M. Takara & Carla Boregas - Grande Massa D'Agua (Hive Mind Records)
Mauricio Takara and Carla Boregas have long been key players in the experimental and underground music scene in São Paulo, Brazil and have recently relocated in Berlin.
Grande Massa D'Agua (Great Body of Water) is their second album as a duo and it sees them continue to explore themes related to water as they dive into uncharted musical depths.
Marc Richter - MM∞XX Vol.1 & 2 (Cellule 75)
Here’s a package by Marc Richter, out on the Ham burg based imprint Cellule 75, comprising 21 tracks based on recordings by 33 artists: Andrew Pekler, Richard Youngs, Radwan Ghazi Moumneh (Jerusalem In My Heart), Felix Kubin, Eric Chenaux, Rutger Zuydervelt (Machinefabriek), Timo van Luijk (In Camera, Af Ursin), John Fell Ryan (Excepter), Roger Tellier-Craig (Fly Pan Am), Maja Ratkje, Brian Pyle (Ensemble Economique), Joni Void, Paul Regimbeau (Mondkopf), Dan Hayhurst (Sculpture), Jonna Karanka (Kuupuu), Jan van Hasselt, Jan Anderzén (Tomutonttu, Kemialliset Ystävät), Guido Möbius, Alexander Rishaug, Frédéric D. Oberland (Oiseaux-Tempête), François Bonnet (Kassel Jaeger), Luke Fowler, Janek Schaefer, Konrad Jandavs (No UFO's), Pascal Hector (Datashock), Ulf Schütte (Phantom Horse), Jani Hirvonen (Uton), Alexander Schubert, Christoph de Babalon, Neil Campbell (Astral Social Club, Vibracathedral Orchestra), Antonia Leukers, Lucio Capece and Floris Vanhoof.
Markos Vamvakaris - Death Is Bitter (Olvido Records)
12 rarely heard recordings of addled suffering and love from the most legendary of all Greek rebetika artists, Markos Vamvakaris. Rebetika is the sound of Greece and Asia Minor clashing amid civil war, mass population exchange, and the anarchy of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Poetic, mournful, and bitter, rebetika music was born in the hash dens (tekes) of Mediterranean ports, its verses whispered in Greek prisons before spilling out to the greater population in the 1930s, propelled in no small part by a series of remarkable recordings by Markos Vamvakaris.
Matías Pizarro - Pelo de Rata (Altercat)
When Chilean pianist Matías Pizarro arrived in Argentina fleeing Pinochet's dictatorship, word spread like wildfire in the local jazz scene. In the two short years that Pizarro spent in Buenos Aires, he became one third of the Viejas Raíces project alongside local jazz heroes Jorge López Ruiz and Pocho Lapouble, recorded with famed Italian trumpeter Enrico Rava and released his own solo album, Pelo de Rata ("Rat's hair").
Mike Cooper - Extraordinary Moments @ Hotel Palenque (Room40)
"Ever since purchasing the original release of Silver Apples Of The Moon, the 1969 album by Morton Subotnick, and Early Fall by Fall Mountain in 1979, I have wanted to be able to ‘play’ electronics. Subotnick’s album (I love it so much I have both the original and the re-release on vinyl) sounded improvised to me back then. I have subsequently learnt it was not but was rather put together over a long period and ‘composed’. On the other hand, Bob Ostertag, in Fall Mountain, was playing and improvising on his Serge synth. Not an easy task on a system you had to patch. He also appeared, to my delight, on albums by Eugene Chadbourne and John Zorn in the early 80’s. Just in time for Lol Coxhill, Roger Turner and myself to organise The Recedents in 1982. I wanted to be able to: 1... emulate the synth sound, and playing, of both Subotnick and Ostertag, but using guitar and effects pedals. I actually recorded bits of Silver Apples onto a cassette and used it to make samples into my Casio SK1, the cheapest polyphonic sampler there was in the early 80s. I have never got to grips with patching the likes of a VCS, Buchla, Serge, Aalto synths etc. I never found them fast enough for what I wanted to do especially reacting to other musicians with them while improvising. Bob did, glory be to him, and recently he has found a way of using a gamepad controller to do this too. Now there are apps to do what I was looking for and these pieces were all recorded direct to stereo using one on my iPhones and recorded into my Zoom H2 while sat on a swing seat on my rooftop 2... terrace while the sun went down in November 2022." Mike Cooper.
Pasamoan Art Initiated - Camin Taruih (Das Andere Selbst)
Camin Taruih is the debut album of Pasamoan Art Initiated, an ensemble of musicians from Indonesia and India. The album investigates traditional music with an electroacoustic approach: elements of folklore, Kaba, oral literature, Pasambahan, Tambo, Dendang, intuitiveness and catharsis congregate in long alchemizing tracks. This is done by processing sounds of ethnic musical instruments such as Talempong, Canang, Sarunai, Pano-pano, Sampelong, Rabab, Gendang Karo, Pakhawaj, Tabla, Kanakol, Dendang, as well as DIY instruments amplified through sound engineering and manipulation.
Raïna Raï (راينا راي) - Hagda (هكدا) (Elmir Records)
Elmir Records presents the vinyl reissue of this multi-faceted pop-raï masterpiece. This mythical album, recorded and self-produced in 1982, which cover of Ya Zina became an international hit, still sounds very modern thanks to the avant-garde guitar of Lotfi Attar. These eight electrified and electrifying raï tracks are ready to be (re)discovered.
