Mamer 马木尔 – Awlaⱪta / Afar 离

Mamer 马木尔 is perhaps my favorite underground artists operating in China today.  His work fuses Kazakh folk music with avant-garde music, bordering on experimental, even though he has a pedigree in working with record labels like Peter Gabriel’s Real World Records.  It’s rare to see an authentic musician dig into Continue Reading

Philippe Neau – hORs SoLs

Our friends at Mahorka Records introduce us to yet another brilliant composer.  Phillippe Neau masterfully uses nature sounds to paint sonic ‘pictures’ that envelop the listener.  From the label’s Bandcamp site: “”I started with sounds from different places: the house, the garden, the workshop, the forest next door in Mayenne, Continue Reading

Ceget – Sïbïzƣï

Ceget is an artist from Karachay-Cherkessia in the Russian Caucasus region.  The sounds produced on this short but pleasantly recorded album come from the Sïbïzƣï, a flute native to the region.  The composer’s style for these tracks take on elements of ambient and experimental music, but are not harsh listening Continue Reading

Fallen Sun I Sacher Pelz I Thomas Bey William Bailey – Acousmatomisation

Sacher Pelz is one of the early monickers of Maurizio Bianchi (MB, who is legendary to fans of experimental noise), and he returns in collaboration with consistently amazing Malaysian composer Fallen Sun and the American artist  Thomas Bey William Bailey. As with a great deal of MB releases, this one Continue Reading

Helena Espvall / Ernesto Diaz-Infante / Marjorie Sturm – A Shadowed Fulguration

Thanks ever so much to Ernesto Diaz-Infante for alerting me to his latest release with percussionist and Nepalese flute player Marjorie Sturm (his spouse, if I am not mistaken) and cellist Helena Espvall. Musically, there is a gritty, lo-fi feel to the recordings, with the guitar sounding more like a Continue Reading

Various Artists – Spotted Peccary Records: 33 – Free Ambient Electronic Sampler

From the label’s Bandcamp site: “Spotted Peccary Music is an independent record label with a focus on deep, vast and immersive soundscapes. From deep drone, to chillout, to high energy beats, Spotted Peccary traverses the worlds of Ambient Electronic, Classic Berlin-School, Ethereal Atmospheric, Spacemusic, Rock, Pure Acoustic and more; all Continue Reading

Hervé Perez and John Garner – Bell of Evening Skies

This has to be one of the first albums where the Shakuhachi plays a large role in improvised music that I’ve come across.  From the duo’s Bandcamp site: “This album is the first encounter between improvisers John Garner and Hervé Perez. We came across each other’s work through the jazz Continue Reading

KABRA – The Return of the Cambrian Period

KABRA are another discovery from the near-flawless Reverse Alignment Records out of Sweden associated with our friends at Unexplained Sounds Group, themselves possessing exquisite taste when it comes to dark ambient and drone music.  We know nothing about them (him, her?) except for the music, but what music it is!  Continue Reading

Oksana Linde – Travesías

From Buh Records’ Bandcamp site: “Venezuelan composer Oksana Linde presents Travesías, her second album released by Buh Records, featuring pieces created between 1986 and 1994 in her private studio in San Antonio de Los Altos, Venezuela. These compositions belong to the same creative period as the works included in her Continue Reading