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And now: more of something I wish there was more history to share about — Lotus Kasumi Experience. It’s that kind of a week. Losing and then regaining an old hard drive — thanks, again, everyone! — sometimes yields unexpected surprises. Case in point, the album listed in the headline.
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Color me “stumped”. My apologies to Chris, who graciously shared Yon Seok-Won’s 空 (Space & Silence) with me. I did my best to piece together some kind or type of background for this amazing Korean ambient album but ran into an equally large gulf in history. It shouldn’t end this way, of course. Much like…
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Forgive me for burying the lede but I have to go back to Yassue. For all of those that thought Yassue’s story ended on A Fine Day…I have to share a wonderful coda to that story. A Cosmic Pandora, if you will. Much like Yumiko Morioka’s MIOS, it was their little-known sophomore album that proved…
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Bobby McFerrin & Jack Nicholson: How The Rhinoceros Got His Skin & How The Camel Got His Hump (1987)
This one is for the young or those young at heart. Yes, your eyes aren’t deceiving you: Bobby McFerrin and Jack Nicholson. Sometime long ago, in our weird, sometimes, just so fucked up world, the joy of our world descended upon us, bringing to us this hypnotic, decidedly sublime emotional spiritual fusion (jazz?) record dubbed…
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Ambient. New Age. Japan. The tags almost write the post itself, right? Yet, we still have to talk about this intriguing turn by Akira Mitake. Akira Mitake’s Himawari (or Sunflower) was released in 1987 as a complement to, don’t quote me on this: NHK’s 8-part documentary, 日本～その心とかたち～, Japan – Its Heart and Shape, a historical…
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Simply wonderful summer moods abound in this one. What’s the one I’m referencing? None other than Fernando Girão’s Índio, an intriguing release combining deep Brazilian ethnic and indigenous folk music with new wave, experimental electronics. It’s as Fernando hinted at in the name of his record label, fusion etnica or ethnic fusion. Many moons later…
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Regardez-moi dance un samba. It’s me, again, with another look at our relationship with Brazil. In the past, I took the time to create a mix outlining the contours of Japan’s relationship with its largest immigrant community and how that shaped its own pop music. On my latest mix for LYL Radio, I take a…
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The Universe. It’s not often one turns on an instrument and gets presented with such a thing. Yet, the [Universe] was the sound patch introducing you to the world of Korg’s M1, the first of its kind, a music workstation that gave you what seemed like a universe of sounds in one keyboard. Korg’s M1…
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With the recent passing of the late, great Jon Hassell, I think it’s important to break down something worthwhile he’d be proud of playing a role in: Francesco Paladino’s Eroi A Rio. Twelve tracks. If to be believed, inspired by a vivid dream Francesco had where he recorded a concert held in 1993 at the…
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What is a protest song? Hopefully, as our musical tastes have evolved, one can recognize how the best protest songs are those that abandon any form of sloganeering for something far more personal and in many ways more multi-layered. Moshiri’s Kamuychikap (God’s Bird) isn’t ethnic music. It’s not folk music or traditional song. Moshiri’s Kamuychikap…
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