fourth world
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There’s always a lovely melodicism to Italian minimalist music. Lately, I’ve been fascinated by the works of little known Italian record label Stile Librero for that reason. Let me introduce you to a slice of this spirit, through the work of harpist Andrea Piazza who released his gorgeous debut album dubbed Tirtaganga on it.
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There’s a palpable meditation hovering around Lyu Hong-Jun’s masterwork 大地の詩, otherwise known as “Songs Of The Earth” or “Earth Songs”. Recorded for pioneering Japanese prefab home maker Misawa Home, landing place of equally pioneering musical works by Hiroshi Yoshimura and Yutaka Hirose, this album was supposed to provide another soundtrack to the unique, holistic experience they were selling. It’s…
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Guest Mix by Klas Trollius Editor’s Note: I thought about what FOND/SOUND reader Klas states below: “connected to place-making (by creating a certain atmosphere, specific to the time and place of a recording) and displacement (by transporting you to a mental, perhaps fleeting place in your own mind)” and it made me truly understand his mix, in…
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Illustration by Laura Gomez I usually don’t gravitate towards writing about something I didn’t include in a mix but I just have to make an exception this time, with the final volume of the Japanese New Age and Ambient series I created for NTS. Satoshi Sumitani’s “金の星と銀の星” (Kin No Hoshi To Gin No Hoshi) from 不思議の森～Forest…
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That intersection between organic and inorganic has been something I’ve been chewing on lately. What makes something one or the other? I’d argue that something as simple as the introduction of sampler instruments revolutionized the way we can make that argument immaterial.
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So very lovely. Forgive me if some of you are expecting something more experimental, electronic, or whatever else now. Me, I just want something like this. What is this? It’s the beginning of Ryokyu Endo’s sublime form of Japanese New Age music. In 1994, Ryokyu Endo’s Song Of Pure Land, or The Song Of Pure…
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Streams of understanding, via spiritual land bridges, or how a Navajo-Ute found a musical connection with Japanese sonorities/tradition. Somehow, I feel a sense of myself in this music. The first time I heard of Island Of Bows by R. Carlos Nakai (with the Wind Travelin’ Band, Shonosuke Ohkura, and Oki Kano) I was struck by…
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I’m afraid people might get the wrong impression when they listen to the opening track from Michiko Akao’s Yokobue. What’s there to say about “般若波羅蜜多 – Prajna Paramita”? Manning the iconic transverse flute of Japan, the yokobue, Michiko creates a dark jazz funk piece that somehow manages to mix a vocoder in, in a way…
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Trying to revisit something I wrote about and remember quite vividly, at the time I wrote it, presents two opportunities: the first is to reassess why and how I got into that piece of music. The second opportunity presented by revisiting the past, is whether time has added a fresher perspective since then. When Sifted…
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Oh, the joys and pains of promoting private press records. First of all, a huge debt of gratitude is extended to one Discogs record collector (mvns) who kindly shared with me this beyond interesting release by Japanese band (or solo act, hard to tell, at times), Milky Way Band. Released in 1989, through infinitely small…
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