1986
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Hard to describe what’s going on in Triangulus and Björn J:son Lindh. The closest analog I could think of would be what would happen if the Alan Parson’s Project relocated to the island of Majorca and replaced their members with Swedish electro-acoustic minimalists. Imagine a very math-y (complex, musical time signatures galore) version of Balearic…
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These are the things that surprise sometimes. I went into researching some background story behind Hajime Mizoguchi’s deeply affecting Halfinch Dessert and wound up uncovering that their is some meaning behind this album. Hajime Mizoguchi was born and raised in Tokyo. By the age of eleven he had chosen to educate himself in the ways…
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Nothing makes one cringe more than when someone tries to “modernize” traditional music. The issue isn’t with modernization but with trying to will it so that “traditional” music has no way of becoming modern other than by adding modernity to it. What does this all mean? It means that the jaw-dropping music of Italian quartet…
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There is a time in any good musician’s life when they absolutely nail down whatever they had to place. Akira Ito, one time keyboardist for influential Japanese psych rock outfit The Far East Band, could have stayed with that group rehashing “out there” musical troupes – variations on psychedelia with The FABs or Kitaro-like, Jean-Michel…
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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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Everytime I put on Syoko’s Soil I have to do a double-take. Seriously? The music coming out of my headphones right now was made by the same person who created the My Neighbor Totoro soundtrack and Kichijoutennyo. Sonically, I can see the connection to the latter but stretching the conceit to his countless Miyazaki soundtracks seems to question his elasticity…
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Yoshio Suzuki writes in a way that breaks up my style of writing. You see, I have a ritual I go through when I write for FOND/SOUND. Normally, I put on the album I feel inspired to write about and try to write my post in the allotted time that album runs through. I do so,…
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Recorded by Hiroshi Yoshimura at his private studio, Hiroh 806, using Yamaha DX7, TX7, and FB01 synthesizers, a Roland MSQ-700 sequencer and a Victor AV computer. That’s exactly what the Sona Gaia release of Hiroshi Yoshimura’s Green stated in its liner notes. That can’t be. You put on Green, and the things that last with you, long after the…
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It’s easy to get away with music that sounds like something. Vast store shelves are littered with “albums” proclaiming exactly what you’ll hear inside. Relaxing Sounds of the Rainforest, Nights in Ireland, Serenity and Bliss Mix, etc. all serving as perfect sonic backgrounds to whatever space you want them to live in. But is this…
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