A delicate mermaid choir, electric guitars, synth and an ostinato drum groove echoing the rhythm in Ravel's Bolero: the eponymous opening track of Urzhia-Kan's second album, Atlantik, promises an engaging and adventurous musical experience.
I had first listened to Juan Shaman a few years ago, when his album Reevolucion was published on Jamendo. I was impressed by his very characteristic voice and the dark, rhythmic melodies of his songs, while his lyrics reminded me a little of Lorca's poetry - highly evocative, sometimes surreal, but also close to the pure lyrical and audacious imagery of traditional songs.
Five "cornerstone" poems by authors whose work marked Europe's (and the whole world's) literary history - the famous Shakespeare sonnet My Mistress' Eyes Are Nothing Like the Sun, Wordsworth's The Solitary Reaper and She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways, Home Is Where One Starts From by T. S. Eliot (from the Four Quartets) and When You Are Old by W. B. Yeats - set to music in an ambitious yet unpretentious album, merging past and modern resonances in a peculiarly attractive mix.
Symphonic arrangements and experimental researches in an album featuring unexpected piano harmonies, quasi-minimalistic stings and winds and an almost outworldly choral part, as well as a couple of more rhythmic tracks where the tendency of stylistic exploration is significantly prominent.
It was the band name that first caught my eye: intrigued, I ran a search for "Disciples of Bob" - which yielded a few unrelated and inconclusive results, seemingly having nothing to do with the little musical pearl I was listening to; or, on second thoughts, maybe they were all connected with it in some way. Whatever the case, New Roman Tragedy remained a gripping collection of songs worthy of an attentive listen, or many.
Trip solombre is a genuinely original album on all aspects. Its greatest asset rests in the impressively powerful, flexible and almost weirdly beautiful voice of the singer, tracing an occult journey on engrossing sonorities accented by dark, ritualistic hymns and incantations.
An acoustic mini album with quite unusual melodies (in which I discovered different things each time I listened to them), interesting lyrics and a beautiful, very distinctive voice.
A short exercise in style with tears and smiles, but no faces. All audio material used is in the Public Domain and has been obtained from Archive.org via Public Domain 2ten. Public Digital Festival 2010 entry, in the Do It Your Way category.
Leermond's music is defined by the composer himself (one half of the German duo Die Schatten) as "wandering through time and the senses" - and Castanea is an album that illustrates this description in the most representative manner. Deeply introspective and thought-provoking, the sound flirts with an assortment of styles and genres, claiming its own particular "signature" through the creative assimilation of its references.
Each album by Arne Pahlke is a new adventure in style and a personal auto da fe. In Heimweh he embarks on a journey of return to his own sources by making direct and indirect references to his first albums, Dunkel and Abgrundtiefen, whose publication marked him as a powerful and singular poetic voice.
Golden Hyphen is the latest album by Nehoryn, accompanied by a lovely printable booklet that contains the song lyrics and images eloquently illustrating the artist's universe, from the deft confrontation of colour with black & white to the touches of light bursting through the dominant darkness.
