minimalist
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One of my favorite things to discover and hear in music is how ideas translate across genres and borders. Listening to Midori’s Vortex Symphony, I get the sense that they share a similar spirit of discovery. Yes, this is “dream pop,” but it isn’t the dream pop we usually imagine – it’s the kind that…
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Maybe it’s something about myself, but I tend to feel inspired by the music of those who aren’t necessarily solely inspired by music itself. As I listen to Yasushi Egami’s Arcars – The Surface of Muclique, I get the sense that something deeper is at play–just how important texture is to any artform.
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I can’t help but smile a little when I hear how brazenly Yuji Sugiyama begins what would become his sole release under the name Logik Freaks. On 1995’s Temptations of Logik Freaks – One Fine Day, the opening track, “Tekno Prisoner/Preacher,” starts as a hypnotic piece of Japanese ambient techno before being yanked out of…
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Sometimes you hear the future and you fear it. Yet, sometimes you fear the future and you hear… what exactly? Change.
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It’s not often I revisit works from artists I’ve already written about, but when I do, it’s because these other works shed light on a new dimension of their creativity. In today’s case, few artists reveal as many fantastic—and drastic—sides as Naoko Kawai through her work as The Gentle Wind.
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If there’s one thing I’ve learned from a recent trip to Japan, it’s this: I might be too ahead of the curve. And no, not in the way you might think. It’s in turning my recent focus towards music lost in the shuffle of the CD era.
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Do you feel and see it? Isn’t “Spooky Season” unofficially around us? Whenever a certain air descends on most of us, I entertain certain kinds of records I normally wouldn’t. And in today’s case, on Norihiro Tsuru’s soundtrack to 人魚の傷 aka Mermaid’s Scar, it forces me to revisit a chilling story that really stuck with…
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Don’t you just love it when the story writes itself? I say this because the story of Something In The Air has been written by the Danish band of the same name. For once, forget about what I think, focus on the music, focus on the noise of the air in your room – if…
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Lately, I’ve been thinking about how we remember our past. As summer continues winding down and vacation time dries up, I’ve been reflecting on how we try to capture those special moments in the places we visit, whether on holiday or during a break from day-to-day life. How does one remember these experiential places? Increasingly,…
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Who says I don’t like a good mystery? I say this because it appears that lately I’ve been hitting on this theme: unsolved mysteries. Once again, I’m caught torn between sharing some work that absolutely pushes all my right buttons and not sharing it because: all stones left turned reveal nothing about who made it.…
ambient art pop art rock balearic brazilian electro-acoustic england environmental music experimental fourth world Funk fusion japan jazz minimalist mpb neo-folk neoclassical new age walearic