art pop
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Timing. Isn’t that what life’s all about? If you’re there at the right moment, it all works out. If you’re there late, you’re at someone else’s fate. If you’re there too early, all that effort might not be for naught. If you’re speaking about Japan’s Kusu Kusu (and their album, 世界が一番幸せな日 (Sekai Ga Ichiban Shiawase…
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I know some have posted this question to me before: “How do you pick what to share on the site?” I wish the answer was easier than: “vibes”. Yet, sometimes it’s not even that. Sometimes, it could be something far more ordinary, and dare I say, less placeable. It could be just one song that,…
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“I was born to sing” – so graces the words of Teresa Carpio, to the Japanese-version of her powerful pan-Asian debut, 心己许 (Tokyo Dreaming). And after listening to the record, who am I to disagree? Much like her voice, it was this record that finally expressed fully the range of her voice and her ideas.
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You know, there’s something strangely meditative about filling out a Discogs credit list. I find it so, because you feel like you contributed to artists getting their proper accreditation and also you getting a fuller picture of how something got made. So, when I finished populating Maria Kawamura’s 「春の夢」 – サンクタス – (or Spring Dream…
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The more I listen to Yang Xiao-lin’s 禧樂 (I Take You There), the more I’m impressed by how malleable folklore is. In the original liner notes, the words “elegant, pure, psychedelic, lively, remote and modern” are thrown as adjectives to describe this album. Myself, at first, I thought each word seemed to contradict the other…but…
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She didn’t have to do this, yet, nevertheless, she persisted. That’s the refrain bopping in my head as I go through Anna Banana’s past, looking to shed any more light behind the creation of this album: 大きな絵 (Big Picture). It’s about a hafu (and worse, a nisei), barely making any kind of ascent into stardom,…
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Charming, breezy, and wonderfully multi-layered, those are a few of the many adjectives one can use to describe the sole work by Korean art folk trio: 새바람이 오는 그늘 (who I’ll refer to as “The Shade With New Wind from now on). On their debut, 1990’s 1집, one can hear another defined turning point in…
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Certain albums are pretty hard to justify, or quantify, the how, when, or why to share. Salon Music’s O Boy isn’t one of them. My only regret is how long it’s taken me to get to writing about it. Far from being “alien” to any of your musical taste — in its proto-shoegaze, proto-noise, dream…
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Surely, he must have known. That’s all I can think about when I listen to Katsuhiko Nakagawa’s memorial album, Again, Me… Released just months after his untimely death, this best-of collection served as a memory of a young artist who seemed just at the cusp of doing one other great step forward. It’s not often…
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Where does one even start with Anthony Wong? Know that what I’m picking from his diverse catalog is just a snapshot (perhaps my favorite of his, 1994’s 明明不是天使 (I’m No Angel)) of what continues to be a fascinating career and life. And for those that know him best (and better), this is just an introduction…
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