fourth world

  • Certain music and musicians feel like they were born in the wrong era. Usually, for many that time is delineated in years or decades. However, for those that grace us with glimpses of the “Philosopher’s Stone”, like Léo Ferré, Franco Battiato, or Dylan, to name a few, one feels that centuries of time have to…

  • Sometimes telling the story of something feels like it won’t match the quality of the source material. In my case, its detailing the music and history behind 中國經典名著電影音樂2: 怨女 (otherwise known as the “Rouge Of The North” soundtrack) without falling prey to the trappings of Orientalism. Ambient, mysterious, and wickedly incisive, it’s this work by…

  • Doesn’t it always seem like fall weather brings along autumnal feelings? Nothing speaks to this preternatural connection to our environment quite like art, and in our case: music. You see, in my latest mix for LYL Radio I was inspired quite directly by the song and words of Ayuo Takahashi’s “Across The Seasons”.

  • “I have aimed at creating with my work, a music at one with nature. Nature is melodic within itself, without abstaining from true harmony. Everything is sound. Everything is music.” — Carlos Pacini Aires da Silva Couldn’t have said it better myself. 

  • It’s rare to find someone bridging the gap between Jethro Tull, Marc Bolan’s T-Rex, The Orb, and Toumani Diabate, but it seems this world can support only one Lion Merry. Simply scroll down to the bottom of this post, past the download link, and know that I could have easily gone into multiple rows to…

  • This one is for the young or those young at heart. Yes, your eyes aren’t deceiving you: Bobby McFerrin and Jack Nicholson. Sometime long ago, in our weird, sometimes, just so fucked up world, the joy of our world descended upon us, bringing to us this hypnotic, decidedly sublime emotional spiritual fusion (jazz?) record dubbed…

  • Simply wonderful summer moods abound in this one. What’s the one I’m referencing? None other than Fernando Girão’s Índio, an intriguing release combining deep Brazilian ethnic and indigenous folk music with new wave, experimental electronics. It’s as Fernando hinted at in the name of his record label, fusion etnica or ethnic fusion. Many moons later…

  • The Universe. It’s not often one turns on an instrument and gets presented with such a thing. Yet, the [Universe] was the sound patch introducing you to the world of Korg’s M1, the first of its kind, a music workstation that gave you what seemed like a universe of sounds in one keyboard. Korg’s M1…

  • With the recent passing of the late, great Jon Hassell, I think it’s important to break down something worthwhile he’d be proud of playing a role in: Francesco Paladino’s Eroi A Rio. Twelve tracks. If to be believed, inspired by a vivid dream Francesco had where he recorded a concert held in 1993 at the…

  • What is a protest song? Hopefully, as our musical tastes have evolved, one can recognize how the best protest songs are those that abandon any form of sloganeering for something far more personal and in many ways more multi-layered. Moshiri’s Kamuychikap (God’s Bird) isn’t ethnic music. It’s not folk music or traditional song. Moshiri’s Kamuychikap…

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