-
Serenity now. Serenity later? Well, not that much later if you’re tuned into the cozy ambiance of little-known New Age musician Chris Stonor aka L’Esprit. Gentle and quietly so unobtrusive, L’Esprit’s sophomore release, Far Journey, somehow gets your attention by doing the little things so right.
-
Photo by Sara Mautone As I began proofing my interview with the amazingly talented Sara Mautone, artistic director of Antena Magazine, photographer, and music selector, I have to say, her answers struck a chord with me. It’s something I could feel coursing through her contribution for Digging Deep.
-
It goes without saying that this is the silly season for me. While I would like to drop reams upon reams of knowledge on the ins and outs of Ms. Mio Takaki and her New-Tant, unfortunately, I have less time than normal to do so but I’ll do my best. As for those who appreciate…
-
As I grow older, I grow increasingly dumbfounded. There’s absolutely no reason Michel Lemieux shouldn’t be a household name now. Here I am looking at a video performance from his salad days and I see a superstar. Much like Peter Gabriel and Laurie Anderson, who he is both compared to in his Wikipedia entry, so…
-
More fierce humans to support: Monday Michiru Akiyoshi-Mariano. Where does one start with the wildfly prolific career of Monday? How about the beginning with Mangetsu. Unlike little released in Japan at that time, Mangetsu was the sprawling debut of a young Japanese-American who couldn’t quite suss out any style she wanted to gravitate to (nor…
-
Before the image, before the story, before the music, before anything else, what really gets to you is that voice. In full flight, Loredana Bertè’s voice is just this guttural thing unlike anything else, searing quite anything within its range, making you stop and immediately take notice. Powerful and raw, it’s a voice just raging…
-
Yumiko Morioka’s work under the “Synagetic Voice Orchestra” and her Mios wouldn’t have appeared to me if it wasn’t by happenstance and luck. You see, for a moment in time, Spencer Doran had sent me a message about some wonderful work by one Alessandro Ravi or Raul Lovisoni (turned out it was Mr. Ravi) that…
-
“Old-fashioned she might be, dated like last year’s pop-song…”, so too, must I take it inspiration from the late, great Clifford T. Ward to reaffirm some of the power in easy listening. On my latest mix for LYL Radio, I try to present a drifting set of music, a song cycle of sorts, that looks…
-
Just something for the lovers out there: Cindy’s exceptional J-Soul heavy, Angel Touch. Perfectly distilling that gorgeous in between period of the early ‘90s r&b scene, it can’t help but be a tad dated but also more than a tad timeless and (surprisingly) au courant. For those who need a bit of comfort and joy,…
-
How long can you hold on to a secret? Two years, that’s how long I’ve been holding off on sharing Fred Simon and Liz Cifani’s masterful Time And The River, another in a series of quite autumnal, pastoral, ambient/New Age records that speak to some kind of not-so-profoundly “American” universality. “How come? And how so?”…
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