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Röyhkä ja Rättö ja Lehtisalo are Finnish musicians Kauko Röyhkä and Rättö ja Lehtisalo's collaborative 2009 record on Eketro, Hiekkarantaa. Continuing the poppy kraut sound of Circle memebers Rättö ja Lehtisalo while adding the super catchy Finnish pop vocals and lyrics of Kauko Röyhkä. The only way I can describe this record is too fucking good! Highly recommended, enjoy!
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Kauko Röyhkä & Riku Mattila's album kaksi lensi tuulen mukaan. Amazing Finnish pop songs that continue to get stuck in my head more and more after each listen. This has been a constant jam, after hearing Röyhkä ja Rättö ja Lehtisalo's Hiekkarantaa on Circles Ektro records. Highly recommended, enjoy!
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Chuck Person's (of Oneothrix Point Never) Eccojam Vol. 1 cassette of Screwed & fucked re-edits of everything from Toto's "Africa" to
"Castles in the Sky" to 2Pac to Bobby Womack. Gonzo digital tweakery
that'd spin the spunnest spunion. Enjoy!
Try Buy Mortitz Von Oswald featuring Sasu Ripatti of Vladislave Delay. Highly recommended, enjoy!
"Following the almost unanimous praise for their previous studio masterpiece, Moritz Von Oswald (Maurizio/Rhythm & Sound), Max Loderbauer (Nsi./Sun Electric) and Sasu Ripatti (Vladislav Delay) present 'Horizontal Structures', the jazz-suave and rolling x-axis to the kosmische y of 'Vertical Ascent'. The curve of their projections becomes more complex with the addition of Paul St. Hilaire (aka Tikiman) on guitar and ECM artist, Marc Muellbauer's double bass infusing deeply instinctive jazz moves into the cats-cradle of organ, percussion and electronics. There's a more leveled spirit and cruising groove to this album, their deft interactions creating a deeply engrained blue moodiness and playful efficacy whose potential is beautifully rendered in Moritz's mixing desk. As the elements begin to fuse like condensed gas particles in the bell jar sphere of 'Structure One' its clear to hear the group's evolution as the groove subliminally coalesces with a looseness that wasn't there before, Tiki's Afro-lilting guitar swirling about like fragrant hashish smoke and Muellbauer's eyes-shut bass adding daubs of melodic colouration. 'Structure 2' is more urgent and soundtrack-y, melody stripped back while the rhythm section ripples away with infinite Krautrock essence, before 'Structure 3' reintroduces the dub with moonboot skank rhythm hinging on crisp snare punctuations and offset chords in the dreamiest headspace. The 20 minute 'Structure 4' is perhaps the craftiest, Moritz the mixing board illusionist deftly weaving the acoustic and electronic, the synthetic and the real with a sleight of hand that makes this music at once electro-acoustic jazz and dub concrète, yet with the fundamental grace and glide of deep techno."
Try Buy Demdike Stare, the duo of Miles Whittaker and Sean Canty haunting droning occult dub installment Elemental. Starting as four limited edition vinyl installments on Modern Love, Elemental is pieced together with extended material on a 2xCD. These guys are easily one of my favorite things happening in contemporary electronic music and Elemental only continues to push that barrier with songs sounding straight out of a cult horror film or ancient civilization that you can either drone out or even dance to. Highly recommended, enjoy!
Try Buy The second installment for Earth under the Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light title. Similar to its predecessor recorded in the same sessions, II demonstrates more continuous folky riff patterns from Dylan Carlson with a beautiful cello backing by Lori Goldston, which in my opinion is the backbone of the record. This has the best flow of the two records and though it is melodic and slow, I still catch my head banging slightly. Enjoy!
Try Buy Glitch pioneers' Oval 2012 release OvalDNA. A compilation of 25 songs of new and unused material, OvalDNA is a solid record after years out of the game. Enjoy!
Try Buy "Lund Quartet are an instrumental band from Bristol, playing a mix of scandinavian jazz and melodic turntablism. The use of the turntable as a lead instrument gives Lund Quartet an especially distinctive sound, using samples recorded especially for the band by some of Bristol’s finest musicians." Eerie Scandinavian jazz with an element of Bristol hip hop, very interesting. Enjoy! Worth the $5 dollar purchase on itunes.
Try Buy Of late, I have been dabbling in more and more electronic music, where much can be very hit or miss, Finnish artist Vladislav Delay's 2011 release Vantaa on Raster-Noton has taken me back. Minimal, yet complex, glitch techno soundscapes moving between heavy and soft beats, creates a truly natural atmospheric album.
"Vantaa‘s style is sensitive and intelligent, but nevertheless subtly stirring and rich in detail. While listening to it, it is possible to completely dive into its matter and detect something new in nearly every bar, or simply let it have an effect as a particular but unobtrusive sideline. With this typical Vladislav Delay aesthetic, Ripatti has acquired an unique and distinctive style that Vantaa, his 10th Vladislav Delay album, deservingly celebrates"
Try The trombone master, Grachan Moncur III, BYG (Actuel 21) 1969 release New Africa. Thoug few as a band leader, you cannot go wrong with a GMIII release. Enjoy!
Try Buy Here is a beautiful album by the Marilyn Crispell Trio featuring Marilyn Crispell (piano), Mark Helias (bass) and Paul Motian (drums). Going away from her Cecil Taylor influenced approach of freeness, Storyteller provides beautiful, dark and yet peaceful structured album.
"Improvised music is often described as a conversation. Consider album titles like Conversations with Myself , Interconnection , and Duologues. Pianist Marilyn Crispell's last two recordings for ECM, Nothing Ever Was, Anyway and the quietly dramatic Amaryllis , placed her in discussion with two artists who have proven to be brilliant communicators over lengthy careers, bassist Gary Peacock and drummer Paul Motian. The discussions were often understated, at first somewhat uncharacteristically so for Crispell, whose history following the Cecil Taylor tradition in addition to her work with Anthony Braxton spoke of someone who was deeply intense and had a lot to say. With her ECM recordings she has revealed a more subtle introspective side; lyrical and occasionally romantic, she is as likely to leave sentences dangling, with Motian and Peacock stepping in to further or, sometimes, finish a thought."-Allaboutjazz
Try I posted Cecil Taylor's Unit Structures sometime back in a post with a compilation of albums but thought the album deserves its own recognition. Unit Structures is Cecil Taylor's 1966 blue Note album featuring Eddie Gale (trumpet), Jimmy Lyons (alto), Ken McIntyre (tenor/oboe/clarinet), Henry Grimes (bass) and Andrew Cyrille (kit). Any player able to keep with Cecil's technical playing on this album deserves high recognition.
"Taylor's high-energy atonalism fit in well with the free jazz of the period but he was actually leading the way rather than being part of a movement... In fact, it could be safely argued that no jazz music of the era approached the ferocity and intensity of Cecil Taylor's".
A truly important and mind-fuck of a record! Highly recommended, enjoy!
Double bassist Henry Grimes debut album as a band leader, The Call on ESP (1965) featuring Perry Robinson on clarinet and Tom Price on drums. Grimes recorded with many 60's frontman superstars of the 60's including Don Cherry, Albert Ayler, Cecil Taylor, Gerry Mulligan, and Archie Shepp. Enjoy!
Try Buy First (of probably many) Expo '70 LP of 2012, Hovering Resonance. A one-side LP with two entrancing cosmic jams, Hovering Resonance & Moon Raga, which I could describe using every word in the "psychedelic" thesaurus. Instead, just soak it in and allow Expo '70 to describe too you properly. As always, Enjoy!
Single for Dusty Grass Imprint DG01: Sungod-Cuts from the Ether. Enjoy!
"August of last year, SUNGOD recorded a live session on KVRX. The four song set was played by a four piece incarnation of Sungod including Alex Hughes (bass/bells) and Tyler Taylor (synths/addition guitar). Opening with the patient tangerine dream tinged 'Gas is Better than Gas'. A primitive synth sequence plays over wailing guitars, pounding in-and-out drums and a snarling bassline. From this song the band drones with harmonium, synth and electric guitar swells..making up what's now called 'Plasma Frequencies.' This serves as a transition into the cosmic bebop beat of 'Constellation of Ions', a booming pulse under soaring synth, compounding guitars and bass. Finally, the set closes off with 'Kraut Schulze'..a riffy surf from the intrepid tempel, blasting with kick drum, fuzz and space noise. Sungod has teamed up with Dusty Grass Imprints, for the first installment “Cuts from the Ether", a limited 77 CS release.”
Link Buy Emil Amos, producer/drummer/songwriter of Grails, drummer of OM, and Lilac & Champagne mastermind, solo entity Holy Son's Decline of the West. Psych, folk, hip-hop, this album has it all, delivered by the master. The haunting opener "Gnostic Device" starts the album off in perfect form and continues to carry until the end of the album. Highly recommended, Enjoy!
"...I got to daydreaming about what it would sound like if the next Holy Sons record was produced by someone as inventive as Lee Scratch Perry, or MF Doom, or Carl Sagan for that matter. At the time I'd felt 'Peaceful Life' could've suggested a career of musical pacification and that bothered me. Too much in culture is warped and diluted by the desire to pander to an imaginary audience... but when we retreat to the inner temple of the self, worthwhile art is created. This tension, in itself, is a good platform for an upbeat misanthropic concept record. So for the leaner and meaner genre-hoppers>> Decline of the West. Hybridizers unite!"
Link The Art Ensemble of Chicago's 1970 soundtrack for the French film "Les Stance A Sophie". Just like Miles, the Art Ensembles time spent in France was gold. Enjoy!
Link The first collaboration between Bardo Pond and Roy Montgomery, Hash Jar Tempo's drugged induced improve session, Well Oiled. Float away and enjoy!
Link Buy ...and finally the release, you are in for a treat! Emil and Zack of Grails deliver a hazy experience on Mexican Summer blending 70's film scores, trip-hop beats, stoned out riffs, dub grooves, and of course Morricone worship, all done on a Akai MPC sampler, Lilacs & Champagne is something special. Enjoy!
Link Buy New tape available from guitarist Steven R. Smith's project Ulaan Khol on Soft Abuse. Enjoy!
"La Catacomb, purloined from a great abyss of uncertainty, is finally among us. The fourth album proper from Steven R. Smith’s blisteringly psychedelic “power trio” guise, La Catacomb languished for a few years awaiting release from this label & that before landing at Soft Abuse HQ. La Catacomb is the perfect follow-up to Ulaan Khol’s Ceremony trilogy, offering more smoulder than flame, more rumination than provocation. Smith's meticulously-crafted heavy drones & dirges have rarely sounded this harmonic. Once again, he's pushed further out."
Link With the Lilacs & Champagne LP release and Black Tar V in the near future, Emil Amos has been busy. Here is his Le Venerdì Mixtape Vol. 56 - What have you done to our daughters? for vice magazine. Filled with remixes of Italian jams from the 70's. Enjoy!
Try Buy The debut album of Michael Gira's side project from Swans, The Angels of Light New Mother. This is everything you could ask for in a Michael Gira side project: dark/bright, dissonant/melodic, & ugly/beautiful. Where so later Swans and then later Angels of Light albums might fall short to some, New Mother rivals almost any Swans record. Enjoy!
This is a blog to share the music that I enjoy/come across through the week. This blog is for promotional use only, please support these artists. Links will be taken down upon request. Please let me know if there are any broken links and I will re-up them, unless I have been asked to take them down. Enjoy!
