neoclassical
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We all have our palette cleansers. For me, musically, it’s “acoustic” music. I know I have a large readership that appreciates the more electronic, out there, musical selections…but truth be told, when I’m listening to music for relaxation I prefer far more “simple” music. That’s not to say that we should think of simply-sounding music…
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As long as there is summer and people still want to hear/read about another Hajime Mizoguchi album, I’ll be more than happy to ride on that feeling. Continuing on a very long retrospective on Hajime’s work, see prior posts for his prior work, today we land on another of his wonderfully summer-esque albums — A…
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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…
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Coming in clear, not just a message from Min’yō but one of other beautiful Japanese folk traditions from the Muromachi period and others from deep sōkyoku compositions, albeit transformed via newfound ideas (of newer ages), as played through by the late great clarinetist Koichi Inamoto. To put it simply: Well, what’s the Message From Min-Yō…
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It’s not often you encounter the work of a percussionist who is as wildly as inventive as one can be, yet can be prone to veering off where (he should know better) that none should follow, such is Brian Slawson’s Distant Drums which gets an unequivocal recommendation from me. Mr. Slawson is much like your…
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This next one, for me, has been pretty special ever since I received it. It took me a while to pinpoint why exactly I loved Tomoyuki Asakawa’s Relaxation Music For Harp And Wave. Everytime I put it on bits and pieces of familiarity crept into my subconscious. I kept thinking the whole time: “I’ve heard…
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There’s a palpable meditation hovering around Lyu Hong-Jun’s masterwork 大地の詩, otherwise known as “Songs Of The Earth” or “Earth Songs”. Recorded for pioneering Japanese prefab home maker Misawa Home, landing place of equally pioneering musical works by Hiroshi Yoshimura and Yutaka Hirose, this album was supposed to provide another soundtrack to the unique, holistic experience they were selling. It’s…
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So very lovely. Forgive me if some of you are expecting something more experimental, electronic, or whatever else now. Me, I just want something like this. What is this? It’s the beginning of Ryokyu Endo’s sublime form of Japanese New Age music. In 1994, Ryokyu Endo’s Song Of Pure Land, or The Song Of Pure…
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I’m afraid people might get the wrong impression when they listen to the opening track from Michiko Akao’s Yokobue. What’s there to say about “般若波羅蜜多 – Prajna Paramita”? Manning the iconic transverse flute of Japan, the yokobue, Michiko creates a dark jazz funk piece that somehow manages to mix a vocoder in, in a way…
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Trying to revisit something I wrote about and remember quite vividly, at the time I wrote it, presents two opportunities: the first is to reassess why and how I got into that piece of music. The second opportunity presented by revisiting the past, is whether time has added a fresher perspective since then. When Sifted…
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