1000 Plateaux is the debut record by Hiiro Issiki, a Japanese composer. I don’t find too much information on Issiki’s background, but this record is a musical chimera, sprouting patterns and shapes at will, yet maintaining cohesion, and in many parts, beauty. What a stunning piece of work this is! Continue Reading
Music
Roberta Flack – The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face
While I don’t celebrate Valentine’s Day too seriously (traveling and lack of a suitable mate at this time will do that), and adding that Eastern Orthodox don’t celebrate the venerable Saint’s day until July 30, I do want to wish my friends and the kind readers who show up here Continue Reading
Emel – The Tunis Diaries
NPR does a great disservice comparing Tunisian singer Emel’s voice to Björk. There’s absolutely no comparison, and I say this as someone who likes Björk’s work a lot. Emel is simply a better singer. Her album, The Tunis Diaries, is something closer to the Portuguese band Madredeus, whose singer, Teresa Continue Reading
Various Artists – Audion Magazine #36 (Multimedia)
I had a good friend whom I worked with at a record shop in Los Angeles called Dana, who was probably 20 years my senior or so, and he was always amazed at how I managed to retain so much information at a young age (I was 23 when I Continue Reading
Chick Corea – Return to Forever
A legend has passed. Return To Forever was my gateway drug to 70s jazz fusion, opening the door to discovering the band bearing the same name, Miles Davis at the peak of his powers (at least for my taste), the majesty of Weather Report, and delving back into Chick Corea’s Continue Reading
Li Daiguo (李帶菓) – Xiao Gong (笑功)
French label WV Sorcerer Productions 巫唱片 offers up a quiet, pulsating drone album from American-Taiwanese-Chinese composer Li Daiguo. As far as experimental music goes, this is dark and foreboding in a far more organized way that what I’m used to hearing. Quite a fine effort.
Joseph Benzola – When You Get to Saturn, Make a Left.
I cannot think of any genre of music percussionist and composer Joseph Benzola doesn’t sound comfortable working in. There might be some bizarre concoction lying dormant in the underground somewhere, but it’s not worth wasting one’s time thinking much about. This collection puts together what sounds something similar to Balinese Continue Reading
Sublamp – Lianas
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 Continue Reading
Vedan Kolod – Gorodische
Vedan Kolod are a troupe based in Moscow, Russia, who do sterling work interpreting medieval Russian folkloric music, especially Siberian tunes, with a modern twist. The label, CPL, is run by my friend and colleague, Christian Pliefke, whose taste in artists is impeccable, and every release he’s curated for his Continue Reading
Rüstəm Quliyev – Azerbaijani Gitara
Rüstəm Quliyev’s story is one of tragedy. First, he was born in the Nagorno-Karabach area of Azerbaijan (contested by Armenia as recently as last year, where a small war was fought over the territory). The fighting was so bad in Quliyev’s youth that he had to flee. He would move Continue Reading