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Recent Posts
- A Kinrowan Estate story: Hedge Witches
- What’s New for the 1st of March: Emma Bull’s War for The Oaks, Rosanne Cash’s ‘Runaway Train’, Johnny Cash at San Quentin, plus new Americana and jazz music
- A Kinrorwan Estate story: Cranachanh
- What’s New for the 15th of February: Some Seanan McGuire fantasy, Alison Bechdel’s latest, Pamela Dean’s Tam Lin; Nordic sounds, old time, Americana and Tex-Mex music
- What’s New for the 1st of February: Kage Baker retrospective; new Americana, Buddhist chants and Finnish songs, new and reissued jazz, and more
- A Kinrowan Estate story: Fireplaces in Kinrowan Hall
- What’s New for the 18th of January: World music and fiction by Amal El-Mohtar
- A Kinrowan Estate story: Bridges and Paths plus a Troll
- What’s New for the 4th of January: Favorite books and music of 2025
- A Kinrowan Estate story: Mythologist John Campbell
- What’s New for 21st of December
- A Kinrowan Estate story: Pub Ghoulies
- What’s New for 7 of December: books by Alan Garner, and holiday music new and old, Celtic, Americana, jazz and more
- A Kinrowan Estate story: Several Annies, Part Two
- What’s New for 23 November
- A Kinrowan Estate story: Several Annies
- What’s New for the 9th of November: rhymers and ravens, folk songs and folk tales, jazz guitar and dark forests and constellations put to music, Hungarian tunes and knights and rakes and tinkers and fools, and more
- A Kinrowan Estate story: Kedgeree
- Whats New for the 26th of October: some Patricia McKillip books and an interview, ’70s jazz reissues, Nordic Americana and American Americana, and some Samhain seasonal albums
- A Kinrowan Estate story: Charles and Alice Pay a Visit (A Letter to Owyn)
- What’s New for the 12th of October
- A Kinrowan Estate story: A Pudding Contest
- What’s New for the 28th of September: Appalachia in books, music and more
- A Kinrown Estate story: Autumn is Upon Us
- What’s New for the 14th of September: Books, film and music with a piratical theme; plus Corsican polyphony, Balkan sevdah, Americana music, Hardanger fiddle with reindeer, Latin jazz and piano trios
- A Kinrowan Estate story: Irish Coffee
- New SF from James S. A. Corey; Terry Gillian’s Excalibur; Rolling Stones do Aaron Copland’s ‘A Fanfare for The Common Man’; An offbeat history of coffee; an interview with Russian folk singer Zhenya Wind; and a grab bag of folk music
- A Kinrowan Estate story: Waltzing Matilda
- What’s New for the 17th of August: Lots of Cropredy reports and reviews, and some new jazz and Americana;
- A Kinrowan Estate story: A Hidden Dragon
Tag Archives: ambient music
Joe Harvey-Whyte & Geir Sundstøl’s Langeleik
An instrument that had its genesis in Hawaii a century and a half ago, the pedal steel guitar has reached into many corners of the world’s music scene. Two of the leading players of alternative pedal steel from Norway and … Continue reading
Posted in Music
Tagged ambient music, world music
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numün’s Opening
Driving a lonely road late at night. Reading dreamy space opera. Or just settling in to regain your equilibrium after too much time on social media. Those are the kinds of setting where I turn to the ambient soundscapes of … Continue reading
numün’s Book of Beyond
The New York psychedelic ambient trio numün’s sophomore release is, for me, a grower. I like it more each time I listen to it. Their debut Voyage au Soleil was one of my favorite albums of 2020, and on the … Continue reading
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Tagged ambient music, Americana music, gamelan
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SUSS’s SUSS
Ambient country pioneers SUSS have weathered an emotional roller coaster since the unexpected passing of member Gary Leib in March 2021, right after they finished recording the Southwestern road trip EP Night Suite. That EP was released in October 2021, … Continue reading
SUSS’s Heat Haze
Heat Haze picks up where the New York ambient country band SUSS left off with their previous offering, Night Suite left off. That five-song EP, you’ll recall, dropped unexpectedly in October 2021. It took the listener on a nighttime journey … Continue reading
SUSS’s Night Suite
The latest recording from ambient country pioneers SUSS takes them out of their Brooklyn environs on a road trip to a part of the country that fully mirrors their sound. After putting out three albums in three years, culminating in … Continue reading
Gary’s favorite ‘world music’ of 2020
This sort of exercise serves to point up one of the problems with broad genres like “world music.” It’s reductive and inaccurate and Western-centric, and you end up with some strange companions. However, I listened to lots of music from … Continue reading
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Tagged ambient music, music, Nordic music, world music
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Nous’s Nous II
What first attracted me to this recording was the presence of Shahzad Ismaily, the New York-based multi-instrumentalist whose playing, composing and arranging skills have made him a valued contributer to projects by so many musicians it’s impossible to list them … Continue reading
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Tagged ambient music, contemporary music, modernism, Nordic music
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Lumen Drones’ Umbra
Let’s see, how many of my musical buttons does this new release by Lumen Drones push? Hardanger fiddle? Check. Folk-based experimental music? Check. Nordic music? Check. And of course the big one, right there in the name: drones, drones, drones! … Continue reading
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Tagged ambient music, contemporary music, Nordic music
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Michele Rabbia, Gianluca Petrella, Eivind Aarset’s Lost River
By turns ambient, majestic, contemplative, evocative, even at times unsettling, Lost River by the new trio of drummer Michele Rabbia, guitarist Eivind Aarset and trombonist Gianluca Petrella is a sonic hall of wonders. The album’s 10 tracks, mostly in the … Continue reading
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Tagged ambient music, contemporary music, Jazz music
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