The final post of 2016 is one of the most beautiful to my years. Many thanks to Jeff Gburek for some fine releases, and thanks to the readership for their friendship, their patience and the suggestions for music. Next year, we will add interviews to the website. I won’t post as much simply because the new job will be taking a lot of time, but expect me to point you to some amazing things. More to come soon, but for now, may you and yours enjoy the night in peace, and may you wake up to something better.
Avant-Garde
[Music] Merzbow – Silent Night
Even noise freaks enjoy Christmas, as Merzbow deftly shows.
[Music] Vyacheslav Potapov (VP) – Water World
Prog is alive and well in… Kazakhstan?! Yes! Thanks to incredible labels highlighting talent worldwide like Cuneiform and MoonJune Records, we’re finding out about avant-progressive music from places like Indonesia, Belarus, and other faraway locales. VP is based in Kazakhstan’s former capital city, Almaty, and his music reminds me of such groups like Univers Zero, Art Zoyd, and modern bands like Rational Diet from Belarus. We need to hear much more from them.
[Music] Disen Gage – Snapshots
All credit goes to Vyacheslav Lunarin for introducing me to Disen Gage, a Russian progressive rock group whose album reminds me of a lot of the classic Rock-In-Opposition groups of the past.
[Music] OORSPRONG curators series/OCS edition November 28
I envy my friends in Amsterdam, as they tend to have a full range of incredible concerts and performance series. For more information, contact our friend, Raoul van der Weide, via e-mail or directly through his website for more information on Oorsprong.
[Music] Hans-Joachim Roedelius & Noël Akchoté – Opus (2013)
To review each and every release by Noël Akchoté would be impossible for this one-man blog to do, but I have the luxury of cherry-picking some real treats. This one, in particular, pairs Noël with Hans-Joachim Roedelius of Cluster fame, as well as a maestro in his own right. The album is a guitar/piano improvisation recorded in Vienna, Austria in 2013. Gentle, plucky sounds which cross into fusion territory at times.
[Music] John Zorn – Arab and Jew
It’s been some time since John Zorn was featured here. Here’s some nice music to chill out to this weekend.
[Music] Jeff Gburek – Sound in the Soluble State
I think Jeff Gburek’s music will merit its own genre. I haven’t had the pleasure of hearing too many people who could blend experimental music, ambient and some indescribably primal music together so seamlessly
I took two deep listens to the album. The first allowed me to listen to the structure of the music as is, and the compositions are sublime. The second listen I did while I finished up a couple of projects, and the sounds felt as though they were perfectly composed for my working space.
[Music] Karolina Ossowska/Jeff Gburek – Visitations
The best composers make you forget they’re composing music. They offer something like a cinéma pour l’oreille, or a cinema for the ear, to their listeners. In an age before music videos blighted the listening experience, a great composition would allow you to submerge yourself into a piece and envision a world the composer may be trying to create for you.
This is the experience I’ve had in listening to Jeff Gburek, a true citizen of the world and one of the most interesting experimental composers active today. He and his parter Karolina Ossowska cover a great deal of ground on this release. There are elements of soundtrack music (think 60’s futurist films), contemporary classical music (some pieces reminded me of the legendary Egyptian-Greek composer Jani Christou) and there were even touches of progressive rock and improvisational music which came to mind.
This is easily among the top five releases of the year for these ears. Jeff’s work is worth hunting for, and you can find a good deal of it here on his Bandcamp site.
[Music] New Drone & Darkwave from Koyl, Cloaca, & Premature Burial on Silber
From our friend Brian John Mitchell at Silber Media – the company has some great new releases on the way:
Hello,
Hope everyone is doing well. Life is good here at Silber even if I am struggling to get everything to happen in a timely manner. The hurricane that came through & flooded a lot of communities around me had no effect here in the new Silberia. The power didn’t even go out, but then walking around the neighborhood I saw an oak that feel splitting a neighbors house in two, so I count my blessings that things are so good for me. My little drone cub just turned one & in good health & spirits & that she vacuums up all my spare time is something I don’t mind. Silber has always been about family to me anyhow & it’s interesting how huge of a percentage of Silber artist. So anyway on with what’s up lately including three new 5in5 EPs.
Koyl comes to Silber with five songs in five minutes, one about each finger. But are the fingers originally on one hand or are they fingers from dead men stitched together to tell tales of angst & woe? No matter, now they all are part of the one & making incredible soundscapes with a guitar & lapsteel.
- Buy or listen on Silber: http://www.silbermedia.com/5in5/koyl-fingerprints.shtml
- Buy or listen on Bandcamp: https://silbermedia.bandcamp.com/album/Fingerprints
- Listen on Spotify: https://play.spotify.com/album/0RGPOSGY42MBliHNbjjJt2
Joshua Heinrich (Fornever/Black Wedding) returns to Silber for a 5in5 EP with his Premature Burial project. Mixing industrial & ambient elements, f/a/c/t/i/o/n/s paints a portrait of the current political climate of divisiveness & corruption. The bureaucracy is spreading like a Kafka novel. Listen to Premature Burial while you’re on hold for hours.
- Buy or listen on Silber: http://www.silbermedia.com/5in5/PrematureBurial-factions.shtml
- Buy or listen on Bandcamp: https://silbermedia.bandcamp.com/album/factions
- Listen on Spotify: https://play.spotify.com/album/71nRox49Xq7Xr09ixIiPN5
Cloaca has offered up five minute long aggressive ambient drones created with pedals & a mixing board. Numbing & overwhelming like the chemicals in your IV before brain surgery….
Buy or listen on Silber: http://www.silbermedia.com/5in5/cloaca-almsgiver.shtml
Buy or listen on Bandcamp: https://silbermedia.bandcamp.com/album/Almsgiver
Listen on Spotify: https://play.spotify.com/album/3LFDxh9rqp5nv8HpXCDVbK
Something went weird recently where some of the Silber Spotify playlists went private, but I fixed it & you can check them out here:
Last Ten Releases – https://play.spotify.com/user/silberspy/playlist/4nuz7tocaNt9OkFetPsHhG
Entire 5in5 Series – https://play.spotify.com/user/silberspy/playlist/7ge7yufxSf6IR9Tpu7YIgh
Entire Silber Catalog – https://play.spotify.com/user/silberspy/playlist/27NjmkRh1NqqDYIf64Fmp1
New Releases coming soon from Ms, Fullness Off Lack, Jon Dawson, Moodring, Hotel Hotel, Lum, DR, Remora, Small Life Form, Magnetic Ghost & before you know it Christmas EPs from Electric Bird Noise, Yellow6, Remora, Small Life Form, Baptizer, & more. A batch of comics about Robert E Howard coming soon (all drawn, just need to set them up to print). & of course inevitably a new QRD.
Thanks for your interest & support & spread the word about the new releases if you can & if you want to be taken off the mailing list just let me know.
Hrt
Brian John Mitchell
www.silbermedia.com
https://www.facebook.com/silbermedia
http://twitter.com/silberspy
https://play.spotify.com/user/silberspy
A Miscellany Of Tasteful Music 