King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard are an incredibly prolific band. Every now and then, they release a crap album like Infest The Rats’ Nest, which is bad metal as far as I’m concerned. Some of their fans like that. Fair enough. This album, however, shows them peaking as a band who can mix prog, psych, boogie rock and some pretty damn good, if weird, songwriting into a coherent bit of listening. I’m happy to have this one in my collection.
Month: August 2019
[Music] Piero Milesi – Modi
Thanks kindly to Cuneiform Records, whose weekly $5 downloads are an affordable way to replace a few CDs lost to time and travel.
Piero Milesi was an Italian composer who started off his career in 1977 with the International Folk Group of Moni Ovadia. His first break came from the now-legendary Cherry Red Records, which originally released this two-piece work in 1982.
The release itself doesn’t sit comfortably in any genre. Obstensibly a classical music record of a sort, it also touches on chamber rock, art rock, jazz, electronic music, progressive rock, avant-progressive, film music and modern composition. It was a breathtaking debut for a composer who would score a few more albums, and even arranging an album for Japanese pop star Kazufumi Miyazawa before succumbing to a heart attack in 2011.
[Music] Wayne Robert Thomas & Isaac Helsen – RÁS
Past Inside the Present Records are churning out incredible release after incredible release. This one is a special gem, however, as guitarist and composer Wayne Robert Thomas & film composer Isaac Helsen pair upon a 30+ minute drone epic. Though the who album floats beautifully, I have no choice but to declare the first track, a tribute to former Talk Talk frontman and producer of the greatest album I have ever heard in my life, Mark Hollis, who passed away in February of this year. What a near-perfect collaboration this is!
[Music] BLURRR – Pain Is A Garment
BLURRR, a project of composer Aaron Kim, performs a type of musical wabi sabi. In times like these, with so much pain and grief in the world, I salute anyone who is willing to mix this concept with Kosmische Musik. Quite a nice EP. From BLURRR’s Bandcamp page:
This album was heavily inspired by the term ‘wabi sabi’. This Japanese term has no real definition. It’s more of an instinctual feeling of peace through imperfection. Crafting this album was emotionally laboursome as I tried to emulate wabi sabi in my own interpretation sonically.This is a concept album about the process of self-healing. Suicide rates, anxiety and general depression has seen a sharp rise as mental health issues seem to grow more commonplace in society today. My hope is that you, the listener, can digest this album as a therapeutic experience that can influence your core to improve yourself today. All positive change can happen, it just takes support. And just know that there are people around you.
[Music] Haram Tapes – Scorpions & Fountains
Haram Tapes is the side project of our friend Sumatran Black, and he’s really outdoing himself on this latest release. Genres blend seamlessly here, with ambient music, old industrial-influenced electronic music, field recordings and synth music being balanced well enough to be creepy and engaging. The material is very topical, quite political in a way that is not preachy or obnoxious, and it goes to show HT put a lot of thought into composing a story with this work.
A brilliant piece, but I expect this coming from Pete of SB.
[Music] Brian Bennett – Solstice
It’s hard to imagine funk as gorgeous. Funky (naturally), saucy, gritty, sexy, sure. Gorgeous? Well, Brian Bennett makes it so on this track.
[Music] Mr. Bungle Reuniting For First Shows In 20 Years — Avant Music News
Source: Stereogum. The experimental rock band Mr. Bungle are reuniting for their first live shows in almost 20 years. The band’s most recent album was 1999’s California — it celebrated its 20th anniversary just last month — and the band played their last live show the following year. As Metal Sucks reports, the group will […]
via Mr. Bungle Reuniting For First Shows In 20 Years — Avant Music News
[Music] Thomas Demenga: J. S. Bach – Suiten für Violoncello (ECM New Series 2530/31) — Between Sound and Space: ECM Records and Beyond
Thomas Demenga J. S. Bach: Suiten für Violoncello Thomas Demenga violoncello Recorded February 2014, Hans Huber-Saal, Basel Engineer: Laurentius Bonitz Executive producer: Manfred Eicher Release date: October 27, 2017 The Cello Suites of Johann Sebastian Bach, like his Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin, are touchstones for listeners and performers alike. In the latter sense, Thomas […]
[Music] Subhumans – EP-LP
The Subhumans were one of the few anarcho-punk bands I could tolerate during the late 1980s, and though the music sounds pretty dated today, this album is a pretty good snapshot of what I was enjoying nearly three decades ago.
[Music] Gealdýr – Sól
I never will be too big into the idea of a “Norse” religious construction, but the music coming out of it is astounding for its beauty and quality. Groups like Norway’s Wardruna seem to be leading the way, but if this album is any indicator, Gealdýr, who hail from The Netherlands, doesn’t seem to be too far behind.
A Miscellany Of Tasteful Music 