Amazing things keep showing up in Mexico. Sonido Gallo Negro are a band out of Mexico City, and mix a wild cumbia sound with psychedelic music. The results are thoroghly in keeping with the best of radical Mexican alternative music.
New Releases
[Music] Ambient Landscape – Veronica III
Long, slow, elegant, nearly neo-classical ambient music, courtesy of the most appropriately named Ambient Landscape.
[Music] Chihei Hatakeyama – Journey To The End Of August
It is very good to welcome Chihei Hatakeyama back to this blog. His new offering, Journey To The End Of August, will be released on April 16 by Ukrainian record label Hidden Vibes.
[Music] El Mahdy Jr. – Raï Dubs
El Mahdy Jr. is a composer and beatmaker originally from Alergia, but who is now hailing from Turkey. His work is informed by VERY heavy dub (his dad, apparently, had quite an awesome collection) and sampling. Very creative.
[Music] Leila Abdul-Rauf – Diminution
The first time I came across San Francisco, California resident Leila Abdul-Rauf’s name was when she was playing with the all-female avant-garde metal/dark ambient band Amber Asylum. She has become a far more powerful musician as time has passed (if you know anything about her previous work, that’s very high praise), and, given the brutal darkness of the one track shared, this new album should end up quaking my speakers rather badly (and yes, I’m looking forward to that).
The album is due to be released on April 13.
[Music] Jeff Gburek – FLOOPS
FLOOPS marks the sixth appearance of American expatriate composer Jeff Gburek to this blog.
His latest release is a collection of loop-oriented pieces played on a prepared guitar. Though Bandcamp is horrible for this sort of work, I recommend buying the album, putting the tracks into “shuffle” mode, and letting the sounds wash over you. You may hear the same pieces over and over again, but the context will feel different.
FLOOPS ends up becoming several hours’ worth of intensive listening, reminding me somewhat of Brian Eno’s generative music or Adrian Belew’s recent flux experiments.
[Music] Cuasares – Afro-Progresivo
Guerssen Records out of Barcelona reissue a very mellow, rather nicely acid-washed slab of Argentinian psych courtesy of a band called Cuasares (Quazars).
Outside of the link provided, I have no info on the band, and it’s a shame there isn’t much more to tell you about these guys other than this is nice, funky, and damn near danceable.
[Music] Various Artists – Planeta Post-Rock: Flama
Planeta Post-Rock is a (you guessed it) post-rock label out of Portugal. So far, from what I gather, they have made four compilations, with Flama being their most recent. It was released on April 1, so it’s all of a few days old, and it paints a great picture of what the post-rock and post-metal scene must be like old Lusitania.
If you feel like purchasing the whole catalog for 3 Euros, click on this link here.
[Music] Alessandra Celletti – Sacred Honey
My old friend and former business partner, Michael Sheppard (who passed away a few years ago far too young), did me the honor of introducing me to the work of Italian pianist Alessandra Celletti. His label, Transparency Records, featured four of her works including a collaboration with German/Austrian Krautrock legend Hans-Joachim Roedelius.
I’ve had the pleasure of keeping in contact with her, and she has graciously notified me of her latest album, Sacred Honey, her second album dedicated to the compositions of Georges I. Gurdjieff and Thomas de Hartmann. It is available on Bandcamp as a CD (though not as a download, unfortunately) and for streaming above, courtesy of Spotify. For the first album inspired by Gurdjieff/de Hartmann, listen to it at Deezer.
The CDs ship out on April 15, just in time for Tax Day.
[Music] NERATERRÆ – The NHART Demo[n]s
NERATERRÆ is the dark ambient/drone project of Alessio Antoni. He graces these pages with a release very much reminiscent of early Lustmørd but made on modern equipment.
Though he classifies this under Power Electronics, there’s something more elegant to his compositions than what I normally find in that genre. This is Power Electronics for the thinking man.
A Miscellany Of Tasteful Music 