art pop

Yukako Hayase: 薔薇のしっぽ Roses’ Tails (1989)

2017/10/20

Where does one start with Yukako Hayase? That’s the question I asked myself when debating, for what seemed like forever, what would be the album I would recommend others to explore, to give them a better sense of why Yukako is such a deeply important artist (and one sadly lost to time). Thankfully, with time,…
Edson Natale: Nina Maika (1990)

2017/09/29

These are the kinds of albums that really live with you. Sao Paolo native, Edson Natale’s name may be the lead on the album cover, his visage may be the one seen folding in the background (with guitar in hand), but its those other small names around him that make Nina Maika such a beautiful…
Steve Hiett: Down On The Road By The Beach (1983)

2017/09/22

You can always hear music in Steve Hiett’s photography. You can definitely hear the music on the cover of his solo debut, Down On The Road By The Beach. Heavily saturated with color, mesmerizingly flash-lit, and warmly off-center, this image was like an Edgar Degas painting come to life – albeit one fashioned with Miami’s…
Tom Jobim: Matita Perê (1973)

2017/09/20

Lightness, sweetness, and melancholia those are things that define Tom Jobim’s career. You don’t need me to regurgitate a whole Wikipedia page to stress his heralded place in Brazilian music history. Together with João Gilberto, Antonio Carlos Jobim allowed for things like space, quietness, and off-beats to have a place in pop music. Everything we…
Chris Mosdell: Equasian (1982)

2017/09/08

Simply phenomenal. That’s a great word to describe Chris Modell’s debut: Equasian. Phenomenally hard to describe. It’s an album released exclusively in Japan by an American artist who got his start translating Japanese lyrics into English for them, and used that entry way to get repaid back, by said Japanese artists, by allowing them to…
Joachim Witt: Moonlight Nights (1985)

2017/08/18

If anyone knows me, they’d know this album forms a perfect storm of what I dig about music. I love it when someone actually aims to “sell out” by doing it in such a way that everyone is left dumbfounded by the product of that intended vision. There is one “right” way to pull that…
Syoko: Soil (1986)

2017/04/28

Everytime I put on Syoko’s Soil I have to do a double-take. Seriously? The music coming out of my headphones right now was made by the same person who created the My Neighbor Totoro soundtrack and Kichijoutennyo. Sonically, I can see the connection to the latter but stretching the conceit to his countless Miyazaki soundtracks seems to question his elasticity…
Mio Fou: Mio Fou (1984)

2017/04/21

Just look at that album cover. Mio Fou’s self-titled debut has an album cover that has fascinated me to no end. You see, the utterly sublime music found in Mio Fou must have some connection to this image. For months I struggled to define what time of the year this picture was taken and what time of…
Koharu Kisaragi: 都会の生活 Tokai No Seikatsu (1986)

2017/03/31

Koharu, Koharu, wherefore are thou Koharu? That’s the big question rolling around in my head. Koharu Kisaragi’s 都会の生活 Tokai No Seikatsu (which translates to: Urban Life) isn’t just an impressive, largely, unheard of album, it’s also impressive for being largely unknown in details both in what went into its creation and what happened to its creator. This true one-off by Japanese playwright, theater…
Mix: 3. What Do You Do When It’s Spring?

2017/03/20

In a way, rebirth is exactly what my third mix is about. Taking cues from various feelings springtime evokes, I wanted to compile a set of songs that moved in concert with the season. By themselves, each song has a faint musical seed that germinates and blooms into a much more pronounced, powerful direction. However, taken as part of a whole, despite…