¡Sabor! I didn’t expect something so salsa-ish to ever come from Hungary, but Barrio Latino Hungría does a stellar job in updating the Latin Jazz sound quite nicely.
Bandcamp
[Music] Various Artists: The Blog That Celebrates Itself: Girl Groups – The Underground Versions
The Blog That Celebrates Itself (TBTCI) has become one of my go-to labels for great covers of indie and post-punk music done in a style not unlike shoegaze music. This one is a gem because the theme is girl groups, and each of these Brazilian unknowns does a stand-up job reworking the originals into something quite modern-sounding,
[Music] Wirephobia – Kurdistan
Kudos to Wirephobia, an experimental/noise project based out of Erbil, Kurdistan in Iraq, for doing their part in developing a local noise music scene in what one could imagine is a hostile area.
The music on Kurdistan, released in 2016, is a pastiche of ethnic recordings and bolts of feedback, radio emissions and it all seems to work quite well.
[Music] Katarína Máliková – Pustvopol
There’s not a lot of music I could compare Slovak chanteuse Katarína Máliková to. Her sound is utterly unique, and I could only imagine bands like Dead Can Dance as sharing her ethereal vibe. The instrumentation could fit somewhere comfortably between folk, fusion and Fourth World Ambient (think Jon Hassell).
For fans of these genres and of artists like Loreena McKennitt.
[Music] On “Concrete Desert,” The Bug and Earth’s Dylan Carlson Destroy L.A.
Bandcamp Daily features The Bug vs. Earth, a powerful pairing of Kevin Martin’s Industrial/dub project, which has been around in one form or another since the late 1980s, and Dylan Carlson’s seminal drone rock project, Earth.
Dark, moody, cinematic post-rock. Perfect music for meditating over the crumbling Los Angeles skyline.
[Music] God Cancer – Late Night Sessions
God Cancer is a new side project by Per Najbjerg Odderskov, a friend of this blog and the brains behind the stellar Destruktionsanstalt, reviewed here last year as well as in 2016.
This isn’t ambient music, at least not in the fluffy wallpaper sense. This is harsh, brutal, and reminiscent of something between early Industrial music and a radiophonic opera in the manner of Daphne Oram.
You can say that this is headphone music, but it’s the sort of headphone music which will leave you feeling quite disturbed and covered with goosebumps. After playing the album several times, I began to realize that this would be appropriate for a stop-motion masterpiece directed by Jan Švankmajer. Yes, it’s that brutal.
UPDATE: Per let me know that this release will be available on cassette from Splitting Sounds Records out of Serbia in either April or May of 2018!
[Music] Kikagaku Moyo – Forest of Lost Children (2018 Reissue Pre-Order)
Japanese band Kikagaku Moyo have become my favorite modern psych band. Though this particular release came out in 2014, it has now been reissued on vinyl. The band carry the tradition of bands like Ghost and and perhaps The Flower Travellin’ Band.
[Music] Cyril Cyril – Colosse de Rhodes 7″ Single
Two gentlemen named Cyril (Cyril Yeterian: Banjo, Guitar, Organ, Vocals and Cyril Bondi: Percussions, Vocals) make a wonderful fusion between Western and Arabic/Maghrebi music.
Thanks to Les Disques Bongo Joe, a Swiss label specializing in releasing such 7-inch titles.
[Music] Various Artists – Ocean of Sound – The 3rd Annual Report Volumes I & II
Words fail to describe just how important Raffaele Pezzella’s contribution to dark ambient music is. He has singlehandedly curated compilations from artists as far away as Russia, Iceland, Iran and seemingly all points in-between while concentrating on his own venerable work. These two compilations house 229 tracks covering the best of the bleakest, blackest ambient available at the moment!
[Music] Audrey Fall – Mitau
Audrey Fall are a post-rock, post-metal quartet out of Riga, Latvia. They produce a fine, powerful music and should be making a lot of worthwhile noise in the near future.
A Miscellany Of Tasteful Music 