• Music

    Floreana – Floreana One

    April 12, 2024 - By 

    I don’t do top tens, but if I did, this album might be EP of the year.  It’s that good.  Imagine early Brian Eno or Tuxedomoon with a sound updated for the 2020’s.  Yes, these names are the ones I’m happy to drop for this release.  From Floreana’s Bandcamp site: “Floreana One, is the first installment of a three-part series, captures tones reminiscent of early Kraftwerk and Brian Eno, exploring themes of isolation and idealism through tape-saturated woodwinds, hazy synthesizers, and vintage drum machines. Features appearances from her father- David Mordoch, John Carroll Kirby, Nico Georis, Shags Chamberlain, and Daryl…

  • Music

    Jorge López Ruiz – Un Hombre de Buenos Aires

    August 24, 2023 - By 

    I have to say that, until a few days ago, I knew nothing about Jorge López Ruiz, but after reading this writeup and listening to the funky exotic jazz on this album, I’ve become a fan.  From the Bandcamp website: “Jazz, funk, and bossa vibes kiss each other, all wrapped up in JLR’s trademark cinematic feel. In his colourful Un Hombre de Buenos Aires, recorded in 1978, JLR puts the political outcry of his early 70s works aside and focuses on his love for the city of Buenos Aires. Jorge López Ruiz gets far less credit than he deserves. His…

  • Music

    Various Artists – Ecuatoriana – El Universo Paralelo de Polibio Mayorga 1969​-​1981 (Analog Africa No​.​37)

    August 19, 2023 - By 

    Analog Africa, one of my favorite reissue labels, is going well above its mission of reissuing African treasures and is now delving deep into the music mines of South America – in this case, Ecuador.  Polibio Mayorga was a hit-writing machine during the early days of Ecuadorian rock, but he also had an interest in sci-fi, weirdly lounge-influenced music and his native cumbia.  From the release’s Bandcamp site: “In the decades after the second world war, outer space was on everyone’s mind and the ‘space race’ of the 1950s and 60s not only produced groundbreaking efforts to launch artificial satellites,…

  • Music

    Domenique Dumont – People on Sunday

    July 30, 2023 - By 

    I came across a “composer” (really, a duo) based in Riga, Latvia called Domenique Dumont. The pair consist of Latvian multi-instrumentalist and producer Arturs Liepins and vocalist, ethnomusicologist Anete Stuce, and they have produced a shimmering, gentle piece of electronic music.  From the release’s Bandcamp site: “People On Sunday is an original soundtrack to the 1930 silent film variously known as Menschen am Sonntag, Les Hommes le Dimanche and People On Sunday. The film is a key work of interwar German cinema, based on a screenplay by Billy Wilder. Part documentary, part fiction, People On Sunday follows a group of…

  • Music

    Arthur Lyman – Island Vibes

    July 23, 2021 - By 

    The ever-brilliant Aloha Got Soul Records is about to release a lost masterpiece of exotica. Arthur Lyman played vibraphone and marimba, and with these tools, nature sounds and some fine musicians backing him up, he managed to conjure up images of life in the South Pacific and Hawaii, which had just become our 50th state in the United States. This album was originally recorded on Broad Records in 1980, but it seems to have been forgotten, which is surprising given the explosion of exotica, easy listening and lounge music which occurred during the 1990s. As of today (July 23, 2021),…