chanson

  • Out of all the things I remember about my time in Japan, funny enough, one thing I can’t seem to forget is this: just how “French” so many things are. Walking down the street, shopping around, looking for a bite to eat (or just a place to relax), more often than not, you’re bound to…

  • You know, some days I’m grateful I have a platform to highlight music that others might pass on. It’s why you get to hear albums like the late, great, Chika Ueda’s いつも 2人で (Always 2 People). While others might describe it as “more adult contemporary pap”, think of it as milquetoast, and file it under…

  • Looking back, there’s something very telling in the first video clip I embedded here which you can watch below. In it we see one Jay Alanski participating in Thierry Ardisson’s popular “Le Blind Test” – a show where celebrities and/or musicians are presented with excerpts from records, quizzed whether they can guess what’s playing. What’s…

  • In this day and age, when there’s no lack of opinions, I go back to a few personal heroes. When I think about putting yourself out there, to think beyond borders and history, my mind goes back to Patty Pravo. One always goes back and wonders: What was going on in her mind when she…

  • Certain music and musicians feel like they were born in the wrong era. Usually, for many that time is delineated in years or decades. However, for those that grace us with glimpses of the “Philosopher’s Stone”, like Léo Ferré, Franco Battiato, or Dylan, to name a few, one feels that centuries of time have to…

  • “Old-fashioned she might be, dated like last year’s pop-song…”, so too, must I take it inspiration from the late, great Clifford T. Ward to reaffirm some of the power in easy listening. On my latest mix for LYL Radio, I try to present a drifting set of music, a song cycle of sorts, that looks…

  • Truth be told, few records in my collection sound like Esther Ofarim’s Complicated Ladies. Well, truth be told, few albums will ever sound like it either…in anyone’s collection. A mixture of Israeli melismatic jazz with German liedermacher wouldn’t sound too out of the ordinary (at least in some circles). However, let’s say someone decided to…

  • Guest post by Giacomo Lee. You’d think being in one of the biggest cult Japanese bands of the ’90s would make one of your biggest side projects pretty well known, but Yasuharu Konishi’s Girl Girl Girl must be the exception to that rule.

  • My apologies to my less than trusty Google Translation app, but there are only a few things I can describe as legibly belonging in the shared space of Yuki Nakayamate’s Octopussy. Names like Roxy Music, Matia Bazar, August Darnell (as part of Dr. Buzzard’s Original Savannah Band and Kid Creole and the Coconuts), and Grace…

  • If one can remember anything of French-Lebanese musician Gabriel Yacoub, it’s of the time he fronted progressive folk group Malicorne. Under Malicorne, one could hear ideas fomented from prior work with the Alan Stivell band. A mix of forgotten Breton music and experimental folk, Malicorne sounded like little else (closest brethren being Clannad, elsewhere). As…

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