• Music

    SALA – Jurmala Revisited​/​Breath

    September 23, 2023 - By 

    Audrius Simkunas operates as SALA, a Latvian composer whose work straddles ambient and nature recordings.  From the release’s Bandcamp site: “Jurmala Revisited/Breath documents SALA’s return to the shores of Latvia, as a sort of audio postcard. The cover photography was taken during the trip and has been treated to look like a fading memory. There are two images, one for each piece. The first is hazier and more feint, suggesting a distant recollection of events, whilst the second image is slightly clearer, as if the memory has been jogged during a listen to this EP.”

  • Music

    Takashi Kokubo & Andrea Esperti – Music For A Cosmic Garden

    September 22, 2023 - By 

    We Release Whatever The Fuck We Want Records (charming name, better known by its acronym WRWTFWW) has released a rather unique album.  It pairs Japanese ambient/environmental legend Takashi Kokubo (Ion Series) and Italian & Swiss trombonist Andrea Esperti (Esperti Project) working under the name of Music For A Cosmic Garden. From the label’s Bandcamp site: “Takashi KOKUBO is a Japanese environmental musician who produces healing music that gently resonates with people’s hearts. He has recorded “sound scenes from nature” in countries around the world using a binaural “CyberPhonic” microphone of his own invention, and incorporates these dimensional sounds of nature in his…

  • Music

    Benjamin Aït-Ali – Essai sur des sons oubli​é​s

    September 21, 2023 - By 

    This is perhaps one of the most beautifully stunning acousmatic works I’ve ever heard.  Every percussive strike of the piano had me transfixed while listening, so much so that I wasn’t able to do my normal routine of working while listening to music.  Our dear friend Benjamin Aït-Ali took a bit of time away from composer serious music, but has come back to it with a vengeance.  It’s a gripping work, this.

  • Music

    Perry Robinson / Wacław Zimpel / Michael Zerang / Raphael Rogiński – Yemen – Music Of The Yemenite Jews

    September 16, 2023 - By 

    Thanks to a translation of the Polish on the release’s Bandcamp site, this project was originally prepared as a special project of the 5th Tzadik Poznań Festival. It was also performed there for the first time. In the beautiful walls of the Renaissance Górka Palace, where one of the five stages of the festival was located, a quartet composed of important figures of contemporary improvised music presented an original interpretation of Yemenite music. From the Bandcamp site: “Raphael Rogiński, one of the originators of the project, talks about this tradition: “This culture had a huge impact on modern Israel. Contrary…

  • Music

    Svitlana Nianio – Transilvania Smile, 1994

    September 10, 2023 - By 

    Though the recording quality is not audiophile quality, this collection of theater music by Ukrainian singer and artist Svitlana Nianio documents the soundtrack to a theater project she was involved in at the time called Transilvania Smile.  From her label Muscut Records’ Bandcamp site: “Svitlana Okhrimenko (artist name: Svitlana Nianio) is a Ukrainian artist, musician, and signer. She is one of the most prominent representatives of the independent music scene of Kyiv in the late 1980s — early 90s. She has repeatedly recorded and performed in collaboration with other musicians and bands, such as Oleksandr Yurchenko, Sugar White Death (Cukor…

  • Music

    Evgeny Masloboev – Clay. Thirteen Contemplations on Matter

    August 29, 2023 - By 

    Clay is the topic of the latest Fancy Records release by composer Evgeny Masloboev.  The topic, as described by the artist, is a fascinating one, tied in with some incredible contemporary classical music.  From the Fancy Records Bandcamp site: “Clay is a living mystic. This is the ever-dancing childhood of humanity. In the mythology of many peoples of the planet Earth, clay is presented as a medium for the emergence of life and as a material for the creation of the first homo. The Old Testament Adam of the Semitic tribes, Enkidu of the Sumerian peoples, Gayomart in the Zoroastrian…

  • Music

    Jeff Gburek – The Art of Prepared Guitar Volume Two

    August 23, 2023 - By 

    ‘Beautifully lo-fi’ is perhaps the best way I can describe Jeff Gburek’s latest release on Muteant Records, a company you will be hearing plenty about on this blog..  The tracks have the rawness of the early Dunedin sound (think Roy Montgomery, Alastair Galbraith and labels like XPressway and Flying Nun Records. It’s still grounded in Jeff’s trademark guitar work, but with some elements that feel like they would be home on an ethnographic record of some culture in a hidden-away island in the Indonesian archipelago. Don’t ask why, just listen, especially to Undead 8.  You can see more of Jeff’s…

  • Music

    Ulaan Passerine – Dawn

    August 20, 2023 - By 

    Ulaan Passerine is one of many aliases used by Los Angeles-based guitarist Steven R. Smith.  This latest album is a shimmery walk into guitar instrumental territory.  Smith produces an elegant kind of instrumental music that would sit well with both post-rock fans and those into a more mellow psychedelic vibe.  Think along the terms of the band Oregon as a reference.  Not ‘easy’ listening, but ‘gentle’ listening.  Well done.