Here is some classical music featuring the koto, composed by Toshiko Yonekawa from Japan.
Classical Music
[Music] Steve Layton – Le Visage Nuptial
I’m perfectly pleased to have friends like composer Steve Layton. This is beautifully recorded, organized chaos. A perfect way to wade through this evening.
[Music] John Cage And Sun Ra’s Legendary Experimental Encounter – Electronic Beats
Electronic Beats, run by T-Mobile, posted this amazing video, and an accompanying article, on the meeting between composer John Cage and psychedelic jazz genius Sun Ra.
[Music] RLW / PAAK – Zur Arbeit I
From Attenuation Circuit’s Bandcamp site:
Ralf Wehowsky and Peter Kastner, aka RLW and PAAK, present their third collaborative album in a series of concept albums dedicated to various subjects. This record, their first on attenuation circuit, is about work, and as on the previous records (about food and religion, respectively), the titles, liner notes, and the sound itself suggest a rather sarcastic take on work, or more precisely, the situation of working people today.
Ralf Wehowsky has been a fixture on the international experimental scene since his 1980s work with P16.D4 and related projects on the Selektion label. The fusion of electronic sounds and non-musical, musique concrète material is characteristic of much of his work. Peter Kastner, working both in improvised sound and visual arts, brings a low-fi approach to jerrybuilt sound objects to the collaboration. By contrasting everyday noise that might well have been recorded in a factory, or factory canteen, with startlingly artificial, almost deliberately cheesy harpsichord and mellotron sounds, they create a tension between a nostalgia for beauty and the barrenness of everyday life, in three pieces, or perhaps movements. The liner notes leave no doubt as to what the three movements stand for: The 19th century with its mass exploitation of industrial workers (courtesy of a quote by Karl Marx), the 20th century with its progress toward more social security for working people, and the 21st century, which sees an erosion of solidarity as neoliberal policies take away social benefits such as rent-controlled housing.
Crap Marxist verbiage, but great music, as always.
[Music] Benjamin Aït-Ali – Ballet and Other Works

This release, by French experimental music composer Benjamin Aït-Ali, is, and probably always will be, the shortest release I’ve had the privilege to review. Ballet and Other Works clocks in at around 3 minutes, but as with the legendary Cinéma Pour L’Oreille series released by Metamkine in the early 1990s, the compositions waste no time in getting to the point.
Aït-Ali is among a new vanguard of composers who will take the flame from the legends of electroacoustic music such as Pierre Henry, Pierre Schaeffer and François Bayle. It sounds like a tall order, but I’d challenge you to study his work. You can listen to Ballet and Other Works here, via OBS Records, based in Rostov-on-Don, Russia, or at Benjamin’s Bandcamp site. More samples of his work can be heard via Soundcloud.
[Music] Celtic Tenors – Dein Ist Mein Ganzes Herz (from The Land Of Smiles, Act II)
The Celtic Tenors are a trio of Irishmen who did an absolutely sterling rendition of a track from Franz Lehárs operetta, The Land of Smiles.
[Music] Luigi Rubino – Last Dance
A gentle, lilting piece of piano music to end the evening, courtesy of Luigi Rubino.
[Music] Ólafur Arnalds ~ Island Songs — a closer listen
In Iceland, summer is a magical season. The sun never sets, and the shadows are sublime. The temperature is never too hot or too cold. For morning and night people alike, it’s a perfect time to explore the land of fire and ice. This summer, Ólafur Arnalds travelled around his native land, recording one track a […]
[Music] FIMAV 32 Review — Avant Music News
Source: Musicworks. A little late, but… The Festival International Musique Actuelle Victoriaville (FIMAV) arrives with the late, brief spring of Quebec’s central region, an energizing jolt between winter and summer that sees the flowering of older vines and new life bursting through the earth. This year’s instalment of FIMAV did what it has done very […]
[Music] Edward Artemiev – Solaris Theme – Full Bach
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_vi67SHU4E
For my ears, Edward Artemiev’s Solaris soundtrack is absolutely perfect listening, especially this interpretation on the work of Johann Sebastian Bach (the chorale prelude to Ich ruf’ zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ (BWV 639)) using an ANS synthesizer.

