art rock

Takumi: Meat the Beat (1983)

2017/03/03

Tokyo, Berlin, London and other points in between, are the locales touched by Meat the Beat an intriguing work from surprisingly prolific (yet largely unknown) Japanese musician Takumi Iwasaki. Eleven songs in total, nine sung in English, two in Germany, with a startling album cover touching on the austere visuals of Berlin-era Bowie, should it be any surprise that what you’ll…
Frugivores: New Age Songs (1987)

2017/03/01

ere’s another fascinating release from the CODA label. I say fascinating because Frugivores’ New Age Songs vacillates between a thin line of taste. As you listen to the album initially, one doesn’t know whether to truly recommend it as a listen. But as the album continues, one hears certain songs, forcing you to fire up the old WordPress account and…
Virna Lindt: Shiver (1984)

2017/02/13

t’s impossible to know how much to believe of Swedish journalist, model, linguist, literary agent, interpreter, and musician Virna Lindt’s backstory. Before the creation of Shiver, it is said that in 1981, while traveling by train to London she met local record producer/artist Tot Taylor and told him of her plan to record an album that would be…
Isabelle Adjani: Pull Marine (1983)

2016/09/21

Now this is what you call a performance. Rightfully, Isabelle Adjani has to go down as one French cinema’s greatest actresses. Possessing an expressive beauty that she can transform from ethereal to surreal in movies like Possession, Subway, all the way to Diabolique, it’s Isabelle’s ability to sculpt that mysterious sexuality on her own terms that allowed her to use such talent to get away with almost everything in her artistic career.…
Kate Bush: The Ninth Wave (1985)

2015/02/20

Kate Bush Now, this, this is what you call an end to a magnificent run. Releasing an album, Hounds of Love, in 1985, that if you’d have dropped it today, yesterday, and many days in the future it would trump whatever was out there, and be the de facto best album of the year. So,…
Kate Bush: Breathing (1980)

2015/01/21

Kate Bush with her Fairlight CMI Sampler. The 80’s presented a perfect turning point for neo-folk music. More so, it signalled a turning point for truly one of the eras pioneers. Fresh off her wildly successful first tour, she was experiencing for once great tumult with how to go onwards with her career. Now known…
Penguin Cafe Orchestra: The Sound of Someone You Love Who’s Going Away and It Doesn’t Matter (1976)

2014/12/18

Simon Jeffes on bowed guitar (left) with David Sylvian and Ryuichi Sakamoto Wow, what a loaded track title and what a loaded track. This band was born out of a hallucinated dream experienced by one Simon Jeffes while recovering from food poisoning. In one fever dream he saw an all seeing eye viewing a couple…
Duncan Browne: Ragged Rain Life (1973)

2014/11/26

Duncan Browne Londoner Duncan Browne is another one of those brilliant, forgotten ones. In 1973, with classical guitar in tow, he released another great totem for neo-folk music. His self-titled sophomore album combined some of that astounding experimentation with folk forms that John Martyn had shown, only he did it with more tempered, bittersweet music.…
Carolanne Pegg: Open the Door (1973)

2014/11/22

Carole Pegg I guess you can call this a “A Track, A Day” exclusive. Remember the sinisterly awesome Mr. Fox band? Lead by Bob and Carole Pegg, they pioneered a darker form of neo-folk which drew from their Yorkshire Dale region. Before the dark tales of Comus, theirs was the haunting sound that shocked early…
Franco Battiato: Sequenze e Frequenze (1973)

2014/09/27

I’m heading into the island of Milo, Sicily for a tiny bit. Back to catch what Franco Battiato was doing around this time. What a surprise it is to see him wrap up all his first stabs at mixing the electronic with the serene into one way too far ahead for its time musical statement.…