fourth world

Pictures: Pictures (1983)

2017/11/03

I’m still floored that such an album like Pictures exists and that it exists in such an arrested state of discovery. In 1983, Andy Stennett and John Rocca, of influential British electro-funk group Freeez, decide to hide away from their record label and sure chart-topping success (courtesy of their infamous/ubiquitous hits, “Southern Freeez” and “IOU”)…
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,…
Andreas Vollenweider: …Behind the Gardens-Behind the Wall-Under the Tree… (1981)

2017/10/18

…Behind the – Behind the Wall – Under the Tree…or right here, after a long scroll to the bottom of this post you might find my favorite release by Swiss-born Andreas Vollenweider. Now more widely known his placid work backing up Carly Simon or his milquetoast New Age, “fantasy” music, there was a time when…
Yoshiaki Ochi: Natural Sonic (1990)

2017/10/13

Released on Wacoal Art Center’s NEWSIC label, Yoshiaki Ochi’s Natural Sonic shares some of the same magic heard in the music of fellow roster mates Yoshio Ojima, Motohiko Hamase, and Mich Live. This time the aural trick would be one of the most simple of them all. Largely composed, conceived, and performed on organic material…
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…
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…
Joan Bibiloni: For A Future Smile (1988)

2017/09/15

Six years after our first introduction to Joan Bibiloni, via his fantastic debut (Joana Lluna), the world had moved under him. For A Future Smile presented Joan Bibiloni in a way unlike anything before. Just a year earlier Joan had been commissioned by a Spanish TV network to create a soundtrack for a nature documentary.…
Almir Sater: Instrumental (1988)

2017/09/13

Something so simple as an album of 10-string viola caipira instrumentals shouldn’t sound so impressive, but leave it to Campo Grande native Almir Sater to make you rethink a whole lot of something. This release, Instrumental, was more than just a musical document of some brief musical sojourn, it was a massive peek into the…
David Mingyue Liang: Dialogue With The Ocean (1986)

2017/09/06

Dr. David Mingyue Liang’s Dialogue With The Ocean merges deep ethnomusicologist study with floating, electronic minimalism for a watery kind of meditative ambient music. With one foot deep in Chinese folk music and another in modern experimental composition, David Mingyue Liang creates something that sounds less like the “Chinese Meditation Music” envisioned by his Tao…
Paolo Modugno: Le Bala Et La Mouche (1994)

2017/08/23

Man, what a world to we live in. Just this year Italy’s Archeo Recordings reissued Paolo Modugno’s intriguing debut Brise D’Automne. Once a member of Italian multi-media performance group O.A.S.I., what turned as a love for Middle Eastern and African music transformed into the exploration of new ways to interconnect the electronic with the acoustic…