• Music

    Primitive Air – Creation Hymn

    October 6, 2021 - By 

    The spirit of Krautrock has spread well beyond the German-speaking world, and has for some time now.  Primitive Air is an American collaboration between Drew Piraino, Jefre Cantu-Ledesma and Emil Amos reminds me of the more freaky (yet still gentle) parts of bands like Popol Vuh and modern bands like The Myrrors.  This is a blissful little record, and it would have sit comfortably among the greats of German psychedelic music of the late 1960s and early 1970s had these folks been around during those heady days.

  • Music

    Kgwanyape Band – Mephato Ya Maloba

    October 5, 2021 - By 

    I’ve read over the years about Botswana having a very interesting metal scene, but I knew nothing about the local music.  This might not be the purest form of regional music, but this disc by Duncan Senyatso (may his memory be eternal) and the Kgwanyape Band is pretty catchy and infectious. There is a lot of horn work on this disc, and one can hear influences from South African music, and more pop-related artists like Paul Simon and others who were delving into ‘World Music’ during the late 1980s and early 1990s.  Pleasant.

  • Music

    LeiLuo Studio (磊落声音艺术) – An Ancient Tune of Shanha

    October 4, 2021 - By 

    LeiLuo Studio is a small record label based in my former home of Beijing, China.  The track reviewed today is a fusion of musics from Zhejiang from the She ethnic group.  The label/band’s Bandcamp site explains further below: This is a piece of new fusion single composed and arranged by the duo, Wang Lei and Yile, in February 2018. Aria of Yunhe is copyright Beijing Chuanzong Culture Development Ltd., Co. In mid January, the duo had participated in a field trip to Jingning County in Zhejiang Province, China. We were introduced to a type of local music that had existed…

  • Music

    Various Artists – Studio One: Dancing the Ska

    October 3, 2021 - By 

    I can’t think of a music more joyful than ska.  Jamaica’s finest export (next to reggae and its sub-genres, of course) is wonderfully represented on this compilation put together by the legendary Kingston-based record label Studio One.  Lee Perry, Delroy Wilson and The Wailers feature prominently on this comp, and the tracks were produced by the inimitable Clement “Coxsone” Dodd.  Pure joy, this one.

  • Music

    Rapt – None Of This Will Matter

    October 2, 2021 - By 

    This Z Tapes release left me floored.  Rapt are a folk band out of London who have an ethereal sound which reminded me of musicians like Nick Drake fronting a band on 4AD.  Think, perhaps, of a more airy-sounding This Mortal Coil gone neofolk. The sound is folky without being stale, and adding elements like shoegaze and dreampop make for a rich, rewarding listen.  I really like this.

  • Music

    Roy Montgomery – Roy Montgomery 40th Anniversary 2021 LP Series

    October 1, 2021 - By 

    I think it’s impossible to overestimate the important place Roy Montgomery has in the annals of New Zealand’s experimental rock scene.  Thanks to his work on labels such as Kranky Records and Drunken Fish, he has quite a high international profile, and it helps that the music he’s produced for so many decades is nearly impossible to pigeonhole. This latest project will be four CDs or LPs released in stages throughout 2021 and 2022: February 5, 2021 – Island of Lost Souls July 30, 2021 – That Best Forgotten Work October 22, 2021 – Rhymes of Chance January 14 2022-…

  • Music

    William Ryan Fritch – Built Upon a Fearful Void

    September 30, 2021 - By 

    Soundtrack composers don’t seem to need films to cue inspiring, haunting scores anymore.  Take, for example, the new double album by Californian composer William Ryan Fritch. The story that goes along with this fabulous artifact is as impressive as the music is.  We let the label, Lost Tribe Sounds, tell the story below, courtesy of their Bandcamp site: ‘Built Upon a Fearful Void‘ was an album seemingly fated to never be completed. For the last 8 years the album had been recorded and either lost or discarded three times; a leak that water logged and ruined most of the half…

  • Music

    Santiago Fradejas – The Light Through The Springs

    September 29, 2021 - By 

    The guitar, all by itself, can serve as tool for making a haunting orchestra’s worth of sounds.  My good friend Santiago Fradejas, now resident in Kent, of all places (!) presents a mini-LP’s worth of brooding, swelling, lilting soundscapes.  There is a menacing element tying the album together, as though one was taking a stroll near the 6th ring of Dante’s Inferno.

  • Music

    Igra Staklenih Perli – Igra Staklenih Perli

    September 28, 2021 - By 

    Igra Staklenih Perli were one of the greater monster progressive/psychedelic rock bands to come out of Yugoslavia (the band themselves were Serbian) during the late 1970s and early 1980s, and though some of their work could be seen as taking cues from legendary western groups like Pink Floyd, I hear elements of Can, Hawkwind, Jimi Hendrix and the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, about the only metal period I like short of Black Sabbath.  The only gripe I have with the album is the low mix.  Music like this should be listened to at high volume, so the punch…

  • Music

    Amid The Ruins 1453 – Dyerwave Trilogy (All Dyerwave Tracks)

    September 27, 2021 - By 

    Dyerwave is a stand-alone genre sitting inside of synth-wave, which has produced a number of appealing artists who bring 1980s visual imagery and marry it to dystopian visions of the future.  The artist responsible for this release, Amid The Ruins 1453 is a Serbian composer and fellow Orthodox Christian who has expressed admiration for philosopher, Christian apologist, conspiracy theorist and radio talkshow host Jay Dyer. The music is appropriately bleak, and would work well for fans of Vangelis (during the period he was composing the score for Blade Runner) and a more warped disco of Giorgio Moroder.  One could also…