In August 2022, Australia-based, French born fourth-world music legend Ariel Kalma was invited to participate in BBC Radio 3’s Late Junction series of special collaborations. The program pairs artists who have not previously worked together to create new music cooperatively.
Los Angeles’s prodigal songwriting son Ariel Pink shares his eleventh studio album, Dedicated to Bobby Jameson, September 15. The album’s title makes a direct and heartfelt reference to a real-life L.A. musician, long presumed dead, who resurfaced online in 2007 after 35 reclusive years to pen his autobiography and tragic life story in a series of blogs and YouTube tirades. “His book and life resonated with me to such a degree,” Pink states, “that I felt a need to dedicate my latest record to him.”
Two of Australia’s hottest young guitarists take us on a trip through time and around the world of classical guitar.
Early in 1870, a codex containing early Spanish vocal music had been discovered in the library of the Palacio Real in Madrid.
A leading vihuela specialist, the Argentinian virtuoso Ariel Abramovich has already devoted two albums to the favourite instrument of the Iberian Renaissance, the first on Arcana (Esteban Daça, El Parnasso, A316, 2002) and the second on Carpe Diem (Diego Pisador, Si me llaman, 2009). For this third instalment he is joined by one of the world’s most respected and innovative solo lutenists, Jacob Heringman, for a vihuela duo project which is the result of years of research and performing. While there is a significant number of publications for two lutes from the sixteenth century, only one of the seven collections for vihuela de mano includes duets, and it is precisely that collection that was the main source of inspiration for this project. The performers, both highly experienced with intabulations of sixteenth-century music, decided to recreate an ‘imaginary’ book of vihuela duets, following the taste and practice of the ancient masters, who through a notation system of ‘numbers’ used to arrange works by the composers they listened to and played. Cifras Imaginarias is the poetic name they have given to an imaginary music collection of vihuela duos of the kind that might have been published in the mid-sixteenth century.
The original lineup of Ariel was a genuine 'supergroup', combining key members from two of Australia's leading progressive bands of the period: Rudd, Putt and Mills hailed from Melbourne's legendary Spectrum, Gaze and Macara from Spectrum's esteemed Sydney peers Tamam Shud. Lead guitarist Tim Gaze, regarded as one of the hottest players on the scene, had also joined Shud at just 16 and by the time he joined Ariel he had also been a member of Kahvas Jute, and played on their only album, the brilliant Wide Open. "A Strange Fantastic Dream in December" (1974) was their excellent first LP. Lovingly re-mastered classic Ariel album on Spectrum’s own Rare Vision label with bonus track "Red Hot Momma"…