new age

  • Forgive me if I’m repeating myself, but if I haven’t said it bears I’m saying it now: sometimes I (just like each of us) is just a vessel for the greater good. In this case, it’s facilitating keeping a bit of music history alive. So, a huge thank you to both Victor Hsu Jui-Ting (who’s…

  • You know, sometimes as I choose to share a bit of music, what strikes me to do might be things that might not strike others quite the same. One of those things, I’ve got to say, is that I’m still a big fan of album covers and album titles that invite your mind to wander.…

  • I’ve got to come clean: I’m one of those people that loves to wake up early. I feel that the hours of dawn reveal something precious that’s appreciated by relative few. It’s minutes and moments of atmospheric, environmental drama outside one’s window. Perhaps, an especially jaw-dropping sunrise. Perhaps, bird and insect song that’s less obstructed…

  • We’re still sailing along aren’t we? Hopefully, aiming towards more easy-going, yet surprisingly deep waters. It’s all to reveal sights and sounds, mostly, that reveal far more hidden at the surface. Listening to Shigeru Suzuki’s くじらの海 (Living Whales) I’m reminded of this sentiment. 

  • If there’s one thing I know about my sign…it’s that it’s (pardon my language) all bullshit. I know, spoken like a true Gemini. Yet, there are people out there who still believe in astrology and that our anthropomorphization of the heavens, somehow, provides a keen insight into who we all are as a person and…

  • Blue. What does the color “blue” sound like? I don’t believe that’s a question I (or others) easily answer. Barriers to sensation, usually, come via barriers from feel. The eyes can’t experience what the mouth can taste or skin can touch. Traveling. That’s a word that helps. Music can, in some ways, paint a picture…

  • Traveling. That’s all I can think about now. I won’t bore you with too much autobiography but life has been quite stressful lately. So, when I put on music – or when I share music – I want it to take me (or us) somewhere. And lately, its cardinal points have taken me to the…

  • Talk about worlds within worlds. Isn’t that the essence of Keishi Urata’s 世界の果て (Final Frontier)? It’s about combining electronically-imagined sound atmospheres with otherworldly IRL, acoustic instruments. It’s about exploring the edges of jazz, ambient, and traditional music for an imaginary soundtrack to imaginary environs. It’s a work full of mystery from a man whose whole…

  • As I fish my increasingly puzzled brain, trying to suss out words for Amahoro’s Flowering Of The Spirit (いのちの花), I go back to just how unlikely of a story and of a pairing these two came to be. You see, if you didn’t know who was behind the music, you wouldn’t think it was the…

  • With flowers blooming and all sorts of greenery coming to life, I think now would be the time to introduce you to the work Taipei’s Chen Yang and his 現代四季 (Modern Four Seasons). Kindly shared with me by fellow midwesterner, Chris J. Morris, 現代四季 (Modern Four Seasons) is a wonderful, lively work of little-heard or…

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