avantgarde

Hello all, I’m back in Istanbul, gonna finish the best of list tomorrow and storm into some great new stuff I’ve been amassing since a few weeks. For today, here’s a mix by our friend Cenk Akyol which accompanied me well in a gloomy London morning.

Cécile Schott the Parisian native instrumentalist whom I always thought “Colleen” was her real name, is back with a new album on her home Leaf. Yesteryear’s “Colleen et les boîtes à musique” could be labeled a concept album that satisfied her javanese love with a musical box, which was still good but not as engaging as her previous stuff.

One of the new releases on the list was by Alec K. Redfearn & The Eyesores a 7-22 piece orchestral ensemble from Providence, Rhode Island with prolific writer & singer Alec Redfearn as frontman. I’ve listened to their previous album “The Smother Party” on North East Indie with much love; how can you not love a band that has a bassoon and a french horn in it??

Back to intellectual music after a week or so of party music and easy listening now that the weather is a bleak gray again. It’s easy to classify me as an aspirant layman in avant jazz & rock & contemporary classic, that’s why I haven’t heard of Aka Moon.

Banabila is Rotterdam based composer Michel Banabila, a well-known ambient-downtempo musician. Although he’s released lots of stuff, I only listened to his collab with Monoscope which I didn’t like, and his Voiznoiz album which was a great CD.

Here’s Final Fantasy, Mr. Owen Pallett’s solo outfit. After a little bit of search I found out that Pallett is a part of Picastro along with other bands like Internet and King Tut and also string arranger for the Arcade Fire. wow?

It’s taken me apx. 20 years of conscious music listening to hear a song from Amy Denio, and what’s ironic is it’s the opener of her debut solo album from 1991. This song is an instant classic for me, her voice and songwriting skills are terrific, and her sound is a very unique mixture of soo many different elements.