neoclassical
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Simply sublime. What else can you say? From the man who literally wrote the definitive word on Flamenco technique, comes a work showing the full expanse of his personal creative method. Juan Martin is one of the most iconic names in Nuevo Flamenco. Somewhere, down the line, his lifelong interest in art and painting (owing a…
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Sun-lit, rainbow music for respite after rainy days. That’s how I would describe Alap Jetzer’s largely acoustic renditions of Hindu guru Sri Chinmoy’s compositions. Attracted to the same devotional spiritual path that struck other musicians like Pete Townshend, Carlos Santana, Narada Michael Walden, and Roberta Flack, so was this young Swiss instrument maker and multi-instrumentalist…
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Just look at that album cover. Mio Fou’s self-titled debut has an album cover that has fascinated me to no end. You see, the utterly sublime music found in Mio Fou must have some connection to this image. For months I struggled to define what time of the year this picture was taken and what time of…
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In a way, rebirth is exactly what my third mix is about. Taking cues from various feelings springtime evokes, I wanted to compile a set of songs that moved in concert with the season. By themselves, each song has a faint musical seed that germinates and blooms into a much more pronounced, powerful direction. However, taken as part of a whole, despite…
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Paris in the winter must be a whole lot different than any other time of the year. Yes, the feeling of romance and culture is still there, but the atmosphere to take it all in must impress all sorts of different stimulations. Romance, city and lights, filtered through multiple environmental layers, meet a more distinct cessation…
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One of my favorite albums from one of my favorite record label series. Largely piano-based, José Luis Macias’s Regreso a Valencia (Returning to Valencia) touched on that personal essence that made other albums like Toshifumi Hinata’s or Ichiko Hashimoto’s so intimate and gorgeous. Combining western-style minimalism with their own more regional, neoclassical styles, all these releases affect austerity at first, but…
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We’re in the wilderness now. If nothing puts you there, Takami’s 天使行 Y. De Noir Ⅱ will. Playing out like a modern Japanese update on Nico’s Marble Index or Desertshore, Takami’s debut album sounds like little else. 天使行 roughly translates to “Angel Line” giving you, the listener, a clue into what the theme of the album is about. Were these songs…
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ugust 21st, 1988 in Rotterdam, Netherlands must have been some kind of wonderful night. On that night, the music of composer Madrileño Mariano Lozano-Platas played to a crowd of 250,000 in attendance (and millions on TV) in an event unlike any seen/heard before. Heralding the designation of Rotterdam as the culture capital of European in…
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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…
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Ichiko Hashimoto on acoustic piano, synthesizer, and vocal – that’s what the liner notes to Ichiko Hashimoto’s one and only release on Music Interior states as musician credits. Titled Ichiko and graced by a truly autumnal album cover, it’s an album that truly sounds like it looks. Ichiko is a musician well-versed in two worlds. As a trained pianist she…
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