Expand your taste in music. Based in Beijing, China.
Here is something rather magnificent coming out of Macedonia in the form of Kristo Rodzevski’s latest album through Defkaz, a great Greek label. There is hope for the Balkans yet! From the Defkaz Bandcamp site: “Black Earth has eleven traditional Macedonian songs […]
Our friends over at the indomitable CPL-Music have released a charming disc of traditional music from my second homeland of Skopje, Macedonia! Baklava, the subject of today’s listening, work with folk music and does sterling work reinterpreting it for a more modern, […]
I remember the Beijing lockups very well, as I lived in the city during the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis. Some residents in Beijing, including the trio of Li Jianhong, Wen Zhiyong and Deng Boyu, made incredibly good use of the time […]
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 […]
The legendary Shenzhen-based Old Heaven Books released a powerful album from the Chinese-Kazakh band IZ Band. This is listed as folk music, yet the music is brutal, sounding like early 1980s post-punk or Industrial rock. Think of, maybe, a Kazakh Killing Joke […]
Dario Elia, working under the name Megamozaki on this release, is an old friend who makes some very impressive industrial rock with elements one normally wouldn’t think to put together. Starting a capella, one would get the impression you would be hearing […]
Emil Biljarski has had a storied career, first as keyboardist of the seminal Hungarian psychedelic rock band Korai Öröm, and who continued the psychedelic, world music and even post-punk stylings in bands such as Fókatelep and Meszecsinka. His pedigree is impeccable. He […]