album

  • To paraphrase the great Janet Jackson, “Like a moth to a flame, Burned by the fire, My love is blind, Can’t you see my desire?” That’s the way love goes…and a way certain passions take us to some wonderful places. It’s something we can explore in Kim Wan Sun’s The First Touch. 

  • Much like y’all, I’m apt to “feel the room”. And my friends, it’s awfully nice outside. I’m peering outside: the sun shining, flowers bloomin’ crazy, and life is good. So, I’m scrapping what I originally wanted to write about and feeling something else. I want to hear something upbeat, accessible, and meaningful…I want to share…

  • My apologies to all those readers expecting a well-researched entry about Mélange’s Passion To Poison. It appears I might fail in myriad ways today. I say that because just like many of you, I too can get easily sidetracked when exploring certain rabbit holes. And in today’s case, it’s the way we or others feel…

  • How does one bridge the span between our past and an uncertain future? If you can put yourself inside the mind of one, Kazuo Uehara, perhaps you can deduce that answer. You see, it was he who had the same question. It was sometime in the ‘60s, while listening to The Beatles’s “Revolution #9”, that…

  • If you can imagine, imagine what it is to be a woman. For those already identifying as one, venture onwards. Then, compound that. Imagine yourself as a trombonist. It’s that choice: to pick up one of music’s longtime bit players — and actually do something meaningful with the instrument — that informs just how interesting…

  • Stand By Satie? It’s pretty hard not to, when a whole slew of musicians – in all styles and genres – have been inspired by the late, great French impressionist composer. But how does one take the next step and actually attempt to interpret the man? It’s a question, I imagine, that was cycling in…

  • Fall is something else, isn’t it? As beautiful as the season is – simply one look outside can affirm this – there’s always something in our communal, lived-in experience that’s tinged with a certain longing and/or nostalgia. Perhaps, it’s a certain realization that nothing is permanent and everything pertinent has an end. With this thought…

  • Charming, breezy, and wonderfully multi-layered, those are a few of the many adjectives one can use to describe the sole work by Korean art folk trio: 새바람이 오는 그늘 (who I’ll refer to as “The Shade With New Wind from now on). On their debut, 1990’s 1집, one can hear another defined turning point in…

  • Jazz. Why even bother? At least, that’s what I ask myself when I choose to share something from that realm. Of all musical rorschach tests, it is Jazz, I feel, that seems to feature prominently as the one. Does one highlight its technical proficiency (and thereby, turn off a large part of the readership)? Does…

  • I’ve got to come clean: I’m one of those people that loves to wake up early. I feel that the hours of dawn reveal something precious that’s appreciated by relative few. It’s minutes and moments of atmospheric, environmental drama outside one’s window. Perhaps, an especially jaw-dropping sunrise. Perhaps, bird and insect song that’s less obstructed…

ambient art pop art rock balearic brazilian electro-acoustic england environmental music experimental fourth world Funk fusion japan jazz minimalist mpb neo-folk neoclassical new age walearic