24 Rush Hours is a series done by Zga composer and multi-instrumentalist Nick Sudnick, and this is #15 of 24. The two long pieces are a pastiche of art-rock (think Rock-In-Opposition like Art Bears or the composers Alfred ’23’Harth and Heiner Goebbels). Add an element of Bertolt Brecht-like lyrics for Continue Reading
Russia
Assembly Of Honey – Морозные Узоры (Frost Patterns)
Assembly Of Honey are a magnificent Russian ambient drone project related to the magazine Meticulous Midgets, friends of our blog. Their latest album has several tracks which would appeal to meditative musicians like Steve Roach, but also to New Age artists like Kitaro and even experimental bands like Britain’s O Continue Reading
Various Artists – ПИР (Peer Records): Feast 22
Moscow’s ПИР (in English, Peer) Records offer a compilation of grimy techno, house and experimental music, something they’ve been offering in great quality since 2019.
Sergey Kuryokhin & Boris Grebenshchikov – Mad Nightingales of the Russian Forest
I will be airborne most of today as I go from Moscow to Los Angeles to handle some personal business, so In honor of this momentous event, I present you with what was one of the first Russian jazz/improv/Avant-rock albums I ever heard, from two legends: Sergey Kuryokhin & Boris Continue Reading
Sunset Wings and Brodsky – Songs of Love, Madness and Sleep
From Kaliningrad, Russia (formerly my material ancestral Linn homeland of Koenigsberg, East Prussia) hail one of the most impressive psychedelic folk records I’ve heard in some time. From the cacophony of the violin starting the album, it morphs into a Beatlesque horn arrangement. Those few seconds set the tone for Continue Reading
Jagath – Samadhi
Jagath is a field-recorded ritual ambient act from Perm, Russia who use handmade instruments, scraps and metal to make their dark, dank industrial sounds. As quoted from their Bandcamp site, “We do this to share our vision of decaying postindustrial age, to unleash the spirit of deep beyond-world and unveil Continue Reading
Koma Stark – Kelesho
Antonovka Records have had an astounding year releasing not only music from Russia’s hinterlands and Central Asia, but even from places like Georgia. This album documents music by Kurdish-speaking Yezidis, who suffered horribly over the past few years in places like Iraq and Syria. Koma Stark play traditional Yezidi folk Continue Reading
Evgeny Ponomarev Quartet – Clockwise
I can’t say for sure if Evgeny Ponomarev’s 2021 release, Clockwise, counts as spiritual jazz, but it is holding it’s own as one of the best jazz releases of the year. Ponomarev plays piano, and is solidly supported by a large cast, incuding: Andrey Polovko — tenor saxophone (1-6), soprano Continue Reading
Russian World Music Chart 2021
I’m proud to have been asked to participate in helping to decide which albums would top the Russian World Music Chart. Here is a press release on this event: Russian World Music Chart 2021 Making Russian world music visible to the world In October 2021, Russia’s first world music chart, Continue Reading
Perila – How much time it is between you and me?
Perila i(Alexandra Zakharenko) s a composer from Berlin of Russian roots releases one of the heaviest and, frankly, bleakest albums of the year. I spent today trying to unwind a bit as the snow looked pleasant, but after watching Juraj Herz’s The Cremator, hearing this album left me in a Continue Reading