album

Hiroshi Yoshimura: Soundscape 1: Surround (1986)

2016/10/12

It’s easy to get away with music that sounds like something. Vast store shelves are littered with “albums” proclaiming exactly what you’ll hear inside. Relaxing Sounds of the Rainforest, Nights in Ireland, Serenity and Bliss Mix, etc. all serving as perfect sonic backgrounds to whatever space you want them to live in. But is this…
Hiroshi Yoshimura: A・I・R (Air In Resort) (1984)

2016/10/10

Hiroshi Yoshimura was commissioned in 1984 by Japanese multi-national personal care company Shiseido to create something that might be entirely out of his own wheelhouse: music that could complement a fragrance. It’s a pitch that would sound ludicrous to most musicians but for Hiroshi presented a magnificent idea.
Hiroshi Yoshimura: Pier & Loft (1983)

2016/09/30

Self-released on cassette in 1983, Hiroshi Yoshimura’s Pier & Loft earns the distinction of being both his most hard to find record (Discogs prices pointing upwards of $100 now) and also, surprisingly, his most accessible. The problem, of course, has been finding actual audio of it. On this release he took his environmental music somewhere new. You…
Hiroshi Yoshimura: Music For Nine Post Cards (1982)

2016/09/28

Every Hiroshi Yoshimura record is a bit of something very special. Versed in the mastery of combining environmental sound with personal music, every bit of Hiroshi’s recordings speaks of the special connection we as beings of this earth have with the feelings our surroundings can inspire. A lot of people hate technology, a lot of people feel there is…
Doopees: Doopee Time (1995)

2016/09/26

It’s Doopee Time! How does one describe a Doopee? One certainly can’t define it, one can only hear it. Led by master Japanese steelpan player Yann Tomita, the Doopees (featuring Caroline Novac, with special appearance by Auntie Kim) were a band conceived by Yann to attempt to do a brand new thing: create the ultimate “cute” album.…
Isabelle Antena: En Cavale (1986)

2016/09/23

It seems I’m running out of summer, and in this case Isabelles, but before I do, I have to share one of those perfect albums that just scream: Can you hold on, just for a bit more? Isabelle Antena’s En Cavale released on uber-stylish indie Belgian record label Les Disques Du Crépuscule, and graced by a gorgeous watercolor album cover…
Isabelle Adjani: Pull Marine (1983)

2016/09/21

Now this is what you call a performance. Rightfully, Isabelle Adjani has to go down as one French cinema’s greatest actresses. Possessing an expressive beauty that she can transform from ethereal to surreal in movies like Possession, Subway, all the way to Diabolique, it’s Isabelle’s ability to sculpt that mysterious sexuality on her own terms that allowed her to use such talent to get away with almost everything in her artistic career.…
John Martyn: One Other World (1977)

2016/09/19

Let’s blur boundaries. Let’s begin with English singer-songwriter John Martyn’s fascinating ode to the music of Jamaica.
Virginia Astley: A Summer Long Since Passed (1983)

2015/02/06

Here’s to another unheralded and quite forgotten one. In the summer of 1983, a humble, charming bit of pastoral neo-folk music was released. Mixing field recordings, piano, guitar, flute, and, very sparingly, voice, a young woman presented a breathtaking idea of how a certain English feeling can reveal itself to you. Back then, Virginia opened…
Anne Briggs: Blackwater Side (1963)

2014/10/03

Anne Briggs – 1963 Now this is where the shift begins. I’ve always wanted to delineate the kind of transformation that England’s folk music went through from its early folk phase to its sorta modern iteration. There’s something utterly fascinating about a bunch of those groups and a lot of that sound. The question is:…