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Febian Reza Pane: Dreams Of Ganesha (1995)

2018/08/10

How much are we a product of our past? It’s those thoughts that were floating through pianist Febian Reza Pane’s mind when he created Dreams Of Ganesha. From the first piano note you hear played to the last sustained note your hear ringing, instant memories of the deeply inward “jazz” music of Keith Jarrett start…
Seigen Ono: The Green Chinese Table (1988)

2018/07/27

This one is a bit special. Last we heard from Seigen, he was introducing us to his very jazz-influenced take on Japanese New Age music. On the follow up to that epic debut, The Green Chinese Table, we find Seigen dividing his time up between recording sessions in Tokyo and New York City. It’s impossible…
Fumio Miyashita: Tenkawa Isuzu (1986)

2018/03/30

You always begin with a blank canvas. Then, you fill it with as many colors and shapes you need. Ending with a blank canvas is the ideal of any meditation. Music for meditation, as the late Fumio Miyashita’s Tenkawa Isuzu intends to be, should be an oxymoron. I beg to differ. You see, meditation itself…
Penguin Cafe Orchestra: Air á Danser (1981)

2015/01/26

Now, this is the right time to bring Simon Jeffes’s Penguin Cafe Orchestra back again. Back in 1976, no one was quite ready for their Neoclassical style of chamber folk music. His vision of combining various worldly folk traditions under one shapeshifting sound created a template that touches on a lot of modern post-rock and…
Bert Jansch: Avocet (1979)

2015/01/16

There’s a struggle whenever you try to invoke something. How exactly do you communicate to someone something they have to imagine? There was a time when naturalist John Audubon had to struggle with art critics who looked down upon his realistic depiction of birds. Painting with watercolors, chalks, and pastels he’d distill to the bare…
Brian Eno: Discreet Music (1975)

2014/12/14

Pour down like silver. What an apropos name for whatever the hell was going on in classic English folk and folk-rock music in 1975. Nothing you’ll find this year from overground artists like Richard and Linda Thompson, Steeleye Span, Sandy Denny and more would truly be as valuable as the stuff that poured for from…
Shirley Collins: Adieu to Old England (1974)

2014/12/08

What a weird time its must have been for England in 1974. It was during this year that the IRA started to launch an all-out offensive to rid Northern Ireland from England’s grasp, rampant energy blackouts forced the reintroduction of Three-Day Weeks to conserve electricity, Monty Python was ending, and the government itself was having…
Spirogyra: In the Western World (1973)

2014/11/20

Barbara and Martin There’s a bit near the 10:30 minute mark in my track of the day, “In the Western World”, a multi-part suite by Spirogyra, when Dolly Collins (Shirley Collins’ sister) magnificent arrangements join in with the sound of oscillating synthesizers and Barbara Gaskins harrowing voice, that the sign of a new branch of…
C.O.B.: Moyshe McStiff And The Tartan Lancers Of The Sacred Heart (1972)

2014/11/16

Last we left Clive Palmer’s old, new band C.O.B. they were creating a fascinating sound, one that hearkened to pre-traditional days, days of Crusaders and Moors. When 1972 rolled around rather than accept the sales flop that Spirit of Love was for CBS Records, they were signed to a much smaller label Polydor’s Folk Mill Records…
Mark Fry: Dreaming with Alice (1972)

2014/11/11

Where do you go when you don’t quite know how to continue onward? You start to deconstruct your own past and footsteps. In 1972, an artist like Mark Fry must have been asking himself these questions. His influences Donovan, and Marc Bolan had started to go glam, and he himself wasn’t quite ready to leave…