Johanna Juhola – A Brighter Future

What a joyous release this is!  Accordion-based music out of Finland is just what the doctor ordered for our chilly Beijing day.  Johanna Juhola is one of many incredible artists on the Nordic Notes imprint who have blown my mind this year.  Imagine a collection ranging from traditional music melded Continue Reading

Cergy-Pontoise – CP01

This is a curious release.  Cergy-Pontoise are an Italian duo, and their albim starts out with drone-y ambient sounds but then falls into atmospheric progressive-folk at times, sounding like a better recorded lo-fi artist out of New Zealand, perhaps.  There are also elements of space rock, prog and psychedelic music Continue Reading

Clara Engel – A New Skin

Clara Engel is based in Toronto, Canada.  Her work has been described as “Folk-Noir” or “minimalist holy blues,” and who am I to disagree?  This takes the best elements of neofolk, stripped-down to just voice, cigar box guitar, electric guitar, melodica and harmonica, and it sounds like a rare self-pressed Continue Reading