Bandcamp

[Music] The Pochonbo Electronic Ensemble – The Pochonbo Electronic Ensemble

/ Rudy Carrera / Leave a comment

If you are patient, you will indeed run into a charmingly freaky (or freakishly charming) release on Bandcamp.  Today, I want to introduce you to The Pochonbo Electronic Ensemble.  They hail from North Korea, of all places, and they have a catalog of at least 85 CDs available.  This compilation, release by the Manchester-based Maybles Labels, put a lot of care into curating these tracks.  From their Bandcamp website:

Pochonbo Electronic Ensemble – 보천보전자악단 is North Korea’s best known musical group. The group has been active for over 25 years and has released close to 200 albums. It is a household name in North Korea and also enjoys recognition in Japan and China. The ensemble’s recognition in Japan was celebrated with a tour in 1991.

The ensemble is famous for its’ inspired use of electronic instruments including bass, guitar, synthesizer and drums. Additional electronic effects are often created and edited in a sound studio following live recordings in order to achieve the hallmark synth-pop sounds.

The ensemble has written and performed marches, polkas, waltzes, bossanova, cha-cha and ballad pieces during its long history. It has also interpreted countless traditional and revolutionary folk songs from Korea and China as well as several Russian and European tunes.

P.E.E’s music is frequently on the themes of love of ones’ country, ideology and loyalty towards the political leadership of North Korea. Friendship, love and the beauty of nature are other common themes.

Former members of the ensemble have included iconic Korean singers such as Hyon Song‑wol, Ri Kyong Suk, Jon Hye Yong and Comrade Ri Sol-ju, wife of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

It’s best known melody outside of North Korea is “Whistle’ from 1990, which was covered and released in South Korea by Kim Yeon-ja, to great acclaim and success.

Totalitarian countries have a good reason to release nothing but happy music. If their people actually figured out that their situation wasn’t normal, there would be a lot of officials whose heads would be mounted on pikes, so the need to appease the masses is of critical importance.

[Music] Yeong Choi – Pizzapi

/ Rudy Carrera / Leave a comment

The cover art grabbed my attention, I have to admit.  This is one of those times where I probably would have passed this up without the shockingly surreal cover art and cheesy tune titles, but I’m glad I stopped by.  Yeong Choi is a pianist, programmer and composer from Seoul, South Korea who puts up an album that has a feel like a soundtrack for a new, more acid-laden version of Alice In Wonderland.  Quite good, this.

[Music] Chronos ensemble. Evgeny Skurat – Byzantine Passions

/ Rudy Carrera / Leave a comment

We celebrate the beginning of Great Lent with Byzantine music.  From the website of the Chronos Ensemble:

Wonderful Byzantine Music!!!

“Byzantine Passions” or “Chants of Holy Week” were recorded at 2012. This is a solo album of Evgeny Skurat, the art director of Chronos ensemble.

Last sermon of Christ, the anointing by a sinful woman and Judas betrayal, the Last supper, Passions, Crucifixion and Entombment of Jesus are chanted in Greek and Slavic.

The music of the most distinguished post-Byzantine composers is recorded on this double CD. These compositions by German of New Patras, Nikolaos of Smyrna, Petr of Peloponnese, Theodor of Phocaea and Petr Filanfidis one can not find even on the albums from Greece.

Most of the chanted texts were composed in VIII-IXth by John of Damascus, Cosmas of Maiuma, Theodore the Studite and Kassia – the saints of the Eastern church.

[Music] Drew Schlesinger & David Torn – Summer Synthesis 1978

/ Rudy Carrera / Leave a comment

Considering this release, featuring guitarist David Torn and synthesizer player Drew Schlesinger, was made in 1978, I’m astounded as to how fresh it sounds.  There are a few spots where the recording might be a touch thin (I’m playing this album on the speakers of a relatively new iMac), but overall, this is very solid, rather beautiful looping and synth programming.  If you are a fan of Brian Eno’s and Robert Fripp’s collaborations, or are simply curious about Torn’s early works, this album is a must.  It is also a fine introduction to Schlesinger, whom I knew nothing about before being pointed to this release.

[Music] Witnesses – III

/ Rudy Carrera / Leave a comment

Although seeing this listed as doom metal in the tags, it seems that the brilliant album by the New York-based group Witnesses is more cinematic in nature. The cover art, from a dark, foggy Gotham City-esque setting, gives you a great idea as to what kind of music you should be in for, and this did not disappoint.

[Music] Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch – Époques

/ Rudy Carrera / Leave a comment

This was an accidental discovery, found browsing Youtube for new music, and it looks like luck was on my side today, as I would probably have not found out about Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch, a French pianist who has enthralled me this evening.

On her Bandcamp website, there is an incredibly detailed essay with notes discussing the album and its creation.  The paragraph which caught my attention follows:

Compared to Emilie’s 2015 debut, ‘Like Water Through The Sand’, the feel of the new album appears generally darker and grittier, though in an organic way. It’s more grounded and less cold, with the piano recorded using warmer microphones and preamps. The string writing uses more extended playing techniques, such as bow overpressure on viola and cello, and multiphonics on bass guitar. Emilie also explains that “although the piano has always been a way of expressing how I feel and I wanted to create pieces that featured melodies, I wanted to use the fact the piano is a percussive instrument that can handle strength, rhythm and force just as well as gentle, intimate playing.” This powerful, emotive physicality is clearly audible on tracks like ‘Redux’, ‘Fracture Points’ and ‘Époques’. There are other pulsating/ rhythmical elements running through the record – from chopped up field recordings of waves (‘The Only Water’) to looped bowed bass guitar in ‘Ultramarine’, and the effects applied to the piano throughout ‘Morphee’.

Though seminal artists like Max Richter, Dustin O’Halloran and Jóhann Jóhannsson should be seen as reference points, Emilie has carved a niche of her own on her sophomore release.  All praise to 130701 and FatCat Records for releasing yet another gem.

[Music] Pyroclastic – Blast Tunnel EP

/ Rudy Carrera / Leave a comment

It’s nice when I get to tell one group of friends about another.  When I was young, my brother and many of our mates would go to what we knew then to be “industrial dance clubs.”  These were fun times, but the music was what I remember most.  Stark, brutal, with quasi-militaristic beats, perfect for stomping up a floor with your heavy boots.  My old friend Ryant Takai has continued mining in this field, and his latest project, Pyroclastic, continues on that nasty, thudding, beat-heavy tradition.  As someone who was working with electronic body music during the late 1980s, it is fair to say that he has been continuing hitting that perfect beat for the past 30 years.  If anyone can go 30 more, he can.