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You don’t always know where the muse takes you but sometimes you get some semblance of its thoughts. Looking back at my latest mix for LYL Radio I had felt there were huge tell-tale signs pointing me what I needed to discover. What was the Brazilian-Japanese connection?
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Sometimes there isn’t much left to be said. Case in point: George Ohtsuka’s Maracaibo. A jaw-dropping masterpiece of Japanese jazz funk that could only come through a miraculous meeting of two minds, those of Japan’s Trio Records and Germany’s ECM Records. Released in 1980, Maracaibo, marked genius drummer George Ohtsuka’s final departure from the meditative…
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I had a feeling I’d find a way to touch on one of the record label MMC’s other brilliant gems this year but I didn’t think it would be this way. How does one capture the current milieu? Unable to go much of anywhere at the moment, living either in open denial or in excessive…
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Let’s have a talk about cancel culture. I refuse to endorse any images that will promote racism of any kind. We punch up, not down, here. It’s for that reason I have to confront legitimately racist works, like the comics and anime behind Open Sesame’s! Chocolate Panic, with some modicum of introspection. Although the music…
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Rioting, looting, civil disobedience, and protest — nothing is born out nothing, all are born from a vacuum. When those we exploit say: “enough is enough” we need to stop and listen. If you think this story is something new, where were you the last 400 years? If you think the story is singular, you…
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How long ago was the Age Of Discovery? Six centuries ago, in 1418, the story of Portugal began under the leadership of Infante Dom Henrique, who through the captains João Gonçalves Zarco, Tristão Vaz Teixeira and Gonçalo Velho Cabral came on shore (either by necessity or choice) to the then unknown islands of Madeira and…
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Certain albums just sound special from the get-go. When I put on Ayuo Takahashi’s Nova Carmina instantly I hear something that takes me back. It’s something quite simple: Ayuo’s violin playing streaks of glissando over something he wrote for Aideen Morgan. It’s poetry speaks of a rebirth of sorts, of its narrator finding in the…
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Now, where did we leave off? Still holding on to bits of uncertainty, it seems. And like most of our far away islands, the most distant are the ones of our creation. Then, if all of that’s the case, in 1985, Björn seemed to be pretty much on his own trip. That’s where we pick…
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Some of my favorite artists are those that fluctuate along the same wavelength as yours truly. One of these is the incomparable Ayuo Takahashi. Never moored by any specific idea, his vision is expansive — all is fair game in his musical world. From English folk to mystic Persian devotionals, to electro and mutant funk,…
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What does one do when one can’t find answers themselves? You look for help. And so recently, one Coste Apetrea carved out some time out of his day to help yours truly try to get some semblance of history behind the late Björn Holm. For a long time I put aside writing about Björn, for…
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