neofolk

Kaoru Todoroki: カルビンおじさんの私生活 (Uncle Calvin’s Private Life) (1985)

2018/01/19

First off, I have to apologize for the lo-fi quality of this recording. Unless your name is Masaki Eguti or you are Kaoru Todoroki, most likely, you’ll never happen upon the original cassette recording of this truly audacious release. The only source for this audio is Kaoru’s (?) own Real Audio files uploaded to a…
Re Niliu: Caravi (1988)

2018/01/16

Tradition is such a double-edge sword. In the hands of the orthodoxy, tradition can be used as a bludgeon, meant to remind you of a lineage, as a means to keep you rooted in the past. In the hands of the inspired, tradition is used as a source to actually build for the future, a…
Martin Kolbe + Ralf Illenberger: Colouring The Leaves (1979)

2018/01/09

The early instrumental work by German guitar duo Martin Kolbe and Ralf Illenberger is quite breathtaking. When one hears of a guitar duo, immediately one assumes the worst: verbose technicality over concise emotion, bluesy runs used as crutches to help them work together, and a general lack of understanding of what a duo is (and…
New Child: Rehabilual (1990)

2017/11/07

Maybe Harry Hosuono was onto something? Mishio Ogawa, the “Trance” part of the Love, Peace, & Trance equation…and also ex-lead singer for Japanese experimental New Wave act Chakra…seemed like an odd choice to be one of the three vocalists for his eclectic and forward-thinking quasi-ambient techno group of the same name. However, judging by the…
Pictures: Pictures (1983)

2017/11/03

I’m still floored that such an album like Pictures exists and that it exists in such an arrested state of discovery. In 1983, Andy Stennett and John Rocca, of influential British electro-funk group Freeez, decide to hide away from their record label and sure chart-topping success (courtesy of their infamous/ubiquitous hits, “Southern Freeez” and “IOU”)…
David Mingyue Liang: Dialogue With The Ocean (1986)

2017/09/06

Dr. David Mingyue Liang’s Dialogue With The Ocean merges deep ethnomusicologist study with floating, electronic minimalism for a watery kind of meditative ambient music. With one foot deep in Chinese folk music and another in modern experimental composition, David Mingyue Liang creates something that sounds less like the “Chinese Meditation Music” envisioned by his Tao…
Ritmia: Forse Il Mare (1986)

2017/07/26

Nothing makes one cringe more than when someone tries to “modernize” traditional music. The issue isn’t with modernization but with trying to will it so that “traditional” music has no way of becoming modern other than by adding modernity to it. What does this all mean? It means that the jaw-dropping music of Italian quartet…
José “Zeca” Afonso: Galinhas Do Mato (1985)

2017/06/02

I always hate to say never, but I’ll wager that you’ll never find another giant of fado music quite like José “Zeca” Afonso. A massive influence in the cultural milieu that transformed Portugal from a closed-off fascist state into one striving to understand its colonialist role and work towards rectifying it through freedom of thought…
Mix: 4. Nuevo Aztlán

2017/05/25

In a way, everything you do circles back to where one comes from. All my life, somehow, I felt my own lineage and ancestry steeped in Mexico was some kind of relic of the past. That too many other cultures had managed to strive for something new and exciting, while my own remain stagnant. When NTS asked me to give…
Eblen Macari: Música Para Planetarios (1987)

2017/05/05

Every time I revisit Eblen Macari’s landmark release, Música Para Planetarios, I find something different and special about it. At times, it’s finding pride that something like this exist where one’s own Mexican culture doesn’t need to be negated/subjugated to create something spectacularly pioneering. Other times, it’s when I sit back and identify cultural cues and traditions inherent in…