album of the month
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Take a look at the image above. What you see is an image of a creature belonging to the Daphnia genus. Entirely microscopic in size, a plankton that’s aquatic in nature, and unable to move (or to put it precisely: float) without something else propelling it along — much like certain jellyfish — it’s both…
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Sometimes there isn’t much left to be said. Case in point: George Ohtsuka’s Maracaibo. A jaw-dropping masterpiece of Japanese jazz funk that could only come through a miraculous meeting of two minds, those of Japan’s Trio Records and Germany’s ECM Records. Released in 1980, Maracaibo, marked genius drummer George Ohtsuka’s final departure from the meditative…
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I had a feeling I’d find a way to touch on one of the record label MMC’s other brilliant gems this year but I didn’t think it would be this way. How does one capture the current milieu? Unable to go much of anywhere at the moment, living either in open denial or in excessive…
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Rioting, looting, civil disobedience, and protest — nothing is born out nothing, all are born from a vacuum. When those we exploit say: “enough is enough” we need to stop and listen. If you think this story is something new, where were you the last 400 years? If you think the story is singular, you…
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Certain albums just sound special from the get-go. When I put on Ayuo Takahashi’s Nova Carmina instantly I hear something that takes me back. It’s something quite simple: Ayuo’s violin playing streaks of glissando over something he wrote for Aideen Morgan. It’s poetry speaks of a rebirth of sorts, of its narrator finding in the…
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What does one do when one can’t find answers themselves? You look for help. And so recently, one Coste Apetrea carved out some time out of his day to help yours truly try to get some semblance of history behind the late Björn Holm. For a long time I put aside writing about Björn, for…
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Sometimes, I feel like I may lead you even further down rabbit holes I’ve fallen into. Case in point: Dream Dolphin’s Atmospheric Healing. Released in 1996, on Harry Hosono’s FOA Records label, Atmospheric Healing began to stretch the label’s original concept of releasing “folk-oriented art” music into something they’d dub the “force of ambient”. Impossible…
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Some of my favorite albums are those like the one I’ll be sharing today by Bergamo’s own iconic Ivan Cattaneo. Il Cuore É Nudo… E I Pesci Cantano (or The Heart Is Naked… And The Fish Sing) proves again that some of our best work is done when we stop putting in front all sorts…
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For those that don’t believe we can there’s a way to engage with the outside world while stuck inside one’s inner space, Awa Muse‘s second compilation: しおのみち ニの巻 (Shio-No-Michi) Vol.2 proves there are other ways to meet it there.
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Truth be told: I really had trouble deciding to share this album with you, fair reader. One of my many goals for this blog is to move away from the well-worn stereotype/trope of the “female musician”. However, staring right in front of me (and you now) is exactly what one associates that being by pigheaded…
ambient art pop art rock balearic brazilian electro-acoustic england environmental music experimental folk-rock fourth world Funk fusion japan jazz minimalist neo-folk neoclassical new age walearic