A. M. Samurai

Three tracks to note on this companion to the hit cyberthriller: 1) A funky and inconsequential debut by the David Byrne-less Talking Heads (now just The Heads) featuring Deborah Harry; 2) A mesmerizing, The The-like tune ("A Big Day in the North") marking the American debut of Black Grape, the promising new venture for Happy Mondays founder Shaun Ryder; and 3) "Party Man", a trademark mid-tempo Peter Gabriel yawner co-written to no apparent effect by Tori Amos.

On Chasm, Japanese composer Ryuichi Sakamoto blends together his favorite styles of music without limiting himself to one genre. Chasm is a mixture of avant-garde and Western pop and a vehicle for uncompromising electronic experimentation. Chasm opens with "Undercooled," a composition that combines rap with an Asian melody. This piece is followed by "Coro," a track made up of harsh audio static. The title track is composed of electronically altered piano notes, which swell up and down and loop mechanically. This piece has a haunting, almost underwater, feel to it. Towards the end of Chasm, we come across "Song," an abstract work that combines a Spartan electronic backbeat with loud white noise. However, Sakamoto makes a sharp left turn for the album's closer "Seven Samurai - Ending Theme"…

Dark Horse Comics is an American comic book and manga publisher. It was founded in 1986 by Mike Richardson in Milwaukie, Oregon, with the concept of establishing an ideal atmosphere for creative professionals.

Friedemann - Short Stories (2003) {Biber Records 76761 Official Digital Download rel 2015}
FLAC (tracks) - 16bit/44kHz - Official Digital Download (qobuz.com) -> 302 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 114 Mb | Cover | 5% repair rar
© 2003, 2015 Biber Records / In-Akustik | 76761
Jazz / Contemporary Instrumental Music / Guitar

Once upon a time there was a young folk singer who left his home in a small town in Alemannia and set out into the world to seek his fortune.« That more or less is the beginning of the story of Friedemann, who eventually, in the mid-nineties, three decades later, returned to his home at the foot of the Black Forest. A lot has happened in that time. The young lad has turned into a cosmopolitan man in touch with his home roots, a guitarist and composer, father of two daughters, music publisher, producer, businessman and… storyteller.

"Bricolage," a French word meaning to assemble something from available materials, is such a perfect term for the art of the remix that it's surprising no one has ever used it before. It's less surprising that Ryuichi Sakamoto, whose work has always had a cool Continental flair despite the artist's Japanese roots, would choose such an elegant term for his swish remix collection. Focusing on reworks of material from 2005's back-to-the-roots electro-pop experiment Chasm, Bricolages features a cross-cultural and cross-generational batch of remixers including Cornelius, whose playful sense of pastiche is to current hipster Japanese pop what Sakamoto's Yellow Magic Orchestra was a quarter-century before; his take on the spoken word cut-up "War & Peace" is considerably lighter and groovier than Aoki Takamasa's tense, austere version. Former Japan drummer Steve Jansen, whose collaboration with Sakamoto goes back to the early '80s, contributes the skittering "Break With," bridging the gap between new wave disco and contemporary IDM.