experimental
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There’s something perfect about our imperfect minds. Most of the thoughts we think are the best, most of the time, aren’t the product of an instant occurrence. I’d say the best ideas truly come from a combination of luck/accident plus human intuition. Sometimes we may not know that our answer, or thought, is correct, but we feel it…
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There’s an interesting debate that’s been raging – as much one could rage – in the yoga world. It’s over whether music should be played during yoga classes. Modern, decidedly more western, yogis argue that there is no problem with hearing music while practicing, since the act of hearing music seems to stimulate their muscle intensity. Classically-trained…
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“Cool, no sweat funk.” – Those exact words are how the leaders of Japanese group EP-4 describe their music. Led by the imitable Kaoru Sato (vocalist) and Banana Kawashima (keyboardist/tape looper), EP-4 in a brief period in the early ’80s existed in its own playing field. Stylistically, and philosophically, more akin to dub-minded bands like The Pop…
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It’s not often you get a peek at something legitimately different. Released in 1985, on Canadian record label Attic, Sounds from the Interior (The Music Interior Sampler) seems to mimic the iconic New Age Windham Hill Record Samplers of the ’80s. We all know the drill now. Frame a compelling nature scene on a stark white album…
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In these dark and foreboding times, it’s important to latch on to things that provide hope. Maybe that’s why the music of Poland has seemed so striking to me lately. The vast majority — at least the majority which remains unheard and “out-there” — of this music was the product of unimaginable restraints. Before the rise of Glasnost and Perestroika,…
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Hiroshi Yoshimura was commissioned in 1984 by Japanese multi-national personal care company Shiseido to create something that might be entirely out of his own wheelhouse: music that could complement a fragrance. It’s a pitch that would sound ludicrous to most musicians but for Hiroshi presented a magnificent idea.
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Self-released on cassette in 1983, Hiroshi Yoshimura’s Pier & Loft earns the distinction of being both his most hard to find record (Discogs prices pointing upwards of $100 now) and also, surprisingly, his most accessible. The problem, of course, has been finding actual audio of it. On this release he took his environmental music somewhere new. You…
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Every Hiroshi Yoshimura record is a bit of something very special. Versed in the mastery of combining environmental sound with personal music, every bit of Hiroshi’s recordings speaks of the special connection we as beings of this earth have with the feelings our surroundings can inspire. A lot of people hate technology, a lot of people feel there is…
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Parson Sound – 1968 You know, there’s one thing I refuse to do. Outside of work and a very little bit at home, I refuse to put on headphones and shut myself from the sounds of the world around me. Its the uncontrolled sound of hums, rumbles, breezes, pling, plongs, foreign audio soundtracks, and every…
ambient art pop art rock balearic brazilian electro-acoustic england environmental music experimental folk-rock fourth world Funk fusion japan jazz minimalist neo-folk neoclassical new age walearic