• Music

    Carlos Niño & Kofi Flexxx – In The Moment, Part 3

    February 22, 2022 - By 

    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 two-hour session.  Carlos explains more about the session below, courtesy of Longform’s Bandcamp site: “For me, extended, deep listening is it! I listen a lot and journey eternally within. Hearing and feeling, in, of, with and around, playing music is extending, deeply listening, being at…

  • Music

    Geneva Skeen – Double Bind

    February 10, 2022 - By 

    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 wellspring of talent. Double Bind defies proper categorization, sitting somewhere between academic musique-concrète, noise-style improvisation and a touch of mysticism in Skeen’s work.  Though bleak, there is a feeling of being inside of a warm, pulsating, silvery ocean in these compositions.  The one which won…

  • Music

    Atli Örvarsson – Wolka

    January 15, 2022 - By 

    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 capital, Reykjavik.  He is now a Los Angelino pursuing a career in composition, and is becoming well-known for his scores. The standout track for me on this album is one titled Anka & Robert, which reminds me of a meaty slab of post-Industrial ambient.  The…

  • Music

    CMC – CMC/Now

    December 7, 2021 - By 

    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 György Szász, have reactivated the band.  The grooves are still as powerful as they were nearly 30 years ago, and it feels like they never went away.  Three tracks are available to check out, and each will remind you of the days where EBM dance…

  • Music

    Cut Chemist – Adidas To Addis​/​Povo De Santo

    November 30, 2021 - By 

    Cut Chemist is an institution in Los Angeles.  I first came across his work as a member of Jurassic 5, and it seems he still has the skills of a groove surgeon. Both tracks are bangers, but the first one is my favorite, as it’s a keep originally recorded by Belaynesh Wubante & Assegedetch Asfaw and arranged by the venerable Mulatu Astaké.

  • Music

    Yann Novak – Bathed In Light And Rapture

    October 14, 2021 - By 

    We’re lucky to have so many talented musicians and composers in Los Angeles covering all genres.  One of the most intriguing I’ve come across lately is Yann Novak, who hails from Wisconsin originally, but who is, like myself, a Southern Californian.  Yann has recorded with labels such as 901 Editions, Dragon’s Eye Recordings (which I believe may be his own label), LINE, Room40, and Touch, among others. His credentials are impeccable. This release on Room40 (all praise to Lawrence English for running a fine imprint) has as its cornerstone the composition The Ecstasy of Annihilation, which is 7:30 in length. …

  • Music

    Gadi Sassoon – Multiverse

    June 8, 2021 - By 

    Gadi Sassoon is an Italian sound designer and composer whose latest release comes from the venerable Los Angeles-based record label A Strangely Isolated Place.  I had only heard one track of his work before, this coming from ASIP’s 2020 Compilation.  Though impressive, it didn’t prepare me for one of the bleakest experiences I’ve had listening to ambient music I’ve had since, perhaps, mid-period Lustmord.  If you listen to this album on headphones, be forewarned: the sounds will reverberate in your bones for a while afterward, and I say this as a compliment.  The tracks swell and disperse in a way…

  • Music

    Sublamp – Lianas

    February 8, 2021 - By 

    French imprint Eilean Records was a truly remarkable label with 100 releases of ambient and related musics.  I was going through my collection today and came across this album I purchased sometime in 2018. Sublamp is a fellow Los Angelino, Ryan Conner, who is a sound and video artist by profession.  This work, like all of his titles, is a record about an imaginary space, a soundtrack for a non-existent territory, if you will.  It’s a meditative piece perfect for headphone listening, and it’s one that I hope inspires you to dig deeper into Eilean Records‘ back catalog.