neo-folk

Claire Hamill: Voices (1986)

2016/12/28

There’s a vastly more interesting topic hidden in full view of Claire Hamill’s unique and brilliant 1986 release: Voices. What is Voices? It’s an utterly fascinating bit of art pop, a middle ground of Cocteau Twins and Kate Bush -stylistic music, that combines forgotten English Folk with nomadic, electronic dream pop. Composed entirely free of instruments other than her own…
Mix: 2. Quiet Departures

2016/12/19

All I could think about while creating this second mix was Kapalbhati Pranayama. I wanted to treat you to two hours of music that exactly presented what this idea means to me. Kapalbhati Pranayama is the sanskrit phrase for “Breath of Fire”. In a cross-legged, seated position one tries to create internal heat without actually moving the…
Seigén Ono: Seigén (1984)

2016/11/18

I‘m still struck by this release. It’s hard to realize, but Seigén Ono was only 26 years old when he created his debut album, Seigén. Just months removed from assisting others like Yasuaki Shimizu’s Mariah, David Sylvian, Ryuichi Sakamoto, and Takumi as their mixing engineer or producer, Seigén had just an inkling of all the arrangements he had to get…
Masahide Sakuma: Lisa (1984)

2016/11/17

Going back to yesterday’s point about how Music Interior provided a space for musician’s to stretch outside their known fields, today we have another perfect example of what this exactly means. Tokyo-born and bred, Masahide Sakuma started out his career in the pioneering surfabilly/B-52s-influenced Japanese band Plastics. The multi-instrumentalist of the group, it wouldn’t be rare…
Virginia Astley: From Gardens Where We Feel Secure (1983)

2016/10/24

NOTE: Today, I’m digging back into the A-Track, A-Day archives for a gorgeous piece of autumnal music, Virginia Astley’s From Gardens Where We Feel Secure, one that still remains too criminally hard to find. No matter, it’s my sonic balm for you, today. You can find a lot of what I said then below, but what do I think about…
Talk Talk: Laughing Stock (1991)

2015/03/11

Belatedly, it appears that the best is yet to come. Truly no other month can be as trying, and as most worthy of our respect and humility, than this shortest stretch of the year, February. Compact to the point of becoming itself a transition to something greater, everything it does; throwing the environmental book at…
Talk Talk: I Believe In You (1988)

2015/03/06

Talk Talk – 1988 Sometimes, things are better left unsaid. In 1988, Tim Pope and Mark Hollis set out to create a video for an edited down version of “I Believe In You”. By then, so much of Talk Talk’s history had been suddenly rewritten and torn asunder. In this last bit of acquiescence, Mark…
The Blue Nile: Over the Hillside (1989)

2015/03/03

Paul Buchanan from The Blue Nile I’m a firm believer in art seen through movements. Although movements might have disparate artists within them, they tend to share a certain philosophy. There was something genuinely different that was brewing underneath Britain in the late ’80s. In music especially so, maybe as a reaction to all the…
David Sylvian: Orpheus (1987)

2015/02/27

David Sylvian -1986 There’s something peculiar about working or experiencing art with black and white colors. Gone are visual signifiers and reference points that you can use to inform your emotions. By restricting your colors to two poles, the audience has to engage with your work by basing it on something else. The ideas of…
David Sylvian: Upon This Earth (1986) and Talk Talk: April 5th (1986)

2015/02/25

David Sylvian – 1986 Sometimes meaningful excursions can lead to so much. Let’s take one, and follow the lead of two budding artists just at the cusp of realizing their full potential. In 1986, David Sylvian of Japan and Mark Hollis of Talk Talk were running parallel paths and somehow spearheading shifts into truly forgotten…