Los Angeles-based composer Odeya Nini is a marvel to listen to.  She uses her voice and body to full effect as an instrument and composes profoundly interesting contemporary classical music, and whose works are radical enough to fit into musique concrète.  If you enjoy the works of Meredith Monk or Anna Homler, this just might appeal to you.

There are few experimental artists I hold a loving reverance for in the way I do for Anna Homler.  I had the pleasure of meeting and befriending her during the 1990s, and I had the distinct joy of seeing her again when Maja Ratkje performed in Los Angeles several years ago.  Breadwoman is one of her performance art creations, “a being who exists outside of time, yet surfaced on tape during the…

Sometimes it’s an absolute pleasure to take a stroll down memory lane.  My friend Ryant Reeleyes, who worked with Los Angeles legends Jugend Staat many years ago, never gave up the aggro-Industrial-techno bug, and has kept the spirit of bands like Skinny Puppy and Front 242 alive. The album is harsh, ugly at times, cavernous and it makes for a brutal listening experience.

Here is an impressively authentic-sounding ska coming to us from Los Angeles, California (my home town).  The Western Standard Time Ska Orchestra boast of combining Jamaica’s greatest contribution to the world and a big-band sound.  They pull this combination off flawlessly, and they must have one very impressive live act if their music is anything to go by.

Longform Editions is a boutique record label out of Australia which does many things well, but specialized in releasing short albums packed with electronic experimentalia from all over the world. This one brings Los Angelino Carlos Niño and a world traveling sax player whose work I’m quite new to in Kofi Flexxx paring down a two-hour session.  Carlos explains more about the session below,…

Perhaps I’ll need to renew my subscription to The Wire or spend more time on other blogs, as I can’t believe I missed the work of Los Angelina Geneva Skeen.  My hometown is producing so many fine artists working within ambient and electroacoustic music that it has become (happily) difficult to keep up with this wellspring of talent. Double Bind defies proper categorization, sitting somewhere…

Iceland is one of those countries who seem to produce musicians at an incredible rate in comparison to the size of its population.  Atli Örvarsson is one of a handful of gifted soundtrack composers to hail from the island nation, and is the first one I can think of who doesn’t originally come from the capital, Reykjavik.  He is now a Los Angelino pursuing a career in composition, and is becoming…

Hungarian band CMC have been recording albums since 1989, and, had they received their fair due during the heydey of post-Industrial Electronic Body Music (EBM), they would have been recognized as competitors of such luminaries as Front Line Assembly and Front 242, but with a darker groove. The band’s main actor, composer Vince Kósa, now resides in Los Angeles and has reactivated the band.  The…

Cut Chemist is an institution in Los Angeles.  I first came across his work as a member of Jurassic 5, and it seems he still has the skills of a groove surgeon. Both tracks are bangers, but the first one is my favorite, as it’s a keep originally recorded by Belaynesh Wubante & Assegedetch Asfaw and arranged by the venerable Mulatu Astaké.

Gadi Sassoon is an Italian sound designer and composer whose latest release comes from the venerable Los Angeles-based record label A Strangely Isolated Place.  I had only heard one track of his work before, this coming from ASIP’s 2020 Compilation.  Though impressive, it didn’t prepare me for one of the bleakest experiences I’ve had listening to ambient music I’ve had since, perhaps, mid-period…

French imprint Eilean Records was a truly remarkable label with 100 releases of ambient and related musics.  I was going through my collection today and came across this album I purchased sometime in 2018. Sublamp is a fellow Los Angelino, Ryan Conner, who is a sound and video artist by profession.  This work, like all of his titles, is a record about an imaginary space, a soundtrack for a…

This article at The Getty’s blog does a great job tying Frank Sinatra, Antônio Carlos Jobim, and the legendary recording studio they worked at here in Los Angeles. Many thanks to my friend Andrés for pointing me to this and so many treasures over the years.

This is the last release of 2019 for Kalamine Records, a label out of Bordeaux, France, who have a deep catalog of bands deeply made in the post-punk and electro-Industrial mold.

Nass Zuruck release a very short album, but this is good.  The grooves are tight, meaty, and it left me with a tinge of disappointment because the album was far too short.  This is definitely for fans of Deutsch…

Kiyomizudera is an impressive single track release by Los Angeles-based composer bu.re_, whose work came into my mailbox a few weeks ago.  His is a rather stellar catalog, with music full of references to Brian Eno (when he was doing profoundly good ambient music), the floating parts of Tangerine Dream or Robert Rich, and a great use of acoustics.

This was a pleasure to listen to.  My only…

https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=3912390397/size=large/bgcol=ffffff/linkcol=0687f5/transparent=true/

I know nothing about ‘dreamwave’ as a genre, but Echo Park’s Sand Babes sound more like a good psych-surf band to these ears.