album of the month

African Head Charge: Songs of Praise (1990)

2017/07/11

We might not all be able to know the way to get on that righteous path but there are signals that could help us get there. These are ones found merely by observing that walk to it, in others. Adrian Sherwood’s experimental reggae and dub label On-U Sound wouldn’t have been what it came to…
Juan Martin: Painter In Sound ft. Mark Isham (1986)

2017/06/09

Simply sublime. What else can you say? From the man who literally wrote the definitive word on Flamenco technique, comes a work showing the full expanse of his personal creative method. Juan Martin is one of the most iconic names in Nuevo Flamenco. Somewhere, down the line, his lifelong interest in art and painting (owing a…
Eblen Macari: Música Para Planetarios (1987)

2017/05/05

Every time I revisit Eblen Macari’s landmark release, Música Para Planetarios, I find something different and special about it. At times, it’s finding pride that something like this exist where one’s own Mexican culture doesn’t need to be negated/subjugated to create something spectacularly pioneering. Other times, it’s when I sit back and identify cultural cues and traditions inherent in…
Mio Fou: Mio Fou (1984)

2017/04/21

Just look at that album cover. Mio Fou’s self-titled debut has an album cover that has fascinated me to no end. You see, the utterly sublime music found in Mio Fou must have some connection to this image. For months I struggled to define what time of the year this picture was taken and what time of…
Flávio Venturini: Nascente (1981)

2017/04/04

There are few albums that just put me in a special place. Flávio Venturini’s Nascente is one of them. When it’s on, it seems my whole spirit bends to its will. Overrun with string instruments, mostly warm-sounding, and some of the most captivatingly tender harmonies on any side of the hemisphere, or era, Nascente just has…
Pierre Barouh: Le Pollen (1982)

2017/02/17

News travels so quickly now that it’s hard to keep up with the cycles of life. Word of Pierre Barouh’s passing, at the end of December 2016, didn’t come recently to me, it came to me this week. It came when I discovered them while researching this thought in my head – of sharing his work at FOND/SOUND.…
Ray Barretto: Rican/Struction (1979)

2017/01/09

Peak power. Few albums have moments that just leave me breathless. Drop a needle, or seek to, any track on Ray Barretto’s Rican/Struction, and in a matter of moments, musical ideas that are operating at an otherworldly level, and are rendered in such ways that are nearly impossible for anyone to resist. Far be it for this…
Seigén Ono: Seigén (1984)

2016/11/18

I‘m still struck by this release. It’s hard to realize, but Seigén Ono was only 26 years old when he created his debut album, Seigén. Just months removed from assisting others like Yasuaki Shimizu’s Mariah, David Sylvian, Ryuichi Sakamoto, and Takumi as their mixing engineer or producer, Seigén had just an inkling of all the arrangements he had to get…
Talk Talk: Laughing Stock (1991)

2015/03/11

Belatedly, it appears that the best is yet to come. Truly no other month can be as trying, and as most worthy of our respect and humility, than this shortest stretch of the year, February. Compact to the point of becoming itself a transition to something greater, everything it does; throwing the environmental book at…
(Album of the Month) January 2015: Kate Bush – The Dreaming (1982)

2015/01/30

Kate Bush – 1982 You know January, a month so long, a month that appears so taxing at first, whether temporal or corporally, is a month that allows for something few others do: reflection. Reflection, seems to be one of those double-edge words. As much as it it is defined as something that gives back…