Today’s treasure comes from a release from 2016. Finland’s Eero Koivistoinen pairs with his UMO Jazz Orchestra for a mellow, occasionally hot, new work. Not quite as wild as his 70s material, but still quite impressive.
MP3s
[Music] Beyond Beyond is Beyond 2017 Summer Jam Sampler
Beyond Beyond is Beyond has begun to carve a place for themselves as the premier prog-psych record label in the United States. Their catalog features acts like Japan’s Kikagaku Moyo, Brooklyn’s Ancient Ocean and many others. This compilation is a great way to introduce yourselves to their racket.
[Music] Tanbou Toujou Lou: Meringue, Kompa Kreyol, Vodou Jazz, & Electric Folklore from Haiti 1960 – 1981
It’s not often that I get to post on a release from Haiti, as I’ve never really had reliable contacts who could guide me to what treasures lie underneath that island which suffers so much. This release from Ostinato Records, a small label out of New York who are doing some incredible reissues from various parts of Africa (think Somalia and Cape Verde for starters), put together this remarkable collection of tracks recorded not only in Haiti’s capital of Port-au-Prince, but among the expatriate community residing in Brooklyn, New York.
[Music] Los York’s – Los York’s ’69
Peru had their version of the Kinks during the middle-to-late 1960s. Los York’s are given the reissue treatment thanks to Peru’s reissue label repsychled.
[Music] Fatal Casualties – Filter
Dutch label Seja Records graces us with a magnificent new release by Swedish neofolkers Fatal Casualties. It’s amazing to thing that Stefan Ljungdahl and Ivan Hirvonen have been performing off and on as Fatal Casualties for 30 years now, as the current release is perhaps the freshest, most vibrant music they’ve put out in more than a decade. It’s hard to even consider this neofolk, because it uses so many other genres as a touchstone. One can hear post-punk, goth, dark electronic music, a bit of a soundscape here and there. Ivan’s vocals top the aural cake off beautifully. Kudos to the engineer who managed to balance the sounds perfectly.
This album was released in 2016, but as I came around to it only recently, I’ll gladly consider this a new-ish release. Well worth your time.
[Music] Various Artists – Love is a One-Way Traffic: Groovy East Asian Chicks, 1960s-70s
Ian Nagoski of Canary Records has released yet another gem! This one is a compilation of really great pop singers from female pop singers from Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore.
[Music] George Hadow / Dirk Serries – Outermission
George Hadow in an English percussionist currently residing in Amsterdam. It was a bit of a shock to see that he would be pairing with Dirk Serries, who won his fame as Vidna Obmana, his dark ambient project out of Belgium, but they blend together rather nicely.
[Music] Awalom Gebremariam – Desdes
Awalom Gebremariam has quite an interesting story. Originally from Asmara, the capital of the Republic of Eritrea, he left his home country at age 28 to go to the United States, having stayed at an Ethiopian refugee camp while waiting to hit his final destination. This album is the only disc he cut, and it’s quite a lovely example of Eritrean pop.
Many thanks to Awesome Tapes From Africa, who put out gem after gem. Follow them, as they never seem to fail in their picks.
[Music] Simon James – Akiha Den Den
I think this is a case where the description of Simon James’ latest release speaks for itself:
This vinyl and CD package collects electronic music created for an abandoned space: Akiha Den Den, the crumbling amusement park at the centre of a surreal radio drama, and the setting for a story woven from the very fabric of radio.
Radiophonic and other dimensional library inspired cues soundtrack dilapidated ghost train rides, rusty dodgems and the domed Panatrope. The dark musings inside the mind of a talking thought-mining cockroach, a mysterious character known only as Monday Man and the main protagonist, M.R Cuttings (played by Star Wars’ Ian McDiarmid), a radio ham picking up the desperate transmissions from this strange ethereal place they call Akiha Den Den.
Simon James has conjured up an eerie world of pure escapist sound for this fever dream of radio waves and half heard transmissions. The full radio drama can be heard at http://www.akihadenden.com
Radio interference, snatches of intercepted broadcasts, codes, tones, signals and other haunting sounds from the wireless feature heavily alongside the soundtrack conjured up on an array of vintage, unfathomable synthesisers including the Buchla 200e Electric Music Box and the EMS VCS3. Occasionally the voices of Akiha Den Den’s inhabitants and M.R Cuttings burn through the white noise offering a glimpse of their tangled patchbay story.
Released on a specially requested opaque clear vinyl LP, the physical package also includes a redacted Akiha Den Den booklet (all artwork designed by Nick Taylor) and a beautiful bonus CD filled with over 70 minutes of Buchla Modular, EMS, drones, dramatics, cassette 4 track abuse and noise from the Akiha Den Den radio series.
The 70 minute CD “The Panatrope” is NOT available for download and is only available as part of the vinyl LP package.
Simon James has previously released space age synthesiser records as The Simonsound (with Matt Ford) and as celebrated night time doom project Black Channels (with Becky Randall) on Death Waltz Originals and Castles in Space.
This package is a must for fans of radio, inventive electronica, radiophonics, vintage synths and imagined worlds. It’s the future and the passed.
Legendary electronic pioneer Scanner has reviewed the radio drama:
“…. employs some truly inventive and exploratory use of sound in its structure…. frequently submerging and corroding voices beyond all recognition, as if burning the meaning of the words in a sonic inferno. “Akiha Den Den offers an immersive world for the listeners to lose themselves in a most alluring fashion. Free of the screen, let your ears roam around this imaginary world and let the sound take you into a lost world of fact and fiction, balancing on the borderlands of illusion and reality”.-Electronic Sound Magazine.
[Music] Yazz Ahmed – La Saboteuse
A magnificent release from Nawa Recordings (introduced in the last post), Yazz Ahmed is a trumpeter who blends jazz, Arabic music, and a cinematic, film-noir style to her recordings. Think of an ECM record with the vibe of a hard-boiled soundtrack.
A Miscellany Of Tasteful Music 