• Music

    Various Artists – Alex from Tokyo presents Japan Vibrations Vol.1

    February 5, 2024 - By 

    From the World Famous Records Bandcamp Site: “Dive into the exhilarating era of Japan’s electronic dance music scene from the mid ’80s to the mid ’90s with Japan Vibrations Vol. 1. The hand-picked collection by DJ and musical storyteller Alex from Tokyopays homage to the trailblazers and innovators who shaped the landscape. […] Experience the vibrations of pioneers Haruomi Hosono, Ryuichi Sakamoto, and Yasuaki Shimizu. Of culture-shaping forces Hiroshi Fujiwara, Kan Takagi, Susumu Yokota, Silent Poets, Mondo Grosso and Kyoto Jazz Massive. And of new-generation artists CMJK (C.T. Scan), Mind Design, Okihide, and Hiroshi Watanabe. The evolution of a scene,…

  • Music

    Various Artists – Gl​ü​cklich VI – Compiled by Rainer Tr​ü​by

    July 14, 2023 - By 

    From his days as a member of the seminal A Forest Mighty Black to collaborations with the who’s who of downtempo music (think Kruder & Dorfmeister, Jazzanova and so many others, Rainer Tr​ü​by has been of Trip-Hop’s finest tastemakers.  We can celebrate today that after 20 years, there is a new installment, courtesy of the legends at Compost Records, of the Gl​ü​cklich series.  This one features a lot of latin-tinged marvels that will make you want to explore both Rainer’s back catalogue and Compost Records‘ release schedule much more deeply.

  • Music

    Sinners Club and Groove Paradise – CHROMESOUL

    May 18, 2023 - By 

    I have to admit ignorance to what is known as barber beats, a sub-genre of Vaporwave, but if Sinners Club and Groove Paradise out of Spain are an example of what can be done with the genre, I quite like it.  The beats are infinitely more sophisticated than what you hear on most vaporwave releases (why most of these are given away for free), and the bass-heavy sound and relaxed groove makes for a chilled-out listening experience.

  • Music

    Batavia Collective – Propulsion

    March 31, 2023 - By 

    I haven’t had a chance to review anything from Indonesia in some time, so it gives me pleasure to introduce you to a band called the Batavia Collective.  Their sound is a great balance of jazz, fusion and electronica.  One track only, but it’s a solid one.

  • Music

    Heelhooks – Oh Man What a Dream

    August 9, 2022 - By 

    We have an unsolicited gem today, folks!  This live EP by Heelhooks clocks in at around 15 minutes, and the music is aggressive laptop sound deconstruction put together by the London-based duo of Hans Lo (Unk) and Rob Shields (Sunplus).  The lads describe their sound way better than I can: “Initially starting as a pure noise project, Shields and Lo instead decided to change their approach in 2021 with a cleaner, sharper production using modular synthesis and realtime laptop processing. With a blend of scattered drums, deconstructed dance genres like deep house and techno, and samples ranging from body horror…

  • Music

    Azu Tiwaline & Al Wootton – Alandazu EP

    June 9, 2022 - By 

    Azu Tiwaline and Al Wootton could not come from more different places on Earth.  Azu’s roots are from Tunisia, while Al’s roots are from London’s urban sprawl, yet they manage to collaborate on a kind of dub informed by pulsating trance and Berber-influenced rhythms.  Dark, sparse and pleasant.

  • Music

    Balkan Taksim – Disko Telegraf

    January 13, 2022 - By 

    This gem, released by Buda Musique, came out on May of 2021, and it’s simmering! From the label’s Bandcamp site: Balkan Taksim is the corduroy-clad brainchild of Bucharest-based multi-instrumentalist/artist Sașa-Liviu Stoianovici who, along with his electronica producer companion Alin Zăbrăuțeanu, is on a quest to inform, educate and entertain audiences around the globe about Balkan psych, roots and grooves. The project started by searching for something to link the sense of what has been with what will be. Sașa’s exploration of traditional music of the Balkans, ancient Romanian music and Slavic cultures led him to travel a lot through the…

  • Music

    Cabaret Voltaire – Shadow of Fear

    September 21, 2021 - By 

    Today is a terrible day, as we’re reeling over the loss of Cabaret Voltaire multi-instrumentalist, composer and producer Richard H. Kirk.  He was 65 years old. The Cabs were one of the most influential bands of their era, whose work would have serve as inspiration to genres such as Industrial, post-punk, EBM, avant-funk, electro, acid house and techno. The album we share today was the first one by Cabaret Voltaire, with Richard doing the album solo, in 26 years.  It’s as bleak as the old material, though better recorded, and it sounds like a culmination of those early, gritty experimental recordings, that funky drum machine…

  • Music

    High Pulp – Motel Money (feat. Takuya Kuroda)

    September 15, 2021 - By 

    High Pulp hail from Seattle, Washington and are currently being published by Anti- Records, best known for releasing albums by Tom Waits, Neko Case and Antibalas.  This sounds like none of them, and it caught my attention in a most pleasant way. Motel Money is a single track, and it’s a burner.  This is an instrumental track, and it mixes in everything from avant-garde jazz to beat-driven R&B to psychedelic synthesizer-heavy electronica, as their release page indicates.  Add to this the stellar trumpet playing by Takuya Kuroda, and you have something that can equal any of the nu jazz bands…

  • Music

    Harald Grosskopf & Ramón Amezcua – Quetzalkrautl

    July 20, 2021 - By 

    ¡Demasiado kosmiche…!  Two absolute legends in electronic music grace these pages with a combination whose name cracks me up, but whose music entinces.  Ramón Amezcua is best known under his nom de plume Bostich and is known as the godfather of the Nortec scene which combines hard electronic music with Norteño music and banda into a radically different form of the sort of electronica produced either Stateside or in Europe.  Harald Grosskopf played drums for progressive rock bands like Wallenstein, Ashra and appeared on quite a few albums by Klaus Schulze, as well as releasing Synthesist, which is today considered…