ambient

  • Don’t ask me why but I have something to literally share with you. For some reason I’ve been carrying around Aki Fukakusa’s Silk Strings Enchanting everywhere I go lately. In this weird time in my life, in between moving to a new place and getting rid of the old baggage, I packed up all my…

  • Due to unforeseen circumstances — aka moving all my record collection to a new locale/home — once again I have to go into the well of knowledge, you the readers, have passed on to me to pass on something else back. Today’s post comes courtesy of a great find by sometime guest, Francis Heaney, who…

  • Interior music. It seems that this is it, everyone. We’ve spoken before about Hiroshi Yoshimura’s  Soundscape 1: Surround, our introduction to Misawa Home’s foundational environmental music series for Japanese prefabricated houses. You’ve probably heard elsewhere Yutaka Hirose’s entry into the series, a collection of peaceful electroacoustic minimalist pastorales aptly dubbed Soundscape 2: Nova. Then, somewhere,…

  • The more I burrow down rabbit holes, the more I realize music has interesting ways of making (seemingly) strange bedfellows work best together. Case in point: Fania Miñaur’s all too brief career and this album, Deja Hablar Al Tiempo. 

  • I’ve got a confession to make: I rarely dream. I know that’s an odd thing to state but it’s true. When I sleep I find that it’s rare that I can remember my dreams or even if I dreamt at all. Strangely enough, my latest mix for Digging Deep at LYL Radio seems to be…

  • I’ve gotta admit. Few albums stump me to describe. Of the few that do, AQ! Ishii’s and Hiroko Taniyama’s 楠劇場 オリジナル・アルバム (Kusunoki Gekijou) must be up there in my personal canon. Much like Mariah’s うたかたの日々/ Utakata No Hibi, Aragon’s self-titled debut, and Godley & Creme’s Consequences, to name a few close brethren, so too does…

  • I hate giving you just a taste of anything but Né Ladeiras’s Corsaria has to serve as one today. Ambient and ethereal, Corsaria rightfully belongs in a certain pantheon of Portuguese music, much like the work of Zeca Afonso (and others), trying to bridge that gap between the moorless, Portuguese fado tradition and whatever new…

  • In light of everything that is currently happening at the time of this writing, I’d hate to add any dark energy into the world. For times like these, perhaps it’s a good occasion to revisit another work of the trailblazing Hiroki Okano. On ENN, (roughly translating to “circle”), we get to appreciate some of the…

  • 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. 

  • 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…

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