album

  • 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…

  • Sometimes there isn’t any time better than the right time to share something. And in my case, it’s now or never, for East Pulse’s Asian Mirage, a fascinating curio or one-shot release by Japanese jazz flutist Toshiaki Yokota and multi-instrumentalist extraordinaire Chito Kawachi, who we’ll get around to later. 

  • When writing about Viktor Lazlo, the musical alias of Sonia Dronier, my mind began to think of parallels. I kept thinking of the soft, beautiful, Impressionistic paintings of yore. Paintings that appear delicate from afar but reveal a different textural depth the closer you get to each canvas. I say this because I sense sympathetic…

  • You know, sometimes you’ve got to step back and realize that there’s only so much thread to pull at. It’s not ideal, but it’s something I keep reminding myself of when I have to write about (or share an album) much like Sha’aban Yahya’s Return To Jogja. 

  • To paraphrase the great Janet Jackson, “Like a moth to a flame, Burned by the fire, My love is blind, Can’t you see my desire?” That’s the way love goes…and a way certain passions take us to some wonderful places. It’s something we can explore in Kim Wan Sun’s The First Touch. 

  • Much like y’all, I’m apt to “feel the room”. And my friends, it’s awfully nice outside. I’m peering outside: the sun shining, flowers bloomin’ crazy, and life is good. So, I’m scrapping what I originally wanted to write about and feeling something else. I want to hear something upbeat, accessible, and meaningful…I want to share…

  • My apologies to all those readers expecting a well-researched entry about Mélange’s Passion To Poison. It appears I might fail in myriad ways today. I say that because just like many of you, I too can get easily sidetracked when exploring certain rabbit holes. And in today’s case, it’s the way we or others feel…

  • How does one bridge the span between our past and an uncertain future? If you can put yourself inside the mind of one, Kazuo Uehara, perhaps you can deduce that answer. You see, it was he who had the same question. It was sometime in the ‘60s, while listening to The Beatles’s “Revolution #9”, that…

  • If you can imagine, imagine what it is to be a woman. For those already identifying as one, venture onwards. Then, compound that. Imagine yourself as a trombonist. It’s that choice: to pick up one of music’s longtime bit players — and actually do something meaningful with the instrument — that informs just how interesting…

  • Stand By Satie? It’s pretty hard not to, when a whole slew of musicians – in all styles and genres – have been inspired by the late, great French impressionist composer. But how does one take the next step and actually attempt to interpret the man? It’s a question, I imagine, that was cycling in…

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