fourth world

  • Blessed are those who have background info to work from. I say this because I need to come clean about the album I’m writing about here: I have little to no info about those behind the music. With great pain, I have in my possession this wonderful work – Plus Cross Power Flower – whose…

  • Before I introduce you to Missa Fukuma’s Festa Manifesto, I’d be remiss if I didn’t share how I first encountered her music. I was in Osaka, visiting Eiji’s Revelation Time record store, when I kept glancing at the stack of CDs on his counter. Fearing that I was taking too much of his time, a…

  • One of the wonders of digging into history is realizing how life has a way of shaking out differently than you expect. Right now, as I’m ingesting all this information outlining Mari Hamada’s 編む女 (The Knitting Woman), I’m starting to see how it all digests into capturing a bit part in her creative career. Now…

  • As I’ve shared before, I often feel blessed to have a platform that allows me to (perhaps) introduce new artists or concepts to the world. When I listen to Miroque’s music, I feel a sense of lightness—a breath of fresh air that reminds me why music holds such a profound place in my life and…

  • Sometimes you’ve just got to ask yourself: “Why am I doing this?” As I keep scouring through myriad broken links, countless blank pages, and fruitless “archived” information, I keep thinking, “Just what is there to gain from sharing something like Nazoo’s Dear Heavens, Children In His Twilight?”

  • What better way to ease into spring than with an album that exemplifies that grand idea we call “rebirth”? Rebirth, more often than not, is defined by what one lets go in order to awaken something entirely different. And in the case of Mayumi Itoh, it’s about completely putting to bed a certain past so…

  • I always like to look back and rediscover where I first encountered some of the guests I’ve invited to the blog. I still can’t believe it’s been a bit over eight years since I first came across mvns.

  • You know, for me, sometimes the most fascinating thing about interviews like these with Dream Dolphin is discovering just how much I don’t know.

  • One of my favorite things to discover and hear in music is how ideas translate across genres and borders. Listening to Midori’s Vortex Symphony, I get the sense that they share a similar spirit of discovery. Yes, this is “dream pop,” but it isn’t the dream pop we usually imagine – it’s the kind that…

  • Maybe it’s something about myself, but I tend to feel inspired by the music of those who aren’t necessarily solely inspired by music itself. As I listen to Yasushi Egami’s Arcars – The Surface of Muclique, I get the sense that something deeper is at play–just how important texture is to any artform.

ambient art pop art rock balearic brazilian electro-acoustic england environmental music experimental fourth world Funk fusion japan jazz minimalist Mix neo-folk neoclassical new age walearic