Aural enclaves have been a thing these days, as we try to regain our sanity amidst all this madness. We realised that we've had quite a few so-called ambient releases on the blog lately and the current onslaught of bad news might just be a reason. Either way, while looking for new musical grounds to cover, we stumbled on this multi-dimensional gem by Siberian multi-instrumentalist and producer Misha Sultan that recently surfaced on Brighton's Hive Mind Records [...]

Meanwhile, as Russia continues to wreak havoc in Ukraine, our dear Berlin-based and Kharkiv-born friend Yuriy Gurzhy has been very busy organising the cultural resistance: Besides touring with his new book "Richard Wagner und die Klezmerband. Der neue jüdische Sound in Deutschland" on contemporary Jewish music in Germany, he has been sharing regular and personal insights into the war on Ukraine via his 'Kriegstagebuch' ('war diary') for German daily newspaper [...]

Cinematic, symphonic, surreal? The words to describe the Rhabdomantic Orchestra's sophomore longplayer on Agogo Records are manifold, as are the ideas and influences intricately woven into the tell-tale arrangements. Six years after the group's acclaimed album "Albore", Turin-based composer and multi-instrumentalist Manuel Volpe leads the orchestral charge to the project's follow-up album "Almagre". Only this time, he is joined by Colombian singer Maria Mallol [...]

"Ethereal, sensual, subtle," are the opening words of producer, journalist and"living jazz encyclopedia" Arnaldo DeSouteiro, who authored the extensive liner notes to this essential and first vinyl reissue of Brazilian singer Maria de Fátima's only solo album "Bahia com H". Originally recorded in Uruguay in 1981, "where she had settled with her then husband, the synthesizer wizard and producer Hugo Fattoruso, the album combines Maria's own compositions with [...]

At the start of a new week, we would like to point you in the direction of Melbourne-based artist and broadcaster Ajak Kwai, who released her powerful EP "Red Sands" on Music in Exile late last year. Well known to the Australian music community, she is a strong voice for "inclusion and the celebration of cultural diversity found throughout Australian society." Kwai herself hails from the historic city of Bor in South Sudan.

In her shows for both PBS and 3CR, [...]

Julien Lebrun and Djamel Hammadi's Paris-based afro-soul and tropical funk imprint Hot Casa Records is literally a hotbed of quality releases and reissues and always worth a visit. The label has apparently also managed to license many a rare hi-life and afro-funk album from the family of late Ghanaian singer and composer Alhaji Kwabena Frimpong, or simply K. Frimpong.

Born in 1939 in Ofoase in Ghana's Ashanti Akim district, K. Frimpong launched his musical [...]

Islands themselves are a wonderful natural concept, come to think about it. Simply describing a piece of land surrounded entirely by water, the word itself evokes a world of imagery and sentiments, a metaphor, deeply ingrained in the human experience. Islands are vastly symbolic and often excite mixed feelings. They are ambiguous at best, representing both isolation and refuge, a welcome escape or even a place of no return. Though not all islands are [...]

Born in New Jersey in 1990, Palestinian-American violinist, composer and producer Akram Abdulfattah moved back to his parents' rural hometown Kaukab Abu al-Hija in Northern Galilee in 1995. Having relocated at an early age and having to adapt to a new, yet fascinating environment with a rich cultural heritage, will surely have made a lasting impression on the young boy. But it also resulted in a newfound sense of belonging and the discovery of local musical [...]

Raït here, raït now, we are sipping on some mint tea and rejoicing in the wavy, lo-fi, synth-tastic tape sounds of iconic Algerian singer Cheb Hasni. Born Hasni Chakroun in 1968, he is widely considered one of the greatest vocalists of the raï genre, although his burgeoning career was brought to a sudden end at the age of 26, when he was tragically murdered outside his parents' home in Oran.

Hasni's career was nonetheless prolific: After releasing his first [...]

One man's trash is another man's treasure. As cliché as that may sound, there's no denying that it's a pretty good fit for Tel Aviv-Yafo-based artist Eyal el Wahab's DIY approach to making music, as impressively brought to fruition on his recently released second album on Glitterbeat Records. El Khat is the name of his stimulating retro-futurist project, named after the plant-based drug commonly chewed in North East Africa and the Arabian Penisula.

After being [...]

This aggression will not stand! It has been one day and a month sind Putin launched the unlawful and utterly senseless Russian attack on Ukraine. Yet despite Ukraine's valiant resistance, the war machine keeps churning. In all its wanton horror, however, war can also have a unifying effect and forge new alliances amidst its inherent drive to total destruction. Subsequently, a wave of disbelief and solidarity has swept across many parts of this world to reveal [...]

Judging a record by its cover is not always the worst thing. Neither is taking a closer look at it and trying to immerse yourself into the assumed conceptual environment of what you are about to listen to. Naturally, we approached this album with a certain bias. Having previously reviewed and raved about Anadol's 2019-released album "Uzun Havalar", we couldn't wait to see, what she had intricately pieced together this time around. 

The album cover is a [...]