• 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

    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…

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    Philip Jeck & Chris Watson – Oxmardyke

    July 27, 2023 - By 

    There’s little I can say to introduce you to the work of Philip Jeck, the turntablist who passed away in March of 2022, nor would I with Chris Watson, the maestro of field recordings and one-time member of Cabaret Voltaire.  This release is a project that the gentlemen were working on before Jeck’s untimely passing.  From the Touch Records release Bandcamp site: “In 2017 I was recording along the north bank of the Humber estuary and one morning driving back from Faxfleet I was stopped at the Oxmardyke rail crossing. The gates were down. After setting up a microphone array…

  • Music

    Fallen – The Floating World

    July 23, 2023 - By 

    I’ve been a fan of ROHS! Records out of Italy (HT: Ivo Petrov – thanks!) for some time.  They put out consistently good ambient music and organic electronica every month, it seems, and this release from Lorenzo Bracaloni, who goes by the monicker Fallen, is a delight to listen to.  It’s not a normal album for ROHS! – rather, it shifts a lot.  The music starts with what sound like processed field recordings and blend their way into more structured electronic music soundscapes, then drift back into a spacious bit of guitar playing.  There’s a slightly rough edge to the…

  • Music

    Jeff Gburek – Ramifications

    June 29, 2023 - By 

    Though this album is a decade old now, it’s so incredibly well-done that I thought it worth sharing if you like experimental music melded together with field recordings.  Jeff Gburek’s sound art is organic and engaging, the recording was handled so masterfully that one gets the feeling of sitting in the locations listed on the liner notes as Jeff’s Bandcamp site.

  • Music

    bu.re_ – dream sequence ii

    May 12, 2023 - By 

    Too dense and sumptuous to be labeled ambient music, what Los Angeles’ own bu.re_ offers is a ride on the clouds on your way to something approximating Heaven.  The drones emanating from these works are some of the warmest tones I’ve heard this year.  Bravo.

  • Music

    Kink Gong 2017 – Uyghur In Moyu Southern Xinjiang China

    May 1, 2023 - By 

    I don’t know much about Kink Gong, though maybe they have some relations with the legendary Sublime Frequencies record label, but I do like that they’re busy releasing some amazing music from neglected parts of the world.  This installment comes from Xinjang, in the news for all the wrong reasons, yet a fascinating culture worth delving into.  The music shares much in common with fellow Central Asian Turkic groups like the Kazakhs or Uzbeks, but also carries some elements of Mongolian, Persian, and of course, Chinese music.

  • Music

    Chaigidel & Neraterræ – Lama​š​tu

    April 13, 2023 - By 

    Two of Italy’s best dark /ritual ambient projects, CHAIGIDEL and NERATERRÆ, have joined forces and created a deeply evocative ritualistic opus rich in various aural elements and sceneries. The title “Lamaŝtu” pays tribute to the Mesopotamian mythological malevolent goddess, the most terrible of all female demons, daughter of the sky god Anu and lover of Pazuzu. CHAIGIDEL is Mattia Giovanni Accinni, devoted to the most evocative side of music; sonic offerings for Qliphotic rituals from the depths of occultism and the left-hand path. On his fourth release on Cyclic Law, Alessio Antoni’s NERATERRÆ joins compatriot CHAIGIDEL on this trance-like-state inducing aural…