art pop

  • Nothing lasts forever? If there’s any hope in our current situation, is that all things must end (somehow, some way). Just last year I created a mix touching on music that paid a huge respect to its spiritual leanings. “The Coat Of Many Colors” tried to link our connection with the universal hymn one can…

  • Just more music for “in between seasons”. What else can you say to describe the latter-day work of, sadly, now defunct, Portuguese sophisticated pop group, Ban? As I put on their Mundo de Aventuras it’s not hard to have your mind race back to more naive times when certain love songs spoke to youthful measures…

  • Once again, I’m back to my favorite kind of song: the love song. But not just any kind of love song. For this hour-long mix for LYL Radio I decided to explore songs that zero in on the range that (justifiably) make us the most anxious — it’s those imbued with feelings of lust, seduction,…

  • 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 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…

  • 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…

  • I’ve got to say I really had fun with this one. Inspired by Ms. Sally’s wonderful recommendation to check out the music of brother/sister duo Sophie and Peter Johnston, I felt compelled to build on an idea for my latest mix for LYL Radio: “What about an hour dedicated to music that takes us back…

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