The sounds of Brazilian jazz get some Afro-vocal assistance, revel in golden era fusion vibes and ooze deep nu-soul in this beautifully crafted LP from Sao Paulo trio Caixa Cubo, ably supported by the dependable Jazz & Milk Records. From spiritual samba to sultry late night soul & firing jazz dance, it's strictly all killer no filler.

Global pointing Brazilian jazz trio Caixa Cubo release their brand new album Agôra, sparkling with electric funk and Herbie-esque eclecticism. It features a myriad of guest vocalists and musicians including Brazilians Xênia França and Zé Leônidas, Jembaa Groove's Ghanaian singer Eric Owusu and South African artists Bongani Givethanks & Mpho Nkuzo.

In line with all their creations where flow and energy provide the magic, allowing what the moment provides, the album shines not only for its virtuosity but for its minimalism, the depth of space, and for the first time, the ability to figure in and outside of the jazz fold, as the trio decided, for the first time, to bring in singers and add a new aesthetic to their sound.

“Agôra is a wake-up call to reality, a reminder that the infinite possibilities of technological progress should not disconnect us from the earth, from eye-to-eye relationships, and from moments lived in person” the band are keen to point out. “And that we must not be consumed by greed, for all we truly possess.... is the NOW.”

CREDITS
An album conceived, composed and recorded by Caixa Cubo in in November 2021 at Jazz & Milk studios in Cologne, Germany.

Recorded, mixed and mastered by Chris 'Dusty‘ Doepke
Artwork by Tim Schmitt

Virke are back in the town with the aptly titled II, the follow up to their 80's inspired Hovsjö 80 for Flora & Fauna. Once again there is a wistful edge to the vintage drum machine powered downtempo sounds, as if they're still hankering for the carefree days of yore, as various instruments intertwine with the unhurried electronica giving you plenty of time to wallow in thoughts of endless summer holidays, first kisses & debt free days.

Virke are a trio consisting of Billie Lindahl, Rickard Jäverling and Henrik von Euler. The second album II is based around the same minimal concept of the first album Hovsjö 80 but with greater variety in sounds and visions.

The album was recorded in Herräng and Årsta with the fundamentals being Billie and Rickard on baritone guitars and Henrik on drum machine, Mellotrone and accordion.

Apart from the group the album also features guest appearances by Andreas Tilliander on Raagini Digital Electronic Tanpura & Taal Tarang Digital Power and Martin Sörbom on percussion.

Improvised musical magic realism from YoshimiO & IzumikiYoshi on Thrill Jockey. Deep in peaceful & blissful Mahoroba, YoshimiO used the piano & her voice to express unfiltered thoughts, feelings & reactions to immediate surroundings. These were then processed by IzumikiYoshi & remixed with the original sounds to blur the boundaries between improvised, intentional, past, present, future & put some cracks in reality tunnel walls. It's ride gets wilder as it goes & should give your Monday a suitably surreal kick up its depressing arse.

Inspired by how she feels at the moment, what direction she’s facing, the people she’s surrounded by, and the energy of the location, YoshimiO uses the piano and her voice to create sound. IzumikiYoshi uses a microphone to pick up the raw sounds created by YoshimiO and feeds it through his modular synthesizer, where the sounds undergo spectral processing and modulation. These electronic tones are combined and mixed again with YoshimiO’s live sounds in a spontaneous manner, to output the sounds that were only in their imagination. That is how the music of YoshimiOizumikiYoshiduO is created.

The duo’s debut album To The Forest To Live A Truer Life combines the thrill and precision of masterful improvised music practitioners unearthing new sonic possibilities. YoshimiO’s kinetic energy saturates the album’s every pore. For the first time using the piano as her primary instrument in addition to her singular voice, YoshimiO’s every move is bent, stretched, and mutated by IzumikiYoshi’s modular synthesizer into cascades of brightly colored waves and dotted constellations of sound. A balance of YoshimiO’s raw live improvisations and IzumikiYoshi’s correlated processed sounds give the pieces a sense of grounding and weightlessness in tandem. Stark piano figures that recall bluesy phrasings or classical progressions warp into beams of fizzling synthesizer. YoshimO’s voice undulates and echoes in wild tendrils. Rather than taming YoshimiO’s spirited performances, IzumikiYoshi adorns every unique flutter with complementary otherworldly textures. Recorded primarily in a cafe nestled in a forest in Japan, To The Forest To Live A Truer Life is a celebration of pure potential, of music born of the moment expanding in every direction.

CREDITS
piano&voice / YoshimiO
modular synthesizer / izumikiYoshi

recorded by izumikiYoshimiO in the forest of maho-roba on Oct. 2020 and vocals fo #5 track recorded by KABAMIX @LMD on Mar. 2021

mixed and mastered by IZUMI KIYOSHI on Aug. 2021
words by YoshimiO

photo of poster by HOMMA TAKASHI
art work by OOIDO SYOUJOU, izumikiYoshimiO
designed by IZUMI KIYOSHI
translated by HASHIM KOTARO BHAROOCHA

THANXTO
Futagawa Junko,
Izumi Jun

Richard Norris has been around the world of music since the days of rave, flitting from genre to genre as he sees fit. Recent times have seen a deep immersion into the world of ambient music, with regular 20 minute long transmissions designed for deep listening, pagan revivalism & general wellbeing. If you haven't been paying attention then take a dive into the this tasting menu compilation of his journey so far - it's the perfect Sunday soundtrack.

Deep Listening 2019 - 2022 is a compilation of tracks from Richard Norris' recent deep listening, ambient and electronic work for the Group Mind and Inner Mind labels. The twenty tracks have been re-edited, mastered and compiled into a handy primer that is released digitally and on a single CD and double vinyl album.

CREDITS
Written and Produced by Richard Norris, 2019 - 2022.
Published by Mute Song.
Art by Marc Fox @theurbanefox
Design by Lyndon Pike.
Released by Group Mind.

This new sound installation launching next week in Ngunnawal, Ngunawal and Ngambri Country to soundtrack the "Garden" of Australian Dreams at the National Museum of Australia is a gem. Orchestrated by Genevieve Lacey,  it combines the words of Alexis Wright - the garden's inspiration, with environmental, fauna rich field recordings & often evocative compositions to otherworldly effect, & will be much needed organic support in the rather brutalistic toy box "garden".

In 2020, the National Museum of Australia commissioned musician and composer Genevieve Lacey to create new ways for audiences to engage with its iconic Garden of Australian Dreams (GoAD).

The result is Breathing Space – a rewilding in sound. This permanent sound installation is a groundbreaking way to make the GoAD more welcoming to visitors, enabling them to create their own real and imagined connections to place. Breathing Space animates the site with sound, making it enticing and alive; a place to explore, discover, play, rest and reflect.
As they move within the GoAD, visitors will hear familiar and unfamiliar sounds: choruses of frogs and cicadas, the flutter of strings, percussive creaks and rattles, subterranean rumbles from the deep oceans, human voices whispering, speaking, and singing, and beautiful instrumental phrases, layered and abstracted into patterns.

The sound garden is inspired by texts by Alexis Wright – activist, author, documentary maker and member of the Waanyi Nation from the highlands of the southern Gulf of Carpentaria. Her words are heard, whispered, and spoken by a chorus of voices of women and gender nonconforming people aged 6 - 87, and are interwoven with choral song, environmental field recordings, percussive accompaniments, and composed music. With speakers discreetly distributed throughout the garden, the entire space quietly resonates and beckons visitors, emanating life. It draws visitors into a reverie of place, and a meditation on their own relationship to land and listening, and celebrates fragile ecologies – of species, language, Country, culture.

Genevieve worked with over 60 people to bring her vision to life. Musical collaborators include Lou Bennett (Yorta Yorta Dja Dja Wurrung; voice), Consort of Melbourne (dir. Steve Hodgson, choir), Vahideh Eisaei (qanun), Simon Martyn-Ellis (theorbo, baroque guitar), Linda Kent (pipe organ), Sunny Kim (voice), Marshall McGuire (harp), Phil Slater (trumpet), Speak Percussion (dir. Eugene Ughetti), Amadou Suso (kora), Erkki Veltheim (violin and viola), Mindy Meng Wang (guzheng).
Creative team consisted of: Genevieve Lacey (composer & creator), Alexis Wright (writer), Ruth Little (associate artist), Jim Atkins (sound design), Martel Ollerenshaw – Arts & Parts (executive producer), Linda Kent (visual artist), Paul Lim – Additive (technical production manager), Ashley Simonetto (branding and graphic design), Jared Yapp (audio research), Katherine Tonkin (spoken voice consultant), Jess Zhang (cultural consultant) and Tom McKeand (audio system programmer).

Breathing Space in the Garden of Australian Dreams, National Museum of Australia, Canberra / Ngunnawal, Ngunawal and Ngambri Country – opens to the public on 31 March 2023.

Fragile ambient beauty, inventive electronica, good old psychedelic folk, electroacoustic delights, dream pop & deep soul; all from lesser known independent artists. The new radio show for the excellent Music for Dreams station is here.

Hiroshi Ebina - Breath (Mystery Circles)
Cisser Mæhl - Klaverstemmeren (Sonic Pieces)
Ben McElroy & A Spot On The Hill - Journal in the Drawer (The Slow Music Movement)
Buck Curran - Winter Solstice 2 (for Steffen) [Obsolete]
Matt Rösner - Pulled Back Together (Room 40)
1k Flowers - Shield Siren (Unguarded)
Sluice - Fourth of July (Ruination)
Old Earth Nostalgia Cult - Field Study (Self Release)
Jim Nopédie - winter sun through train window (Infloresce)
Glinca - Contemplation n.1 (Shimmering Moods)
Genevieve Lacey - All Time Is Intertwined (Australian Broadcasting Corporatin)
Daniel Rotem - Wave Nature (Colorfield)
Pieta Brown, JT Bates - In This World (Righteous Babe)
Payfone & Kid Nereida - I Feel You (Leng)

Don't forget our Spotify playlists if you need a fix in between shows. They're also available on Youtube, Soundcloud, Deezer & Apple Music - search and you will find.

Fresh, cosmic, jazz not jazz vibes from Poland's wonderfully named Twoosty Mayonez via U Know Me. After crashing their spaceship into a field of magic mushrooms & releasing clouds of psilocybin into the atmosphere - affecting 70% of the native extraterrestrials, they then embark on a wild sci-fi soundtrack indebted, psychedelic jazz fusion ride as they surf the waves of altered consciousness trying to get their ship repaired & make it home for dinner. Thanks to Twisted Soul for the tip.

Things don't always go your way, especially when your plans involve space travel. In the case of Captain Harrison Focus's expedition, it started innocently, but no one was prepared for an emergency landing on the mysterious planet Carmin. Only then did the real fight for survival begin. This record tells the story of a dangerous expedition into space that began on February 6, 2023.

Twoosty Mayonez consists of Bartosz Wolert (drums) and Dominik Kaniewski (bass guitar and synthesizers). "Carmin" is their debut album, which is released primarily on vinyl by U Know Me Records.

Twoosty Mayonez is something your grandfather would listen to with your younger sister.
Non-standard-jazz approach combined with the search for strange sounds, resulted in the concept album "Carmin" created by Bartosz Wolert (drums), and Dominik Kaniewski (bass guitar).
The trio closes with the 80GN4 robot, which was programmed to play a synthesizer part.

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Nie zawsze wszystko idzie po Twojej myśli, szczególnie gdy plany dotyczą podróży kosmicznej. W przypadku wyprawy kapitana Harrisona Focusa zaczęło się niewinnie, ale na awaryjne lądowanie na tajemniczej planecie Carmin nikt nie był przygotowany. Dopiero tam zaczęła się prawdziwa walka o przetrwanie. Ta płyta opowiada historię pewnej niebezpiecznej wyprawy w kosmos, która rozpoczęła się 6. lutego 2023 roku.

Twoosty Mayonez tworzą Bartosz Wolert (perkusja) i Dominik Kaniewski (gitara basowa i syntezatory). „Carmin” to ich debiutancki album, który ukazuje się przede wszystkim na płycie winylowej sumptem U Know Me Records.

Płyta wydana jest w dwóch wersjach (z klasycznym czarnym winylem lub w wersji limitowanej z kolorowym winylem niespodzianką, gdzie każda płyta jest inna). Cała oprawa graficzna to dzieło Kacpra Pieńka, który do każdego z utworów namalował dedykowany obraz, ich reprodukcje znaleźć można w dołączonym do każdej z płyt booklecie. Miks przygotował Maciej "Envee" Goliński, a mastering to dzieło Michała "Eproma" Baja.

CREDITS
Graphic design: Kacper Pieniek
Mix: Eprom
Master: Envee