Diego Olivas

Mix: 12. Toshifumi Hinata – 日向敏文

2018/05/11

Toshifumi Hinata, what can one say about Toshifumi? By far one of my favorite artists and composers, it’s not hard for me to talk about his career and music without ruminating over his work with some wild wanderlust affectation. I’ll spare you that, though, because you don’t need me fawning over one of my personal,…
Mix: 11. Many Songs About Love

2018/05/09

“Why are there so many songs about love?” that’s the heavy question posited by one Terry Day in “Luv, Luv, Luv”. As he goes about trying to deduce the many reasons we love one another, he fails to land on a specific motive. Terry figures it out the answer, and comes to it, as an…
Dave Stewart & Barbara Gaskin: Up From The Dark (1986)

2018/05/08

I think the right phrase for this one is: “all my Christmases came at once”. Never before had I thought I’d be able to bring up someone from my very, very early blog past, in this latest version of it, in a way that made perfect sense. Dave Stewart & Barbara Gaskin’s Up From the…
Romie Singh: Masters (1986)

2018/05/01

Romie Singh’s Masters is more than just one killer 12” dub plate surrounded by lord knows what. Masters is a wonderful reminder of the bit of delightful weirdness that Romie was able to capture in a bottle, some months in Hamburg, in 1986. Masters was an early collection of proto-future Pop from someone who managed…
Kazutoki Umezu: Diva (1988)

2018/04/27

It’s not often you stumble upon an album quite like this one. A huge debt of thanks goes out to a fellow reader, Francis, for sharing Kazutoki Umezu’s Diva with me (the first of two, from him, I’ll share with you). I’m still grinning from end to end just looking at the credits of this…
Imagination: Shake It (1980)

2018/04/24

From Germany, via the intriguing mind of Düsseldorf-native, multi-instrumentalist Uwe Ziß, comes this unlikely marriage of AOR, balearic, post-disco, funk, R&B, Krautrock, southern boogie, and soft rock. Perfect for days, much like this one, when your loyal blogger has very little time to actually write/keep up with my own set, writing deadlines. Nothing gets closer…
Jean-Michel Gascuel: La Vie Continue (1984)

2018/04/20

Holding fast to some heartfelt theory, I do believe the best musicians aren’t always, exactly “musicians” themselves. Joining us today in our personal, illustrious group which includes Steve Hiett and Brian Eno, is native Frenchman Jean-Michel Gascuel. In the span of two years, from 1982 through 1984, Jean-Michel Gascuel released two albums C’Est L’Premier Pas…
Judith Ravitz Participagao: A Banda Do Zé Pretinho – Bolerio (1983)

2018/04/17

Perhaps Yehudit Ravit’s story can explain the appeal of Brazilian music to the Israeli citizenry. Not to go into deep into cultural history (because Brazil does play a role in it to its storied, political relationship with Israel), but it seems due to its location right on the Mediterranean and it’s quite lovely, simpatico weather,…
Subliminal Calm: Subliminal Calm (1992)

2018/04/13

Whenever I put on Subliminal Calm’s first and only release I immediately think of spring. Featuring a sublime mix of country, dub, folk and soul music, Subliminal Calm could only have been created by the inspirational minds behind it. Appropriately titled, there’s something quite delicate and beautiful in this set of music from minds that…
André Geraissati: DADGAD (1988)

2018/04/10

Well, this one’s a tough ‘un to describe. Meditative, elegiac, and at points quite melancholic, André Geraissati’s DADGAD is another instrumental, guitar album that uses it’s one voice to say so many things. In this case, it is André Geraissati’s wonderful fusion of Americana and Anglophilic roots music with Brazilian sambista rhythms and edgings of open-tuned “eastern” music…