ambient minimalism from an ecological perspective, using electronic instruments and field recordings. At the beginning of 2022, Colony Collapse contacted Bahía Mansa and, given their mutual interest in each other’s art, the idea of collaborating from their respective disciplines was born. Thus, “costa documental”, a collaborative piece of music-sculpture created by the musician Iván Aguayo and the sculptor Justin Pape, was born from their interest in exploring ecology in a sustainable way. “This…