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Tetuzi Akiyama's contribution to the portrait series, The Ancient Balance to Control Death  is a departure in a career of departures.  In addition to Akiyama's trademark improvised, blues-infused, guitar work, the ep features intense multi-layered vocals.  The end result is a collection of unique Japanese blues that could only have come from one of Japan's most distinct and creative improvisers.

From the contented isolation of "The Winter" to the hazy heat and hopeful longing of "San Solomon," their music captures the indescribable feelings of living and growing in Texas. Mirroring the vast Texas skies, Balmorhea's music is imbued with a visceral weight and endless space.

Two Point Discrimination, marks Goldmund (aka Keith Kenniff)'s 3rd release after his highly praised debut Corduroy Road and followup 7" The Heart of High Places for Type Records. Part of Western Vinyl's Portrait Series, this collection features 11 short pieces for solo piano focusing on the sensation of touch and its relationship to sound.You can listen to the track "One" on the NPR feature here. 

Much like the bamboo plants that dominate Japan's landscape, Shuta Hasunuma's piano work on his new album OK Bamboo has an enduring, simple elegance. Each track flits and twitters, growing and changing without warning. The result in a collection of strikingly beautiful compositions full of meticulous details.

Slow Six uses amplified strings, guitars, and Rhodes piano, processed live by homegrown software "instruments" on their debut Private Times in Public Places. For a preview of their work check out Nor'ester released by New Albion (John Cage, Arvo Part, Terry Riley, Steve Reich, etc) earlier this year.

"Many of the songs have this feeling that's hard to describe but so satisfying to hear: like a sadness that's been buried and you're soldiering quietly on, and not making a show of it.  The spare, lovely melodies swell and recede, all with perfect precision and tremendous understated feeling. How this music can be so emotional without ever getting sentimental or corny is completely beyond me"

"Existing on the cusp between the hand-tooled elegance of early 20th-century European puppet theater and the unfinished DIY aesthetic of object-based performance art, and emanating a gorgeously haunting aura that will leave yo speechelss, House of the Sin Eater is a shockingly, audaciously beautiful film in both the scope of its creative ambitions and the execution of its craftsmanship." 

Overall, The Graceful Fallen Mango is an endearing collection of lovely, poetic pieces mostly drawn together by Longstreth's remarkable vocals. Truly unique and timeless in nature, this is one of those great albums that could just as easily be a new creation as a rediscovered classic, which is a lovely quality in a record like this."

Madagascar uses crisscrossing accordion, saw, and glockenspiel melodies, punctuated with beautiful wordless vocals on their new album Goodbye East, Goodbye West. From playful waltzes and clanky dirges, to minimalist scrapes and drones, to their arrangement of the Chanukah staple S'vivon, this is a uniquely satisfying and mystifying collection of songs.

Rather than embracing cacophony and cold aesthetics, Et Ret's compositions achieve warmth and resonance through repetition. He compliments his confident, but restrained, guitar melodies with deeply impassioned swirls of violins and cellos.  As a final touch, the compositions are accented with sparse percussion and subtle analog electronics.

Julie Sokolow doesn't need much to express herself.  To record Something About Violins, she used nothing more than her voice, an inexpensive acoustic guitar , and the built-in microphone on her Macintosh G4 Powerbook.  In doing so, she has turned on its head the old adage that lofi is the provenance of analog fetishists.  She has also created a work of great and unusual beauty.

Robert Lippok’s Robot ep is a portrait of the euphoria and naivety of 20th century robot science.  Throughout the ep he uses the technology and the spirit of early 90’s techno in combination with field recordings and a sense for romantic melodies to explore and elucidate our relationship and fascination with robots.

The Getty Address is an album-length narrative inspired by Aztec mythology, the Eagles, and the 9/11 aftermath. It is a sprawling, layered glitch opera about Don Henley, leader of the aforementioned country/soft-rock group, and it was recorded over the course of almost two years, in three different states, with more than twenty-five people.

Shuta Hasunuma uses pieces of field recordings from the streets and countryside of Japan, erratic electronic textures, and emotive guitar and piano melodies to create music that feels like the broken and escaping memories of dreams.

"This is scary, evocative music, like an Alan Lomax field recording of a dusty, punk troubadour from the imaginary past; Kid A covered under 80 years of dust and gloom, only exchange the robots and clones for forests and abandoned farmhouses. On The Glad Fact, Dave Longstreth is making his own fucked-up version of American music." - Dusted Magazine

Voices and Organs consists of a small core, but on this album families & friends made many contributions (with or without their knowledge) so we ended up asking lots of people for permission. Sonically it is as if only half of the album is about the fictitious orphanage itself and the rest is about us. Lyrically maybe it has been us all along...In the end we are only very small and life flows on within them and without us.

This first half, Slaves' Graves, was recorded in a church in New Haven, CT.  The Ballads were recorded with guru and quaking soulman Adam Forkner of Yume Bitsu at Dub Narcotic Studios, in Olympia, WA.  Witness Longstreth use GM technology to restore maize to its original, feral genetic makeup, before the advent of domestication: this is classical and pop music’s bodies-entwined, souls-commingled wedding! 

Chas. Mtn. began in the late fall of 2003 one night in an overpriced, non-soundproofed practice space in the notorious "fens" district in the college ghetto of Boston. Core members Gary War and Ned Egg (no college) began recording bits and songs on the prestigious Tascam Porta 02 machine, and as baseball season ended the boys' sonic explorations flourished.

Stacte Motors continues the Stacte series started in 1998 with Ambarchi's first self-released solo recordings.   Similar to the 4 previous editions of the series, which explored one idea at length, Stacte Motors is an experiment in exciting instruments with a spinning motor with strings attached.  The resulting recordings are metallic walls of minimalist drones, both fearless and dreamy.

If you're familiar with The Dirty Three, Boxhead Ensemble, Bonnie Prince Billy's Get On Jolly, Cat Power's Moon Pix, or any of the other recordings Mick Turner and Jim White have contributed to, you're probably already familiar with their unique ability to seduce listeners.  Packaged in a beautiful digipack, The Swimmer is the Tren Brothers' contribution to Western Vinyl's portrait series.

"Many of the songs have this feeling that's hard to describe but so satisfying to hear: like a sadness that's been buried and you're soldiering quietly on, and not making a show of it.  The spare, lovely melodies swell and recede, all with perfect precision and tremendous understated feeling. How this music can be so emotional without ever getting sentimental or corny is completely beyond me"  - Ira Glass

They're simultaneously the scariest band at the laughing festival or the ecstatic gypsy troupe playing Nino Rota's wake." - Baltimore City Paper

This pensive, skillfully crafted collection reveals Salim brooding on themes of mortality, aging, lost love and, refreshingly, hope as an antidote to despair.  His keen pop sensibilities shine through in songs such as “Montreal”, a McCartney-esque anthem to the joys of coupledom and “The World Is Full of People (Who Want to Hurt You)” a ballad filled with fatherly worries and love.

They're simultaneously the scariest band at the laughing festival or the ecstatic gypsy troupe playing Nino Rota's wake." - Baltimore City Paper

Nourallah Brothers was the first release by the musically gifted brothers, Salim and Faris Nourallah.  These sixteen well-crafted songs reveal a rich vignette of youth. Unlike many pop albums of the past, this is not a disparate collection.  Its success lies not in its self-consciousness, rather it comes from its ability to remind us all of our past. 

"Perhaps this reviewer has gazed too long into the reflection, but under its influence, When the Lower resembles one of the strangest, most creative releases of the year." - Stylus Magazine

The melodies are impeccably well crafted and clearly the work of a songwriter in his prime, while the music strides gracefully in step with each melody, perfectly highlighting the emotion and enduring truth of the songs.

Most listeners would be surprised to hear that the album was written, played, and recorded entirely by Faris alone.  Faris takes this approach, willfully capitalizing on his studio’s limitations, while exploring his unlimited creativity.   Recording alone at home on a16-track recorder, he has developed and honed his unique sound.

Long may he groan, if it leads to this kind of poetry." 

- San Francisco Bay Guardian

With his second release Leveler Burd Early gives us a collection of slower and more mature songs than those found on his 2002 release Magnet Mountain.  Initially each epic song appears minimal and sparse, however, over time, each song begins to reveal its lush and intricate details.

Faris Nourallah lives in his own world.  He exists almost exclusively within the confines of his one-bedroom home and backyard studio; he doesn’t go out to shows and hasn’t bought a new record in years.  This self-imposed isolation has allowed Faris to develop his unique and endearing style of song writing.