album of the month

Clement/Deschamps: Wolfsong Night (1994)

2019/10/29

There’s something I truly love about Tim Clément and Kim Deschamp’s Wolfsong Night that I can’t quite pinpoint. Atmospherically, it just puts you somewhere few albums would know how to actually get you there. Perhaps it’s a place many haven’t ventured to visit lately or often enough: the Canadian wilderness. As tied to its location…
Mayumi Miyata, Midori Takada: 「星雲」～サウンド・フォレスト・シリーズ (Nebula) (1987)

2019/10/18

If we can thank the heavens for something today, it is for bringing together Mayumi Miyata and Midori Takada. Released as part of CBS/Sony’s short-lived Sound Forest (サウンド・フォレスト・シリーズ) series,「星雲」～サウンド・フォレスト・シリーズ (Nebula) presents a different aesthetic within that series idea of “environmental music”. Not necessarily made to attract electronically-minded listeners, Nebula is a nebulous blend of truly…
David Friesen: Inner Voices (1987)

2019/10/15

Here’s hoping this writeup lasts not much longer than David Friesen’s meditative Inner Voices. What exactly was David Friesen’s Inner Voices? Much like Eberhard Weber in Europe, in America, David was that kind of quicksilver, enigmatic, bass player that played on countless “jazz” records spanning from bebop, free jazz, modal, and other chin scratching, heady…
Hiroki Miyano (宮野弘紀): D / I/ V /E /R /G /E (分岐点) (1988)

2019/09/20

And now some jazz… *Quietly watches all my readers’ eyes glaze over*. For those who can appreciate the bigger “jazz” picture, here’s Hiroki Miyano’s D / I/ V /E /R /G /E. Showcasing Hiroki Miyano’s wonderfully elegant guitar playing, D / I/ V /E /R /G /E takes great pains not to rock the boat…
Zoé: Zoé (1987)

2019/08/23

Truly no one is a prophet in their own land. Simply scroll down and look at the all Japanese superstars of boogie, funk, AOR and all other sorts of genres backing up British-born singer Loretta “Zoé” Heywood. Members of Mariah, the elite boogie duo of Yuji Toriyama and Ken Morimura, shall I continue? Mr. Logic…
Coati Mundi: The Former 12 Year Old Genius (1983)

2019/08/20

Sometimes, I feel that there’s no truer saying than this one: “you can never be a prophet in your own land”. It still boggles my mind that a) Coati Mundi’s The Former 12 Year Old Genius has never been reissued in any digital format and b) his work was never remotely as popular in his…
Various Artists: しおのみち (Shio-No-Michi) (1991)

2019/08/16

Forgive my roundabout way to get back to the healing music of Japan’s Awa record label. I feel like we should go back to Okinawa and discover where it all began. It is on しおのみち (Shio-No-Michi) that Hideaki Masago rounded up like minded Japanese musicians to fashion a label that could tap into ethnic music…
Asiabeat: Spirit Of The People (1991)

2019/08/09

Although the mind behind rotating Southeast Asian supergroup Asiabeat has always been gifted Malaysian percussionist (and Fulbright Scholar) Lewis Pragasam, on Spirit Of The People, the heart of Japan moved him towards a sound that’s quite indefinable. Decamping in Singapore, in 1991, Lewis was joined by Makoto Matsushita, Chito Kawachi, and friends Mohd Nor, Nantha…
Randy Tico: Earth Dance (1990)

2019/08/06

Don’t stop, can’t stop, the dance. Something else to fill your expanding Balearic canon: Randy Tico’s Earth Dance. Not quite jazz, world beat, tribal, or New Age, in 1990, in the dead heat of summer, Randy released on the aptly named Higher Octave Music record label a burner of a New Age album that put…
Hiroya Minakuchi + Missing Link (水口博也): Dolphin (1993)

2019/08/02

There’s a moment in Hiroya Minakuchi + Missing Link’s Dolphin that never ceases to take my breath away: a minute into “The Cradle Of The Ocean”, the sound of actual dolphin speech mingles with a plaintive piano melody to deliver a sublime aquatic ballad that exudes what I think is perfect example of “womb music”.…