News/Track/Video: Brazilian song-crafter João Selva announces new album ‘Passarinho’ with its soulful title track
Born in Ipanema, schooled in bossa nova and steeped in Capoeira’s heady blend of martial arts, dance and traditional song, João Selva draws from some rich cultural credentials in his music. Add in a willingness to mess with those genre boundaries plus a Bahia to the Caribbean rhythmic sensibility and you get a singer/songwriter on …
Track/Video: Heinali previews the emotive title track from incoming album ‘Kyiv Eternal’, an electronic overture to his resilient home city.
Music can help make meaning of seismic events and when they co-exist the impact is profound. Kyiv-based composer and electronic musician Oleh Shpudeiko aka Heinali has lived within the Russian invasion of his country since the war began, documenting in soundscapes the devastation and hope, despair and elation of the everyday experience. From May to …
Album Review: Black Ox Orkestar – Everything Returns : Formidable and forthright – the seminal avant folk ensemble reunite
It’s been over fifteen years since Black Ox Orkestar released their touchstone albums Ver Tantz (2004) and Nisht Azoy (2006), two works that navigated the dark folk/ post rock intersection with a genuine sense of purpose and distinct sonic foundation. Emerging from the Montreal indie scene the four members, Thierry Amar (upright bass), Scott Gilmore …
Album Review: M.Takara & Carla Boregas – Grande Massa D’Agua : exhilarating earth-beats and electro-acoustic energy from the Sao Paulo duo.
You might remember a couple of years ago the first offering from this pair of Sao Paulo experimentalists Linha D’Agua ‘ which sneaked up from the underground and demanded attention with its fluidity, inventiveness and dynamism. This was the sound of sustainable energy, a musical relationship thriving on an intuitive connection with the synth circuitry …
Track/Video: Surveying at the edges – DAAM presents ‘bivouac of the avant garde vol 2’.
Lewes/Brighton based experimental music label Difficult Art And Music (DAAM amongst friends) are certainly setting the pace with their alternative countdown to the festive season. In October, as part of their expansive rummage through the contemporary fringe music scene, they revealed the first instalment of this vital review ‘bivouac of the avant garde vol 1’ …
Album Review: Pie Eye Collective – ‘Tangential City’ : a fresh, forward thinking soundtrack for today’s metropolis.
The city of today inspires so much music. For many musicians it brings on the panoramic, where a wide-eyed trip over the urban landscape gets imagined in sweeping soundtracks. But some are less in in awe of the enormity; they zone in closer, moved by the meshed lives of the people, the crossing paths, the …
News/Track/Video: Felipe Vaz – ‘The Well Frozen Piano’: inspirational connections with the La Monte Young masterpiece.
For Difficult Art And Music’ s latest intriguing release, Brazilian sound artist Felipe Vaz presents ‘The Well Frozen Piano’. A reconnection with American experimentalist La Monte Young’s seminal sixties centrepiece ‘The Well -Tuned Piano’, Vaz here explores both the intention and the internal workings of the original, seeking the spirit of ‘endless music’. Rarely ‘performed’ …
Track/Video : Scott Lavene releases new song ‘Prettiest Peach’ – wit, wisdom and punchy post punk.
Essex raconteur and troubadour Scott Lavene has been carving out his own niche in tight riffed, story-telling post punk for a while now. A well worn indie band hustler, it wasn’t until 2019 that he hit his stride releasing the sardonic, pathos riddled ‘Broke’ under his own name followed by ‘Milk City Sweetheart’ a year …
Album Review: Christina Vantzou -‘No. 5’: astonishing ambient-classical story telling.
Visual artist, experimental film-maker and ambient classical composer Christina Vantzou works with a method. Following her beginnings as one half of ‘The Dead Texan’ with Adam Wiltzie (Stars of the Lid), she has devoted herself to a series of lengthy projects lovingly documented on the seminal Kranky label. These recordings have revealed themselves with careful …
Album Review: Svaneborg Kardyb – ‘Over Tage’: Nordic magicians of the minimal and melodic.
As a fresh, crossover-jazz partnership Svaneborg Kardyb, Nikolaj Svaneborg (Wurlitzer, synth, piano) and Jonas Kardyb (drums, percussion) have taken time to bring their delicately crafted sophistication together. The two Danish musicians from Aalborg may have known each other for more than a decade but their music making together only began in 2019 with a debut …