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.
Tag: Los Angeles
The Phonometrician – Cóiste Bodhar
The Phonometrician is fellow Los Angeleno Carlos Morales, and he produces a music that sounds like a post-Industrial Coil supplemented by a very sparse acoustic guitar. It works quite well, and adds to the already immensely wonderful Lost Tribe Sound catalog.
Odeya Nini – Ode
Los Angeles-based composer Odeya Nini is a marvel to listen to. She uses her voice and body to full effect as an instrument and composes profoundly interesting contemporary classical music, and whose works are radical enough to fit into musique concrète. If you enjoy the works of Meredith Monk or Anna Homler, this just might…
Anna Homler – Breadwoman & Other Tales
There are few experimental artists I hold a loving reverance for in the way I do for Anna Homler. I had the pleasure of meeting and befriending her during the 1990s, and I had the distinct joy of seeing her again when Maja Ratkje performed in Los Angeles several years ago. Breadwoman is one of…
Pyroclastic – Welcome To The Abusement Park
Sometimes it’s an absolute pleasure to take a stroll down memory lane. My friend Ryant Reeleyes, who worked with Los Angeles legends Jugend Staat many years ago, never gave up the aggro-Industrial-techno bug, and has kept the spirit of bands like Skinny Puppy and Front 242 alive. The album is harsh, ugly at times, cavernous…
Western Standard Time Ska Orchestra – Unshackled/Bedouin Ska
Here is an impressively authentic-sounding ska coming to us from Los Angeles, California (my home town). The Western Standard Time Ska Orchestra boast of combining Jamaica’s greatest contribution to the world and a big-band sound. They pull this combination off flawlessly, and they must have one very impressive live act if their music is anything…
Carlos Niño & Kofi Flexxx – In The Moment, Part 3
Longform Editions is a boutique record label out of Australia which does many things well, but specialized in releasing short albums packed with electronic experimentalia from all over the world. This one brings Los Angelino Carlos Niño and a world traveling sax player whose work I’m quite new to in Kofi Flexxx paring down a…
Geneva Skeen – Double Bind
Perhaps I’ll need to renew my subscription to The Wire or spend more time on other blogs, as I can’t believe I missed the work of Los Angelina Geneva Skeen. My hometown is producing so many fine artists working within ambient and electroacoustic music that it has become (happily) difficult to keep up with this…
Atli Örvarsson – Wolka
Iceland is one of those countries who seem to produce musicians at an incredible rate in comparison to the size of its population. Atli Örvarsson is one of a handful of gifted soundtrack composers to hail from the island nation, and is the first one I can think of who doesn’t originally come from the…
CMC – CMC/Now
Hungarian band CMC have been recording albums since 1989, and, had they received their fair due during the heydey of post-Industrial Electronic Body Music (EBM), they would have been recognized as competitors of such luminaries as Front Line Assembly and Front 242, but with a darker groove. The band’s main actors, composer Vince Kósa and…