Jeff Gburek · Secret Orphan Endorphin Mix I played American composer Jeff Gburek’s piece here in spectacularly sunny weather yesterday, and under grey skies today. In both cases, the music let my mind wander into itself. A perfect piece for taking it easy.
Though I am familiar with the great experimental musician Terje Paulsen, I have not yet heard the works of Lance Austin Olsen, and I’m impressed with this pair’s use of field recordings and instruments into one organic whole. From Lance Austin Olsen’s Bandcamp site: Nattinsekter (night insects) developed from my ongoing graphic score A Night On The Veldt, which references my childhood in Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) and the many times I was out at night with my father on the veldt listening to the nocturnal soundscape. The sounds from the veldt have continued since the beginning of time and will…
No, unfortunately, this is not from Zanzibar or Tanzania, but from Russia. Metalhead From Zanzibaria bring a cold, claustrophobic retro experimental sound to fore. Those of you who remember cassette-based artists like Cranioclast will find a lot of good memories with this music.
Relative Pitch Records is making a great case for becoming a favorite label of mine. There are so many great releases covering the best of improvisational and free music that I’ll probably go broke trying to purchase all of them. It’s fitting to make my first review that of avant-harpist Zeena Parkins, whose work should need no introduction to the initiated, but for those new to her work, she recorded on labels such as John Zorn’s Tzadik Records and No Man’s Land, a German improv label best known to American and British audiences thanks to their distributor, Recommended Records, who…
Continuing on the Industrial (and post-Industrial) theme, this album was sent as a promo album to me while I was a buyer for Aron’s Records, the best record shop in Los Angeles before Amoeba steamrolled the competition (and are now, apparently, either no more or barely hanging on in L.A.). I had known a bit about the Hafler Trio because I was selling some of Andrew MacKenzie’s cassettes and limited edition releases on CD and vinyl, and business was quite good. I was partial to his music, but this combination with Reptilicus, who would become an important force in Icelandic…
This collection of ambient music is curated by British record label Mailbox Records. From their Bandcamp site: About this release: This compilation has been put together in order to raise awareness and/or raise money for the UK charity, Refuge. This means 100% of proceeds from all sales will go to them (after the standard deductions from Bandcamp and PayPal). It was 1971 when Refuge opened the world’s first safe house, so this year marks the 50th year they’ve been helping women and children escape a life of abuse and violence; the first to make the point that violence in the…
We have the tremendous pleasure of announcing three new albums by composer Jeff Gburek. The first album is in collaboration with his partner Karolina Ossowska, who plays violin, ocarina and kalimba on this release. Gburek performs on zither, mandolin, miniature bandura and something called a blue-sky instrument, something new to me. The music is quiet, thoughtful, and meditative. It was a relaxing experience hearing Jeff’s and Karolina’s interplay. The next release deals with shortwave radio sounds. This is in keeping with the best of experimental music, where one lets the noises speak for themselves. Jeff states: Flux and Permittivity is…
Coagulant hail from Uruguay, a country not known for a deep experimental music scene. This release, however, should attract attention to those who enjoyed those ritualistic post-Industrial music cassettes of the 1980s. There’s a heavy B-movie soundtrack vibe to this release mixed with electroacoustic music. Quite enjoyable.
French label WV Sorcerer Productions 巫唱片 offers up a quiet, pulsating drone album from American-Taiwanese-Chinese composer Li Daiguo. As far as experimental music goes, this is dark and foreboding in a far more organized way that what I’m used to hearing. Quite a fine effort.