MUSIC

Masahiro Sugaya began his career in the 1980s, working alongside the environmental music scene of that era while also making a significant impact in stage music through his involvement with Pappa TARAHUMARA.

Over the past 20 years, Sugaya has shifted from traditional composition using instrumental music to creating works for 8-channel multi-speaker systems, incorporating environmental sounds and field recordings. His latest album continues this evolution, featuring collages of environmental sounds within individual tracks. The album is structured to balance past and new works, creating a collage-like representation of Sugaya’s diverse creative output.

"しるしまみれ / Overflowing Signs" offers an experience that navigates freely between Sugaya’s environmental music approach and his practices in field recording and musique concrète, presenting a sequence of sounds that defies easy categorization or symbolism. Additionally, this album marks Sugaya’s first stereo full album release in nearly 20 years.

Joseph Shabason, Matthew Sage, and Nicholas Krgovich form a pretty perfect triangle, musically and geographically. Based out of Toronto, Colorado, and Vancouver respectively, the three convened at Sage’s converted barn studio at the foot of the Rockies to diagram their kindred ability to extract grandeur from the most passable of life’s daily details. On his own, saxophonist Joseph Shabason warps late 80s adult-contemporary and smooth jazz aesthetics into tidepools of fourth-worldly sound design that are infinitely more self-aware and emotionally honest than any of their distant reference points. M. Sage, in a parallel sense, blends his skills as an instrumentalist with synthesis and field recordings to create auditory reflections of the natural world that are as whimsical as they are profound. Sitting cozily between these two heartfelt experimentalists is singer Nicholas Krgovich, whose observational slice-of-life poetics paint a relatable face onto his collaborators’ calm expressionism, both guiding and highlighting its deep sense of affect. The resulting album, prosaically titled Shabason, Krgovich, Sage warmly invites sound artist Matthew Sage into the world of wry and melancholy micro-miracles that Shabason and Krgovich established on 2020’s Philadelphia, and 2022’s At Scaramouche. Album opener “Gloria” is a perfectly balanced representation of the trio’s individual abilities. Sage’s slowed and watery zither bleeds in from the edges of the canvas, laying ground for breathy woodwinds and harmonica that pantomime a distant locomotive. Speaking directly to the sonics at play, Krgovich melodically narrates, “Penny, did you hear that train whistle? Theo, did you hear that owl hoo?”. Even from this first moment, the intimate dynamic is so palpable that the listener falls unwittingly into the backstory of Shabason, Krgovich, Sage. “After connecting with Nick and Jos through DMs since 2020, it felt like a fun experience awaited us as potential collaborators,” Sage recounts. “I had built my barn studio, and I think it looked appealing to them to make an adventure out of coming to the Wild West to make music with me.” After spending the majority of a decade immersed in Chicago’s legacy of jazz and experimental electronic music, Matthew Sage moved back to his home state of Colorado to raise a child in a more casually agrarian atmosphere, and to work in the kind of setting that led to his 2023 album for RVNG, Paradise Crick. It was here at the cusp of the Rocky Mountains that the initial push of Shabason, Sage, Krgovich began, in person. Making sense of the trek, Shabason adds “I have realized that making music with people who live very far away is a real possibility. As long as we can get into one space together for a short amount of time, the collaborative magic that is needed to make a record is totally possible.” The three artists’ fingerprints are equally visible across the album. There is soft textural detritus floating freely in the air, punctuated by glassy electric keys and rubberized basslines. The sparseness in the placement of all the elements leaves them subject to ghostly visitations from a whispery saxophone, and a gentle guitar that peers around the corners of Krgovich’s free-verse musings. The album’s midpoint “Don” passes overhead like pollen on the breeze, constantly drifting out and back across pockets of completely empty space. “Old Man Song” turns a rare B-side by Low into an even gentler end-of-life reflection that is sweetened by Krgovich’s falsetto during the track’s wordless chorus. As nebulous as that may seem on paper, the hidden songcraft slowly surfaces over the course of each piece, exemplified by the closing track “Bridget”. There are plenty of other moments of the album that bear discernible rhythms below the fogline, but it’s here that they rise up into a full-on groove under Krgovich’s lyrical fourth wall breaks in which he details everything from Joseph’s studio habits to seeing “Cats” at the theater with his sister. Despite the song’s relative density and pop sensibility, a careful use of space still reigns supreme. On the eleven-minute “Raul”, Krgovich comes close to unintentionally codifying this approach as he sings “The container shrinks, and shrinks again, with every day, the relief that comes from not wanting more...” Truly, the most abundant virtue on Shabason, Krgovich, Sage is patience. The trio interacts without interrupting one another, contently waiting their turns, all locked onto the same distant point on the horizon yet unconcerned with when they might actually arrive. The groundwork laid by Shabason & Krgovich on their previous joint offerings is omnipresent, but it’s amplified by the joy Sage must have felt shepherding them to his idyllic and intimate new homebase. Prior to meeting up with Sage, the pair’s music often dealt with the beauty of The Great Indoors, but their new host and collaborator has smartly refocused their lenses on the small wonders of wilder localzes. Like magic, Shabason, Sage, and Krgovich have not just musically photographed their surroundings, they’ve managed to reproduce them exactly. The sharp open air, the quiet thrill of an escaped routine, the self-reflective thought-loops during a twilit moment at the edge of a field, all of it’s here on Shabason, Krgovich, Sage. Through the trio’s skillful ease, the listener is there, too.

The entire album is permeated with ethereal, lo-fi sounds, creating a superb ambient/drone masterpiece that is melancholic and introspective, yet filled with sweet, meditative charm!

After a limited self-release in 2022, Extravision, the deeply therapeutic musico-psychonautic offering from experimental guitarist Guy Blakeslee has received the Leaving Records “all genre” re-release treatment, with the understanding that more listeners should hear with this vulnerable and graceful document. The record is, in a word, a balm. Like a window flung open on a sweltering day, Extravision occasions the sudden awareness of space, of calm, of context, of possibility. The record also catalogs a musician’s search for meaning and healing in the wake of catastrophe. Since its initial run, Blakeslee has been bracingly open about Extravision’s genesis. On March 13th, 2020, while walking across the street, Blakeslee was struck by a car. Upon regaining consciousness the following day, the hospitalized Blakeslee found both the outer world and his inner world suddenly transformed. As lockdowns took effect, it was immediately clear that the brain injuries Blakeslee sustained had not only affected his vision but altered his very consciousness and would inevitably affect his music-making. From Los Angeles, to Virginia, to Baltimore, he pursued physical and spiritual recovery with music as his primary medicine. Sitting for hours at the piano, the man for whom guitar had always been the primary instrument now intuited the riddles and patterns laid out neatly before him in black and white. Armed with beginner’s mind and a cassette 4-track, Blakeslee began to experiment with wordless, impressionistic songcraft. Extravision is the transcendent result, an hour-plus compendium of humble and fiery dalliances with the musical and psychical unknown—a record from a lifelong musician rediscovering the joys and vexations of learning. Throughout Extravision, the guitar exists as both specter and reference. A majority of the album’s tracks notably do not feature any discernible guitar—the songs functioning as emotive, drone-based exercises in texture and duration. And yet, one never doubts the extent to which Blakeslee’s practice has been (and continues to be) informed by a uniquely American folk guitar idiom. We are, with Blakeslee as our guide, gladly charting the vast and newest horizons of so-called “American Primitive” music, now often referred to as “Cosmic American.” And when Blakeslee’s interdimensional guitar does eventually emerge — see the album’s fittingly final title track, “Extravision”— the sweetness, not untinged by loss, is palpable. Blakeslee has stated that his goal, with Extravision, is to induce in the listener a trance-like state, to inaugurate the conditions under which time might function “differently.” To be sure, the drones and gentle recurrent phrases that comprise much of Extravision are a welcome antidote to the now commonly felt acceleration of time. But it is the experience that Blakeslee is transmitting with and through and beyond these musical gestures—the experience of non-linear time, of total time-loss, of starting again, of retracing one’s steps and rerouting one’s journey—that challenges and rewards us.

Los Angeles-based vocalist, composer, and producer Sharada Shashidhar has a deep awareness of the cosmos. There's a distinct tug-of-war in her music, an understanding that scanning the heavens to answer existential queries isn't quite enough; there are internal depths to plumb as well. Shashidhar's first album, 2020's Rahu, found her voice billowing out of smoky, post-beat-scene soundscapes, meditating on the collective unconscious and the energy exchange between all living things. Her newest work, Soft Echoes, is a bold step forward, echewing her work's hip-hop tilt for expansive compositions that blend jazz and Indian classical influences into a swirling, spiritual whole. Though she has an extensive resume as a collaborator in LA's previous experimental jazz scene, notching work with the likes of Carlos Niño, Zeroh, and the Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra, Soft Echoes marks Shashidhar's first outing as a bandleader. Gathering an ensemble that includes Anna Butters on bass, Julius Rodriguez on keys, Devin Daniels on saxophone, and Timothy Angulo on drums, Shashidhar sought to create a band that ostensibly functioned as an extension of herself. Her primary goals in writing these songs were to “let [her] body do what it wanted to do,” to trust her intuition, and “play without judgment.” Through that process, making Soft Echoes became a practice of presence and exploration, a chance to unlearn rigid structures and rediscover the joy of creating for oneself. Recording took place over three brief, distinct sessions at Altamira Sound in Alhambra, California. Though the full band wasn't ever present at the same time, Soft Echoes sounds like the work of a group in complete, mind-meld focus. Splashy drums nudge up against skronkingsaxophone on “Canyon Song,” while mushrooming synth tones stack up behind rippling Rhodes piano on “Luckiest.” Shashidhar's elegant voice is the anchor for each of these tracks, sometimes gracefully stretching between instruments like a lithe dancer's limbs, other times scattering through psychedelic delay. She describes the album as having “two poles, ” illustrated by the whimsical, buoyant opener “Soft Echoes” and the darker, more anxiety-ridden closer, “New Echoes.” The songs in between may come from different emotional spaces, but “it's all really reflective,” she explains. album can play like a loop, with Shashidhar entering a portal “into the endlessness” during “New Echoes,” only to be transported back to the beginning, full of gratitude and pondering “how strange it is to be alive.” On Soft Echoes , Shashidhar leads us on a journey through her mind, traversing its peaks and canyons in search of greater connection. “I want to take people places,” she says, pausing thoughtfully. “I can’t always guarantee that they’re good places, [but] hopefully you’ll feel something.”

Ana Roxanne is an intersex Southeast Asian musician based in Los Angeles. Born & raised in the Bay Area to immigrant parents, Ana's love for music and singing began through her mother's cd collection of 80's/90's R&B divas. Raised in the catholic church, she became a devout choir nerd and found any opportunity to sing, whether for religious mass, the jazz ensemble of her catholic high school, or karaoke at family gatherings. Her commitment to singing led her to a brief stint at a vocational jazz program in the cornfields of the midwest; in a remote town of 7,000 people, she began a formal study of jazz and classical music. During these years she would tour with various ensembles to beautiful old cathedrals in nearby cities and became enamored with the sacredness of choral music, as well as the enveloping sound of harmony. A near death experience, too, served as a connection between music and spirituality, and music as a healing art after facing tragedy. 

In 2013, Ana was also fortunate enough to spend a few months in Uttarkhand, India where she met an incredible voice teacher who introduced her to classical Hindustani singing. Living and studying with this teacher deeply impacted her outlook on the voice as art. It was there that she began to see the singer - the Diva - as a symbol of divinity; that the unique power of one's voice comes from the vulnerability of using the body as an instrument. Be it romance, love, or worship of a deity - in order to access such depths of emotional expression, one must be willing to be intensely vulnerable, lay one's heart in the open air, expose what is kept hidden. This brief study was the catalyst that led her to finish her music study at the experimental Mills College in Oakland, CA, where she began to combine all of these influences into her current self-titled project. This album ~~~ was created during her last years residing in the Bay Area, a tribute to the great musicians who inspired her and the landscape where she spent her formative years. 

In addition to the worship of R&B and pop divas, Ana's current practice explores themes of gender & identity. In October of 2018, she decided to come out publicly as intersex, and is dedicated to being a voice for her community and speaking out about social justice for intersex youth.

A new ambient/new age masterpiece is born, a must-have for those who love Japanese 80's ambient music/ambient by Hiroshi Yoshimura, Satoshi Ashikawa, Gigi Masin, H.Takahashi, Mary Lattimore, etc.! Constellation Tatsu, a famous label from Oakland, California, has been pushing the new age revival from the underground cassette scene, along with Rotifer, Inner Islands, and Leaving Records. From Constellation Tatsu comes the debut album by Loris S. Sarid, a musician and sound designer from Rome, Italy, now based in Glasgow, Scotland. This is the arrival of an up-and-coming artist who has managed to keep Hiroshi Yoshimura, H.Takahashi and Joseph Shabason on his toes, and is even looking ahead to the future. This is a piece of "environmental music for plants," created as a musical tribute to a tomato farm, inspired by the small tomatoes I tended on the windowsill of my apartment this winter. This year, Leaving released Green-House's debut EP, "Six Songs for Invisible Gardens," which was based on the concept of "communication between plant life and the people who grow it. A work! It is described as "a tribute to the casual courage in simplicity, and the beauty and lightness of casual things".

Tokyo visionist Soshi Takeda’s second album took shape across eight months of the winter and spring, inspired by an iconic mid-80’s photography book of Chinese landscapes. Scenes of lantern-lit fishing boats on misty mountain lakes seeded a mood of hidden paradise, with ancient waterways snaking secret paths into the past. Recorded at his home studio using hardware synths and samplers from the 1990’s, the six songs of Floating Mountains (plus digital-only bonus track, “Deep Breath,” from the 2nd Life Silk compilation) evoke shrouded vistas of liquid skies and shining lakes, like some Li River twist on Balearic half-light house. Shades of cosmic drift and crystalline electronica ebb and flow within the nocturnal pulse, pagodas and pearls reflecting the waning moon: “I hope you can feel the cool and exotic atmosphere.”

The concept for and palette of Crystal Dorval aka White Poppy’s ‘Paradise Gardens’ trilogy first germinated in 2016 as a notion of “paradise music” combining new age, bedroom shoegaze, and bossa nova into “transcendental Tropicalia.” As she filled tapes of recordings exploring the idea, many of the songs gradually gravitated towards the hermetic dream pop her project is best known for, becoming the albums Paradise Gardens (2020) and Sound Of Blue (2023). Dorval describes these collections as a sort of “emotional purging or shadow work,” before arriving at “the state of inner paradise:” Ataraxia. As the third, final, and most purist realization of the original ‘Paradise Gardens’ vision, Ataraxia delivers. Nine instrumentals of nimble guitar, elevated bass, clean rhythm, and clear light, gliding like swans on a shimmering pond. There’s a sense throughout of playful tranquility, of serenades at sunset, of kisses of blissful Muzak wafting along a boardwalk. But behind the music is a patience, grace, and levity born of Dorval’s personal journey with spiritual healing that paralleled the trilogy. A process of transmuting pain into beauty, day by day, melody by melody, cleaving the darkness from the soul and re-entering one’s rightful home in the Garden.

Farmer and deep house producer Hiroyuki Tanaka aka Charles A.D. has been quietly cultivating his crop of live hardware dub techno and devotional acid since debuting with the 熱い海 (‘Hot Sea’) EP on Austria’s Dream Raw Recordings in 2017, followed by two long-form classics for Tokyo’s Umé label in 2019 (Inception) and 2021 (Dry Flower). His latest, West Pontoon Bridge, further refines Tanaka's composite of rhythm, repetition, and vanishing point electronics, shaded in what he calls “characteristic sadness.” Schemed and tracked across a half decade of studio explorations, the album moves through gradient landscapes of twilit trees, mossy waterfalls, and hidden temples shrouded in ocean mist. Named for a nearby Japanese landmark of boards laid across boats at the river mouth in place of a permanent bridge, the collection unfolds in a similarly improvised and panoramic sweep. Lean percussive systems crosshatched with bass, haze, liquid loops, and spatial FX, the album subtly accelerates as it advances, spiraling softly towards a strobing dance floor in a sacred grove.

Tokyo architect Hiroki Takahashi is a world-builder both in matter and sound. His latest collection of serene micro-miniatures was inspired by “the dissatisfaction with reality that I feel on a daily basis.” Escapism offers exactly that: percolating patterns of fiberglass synthetics and fluorescent melody, assembled into minimalist bio-domes of refracted light and hanging gardens. Recorded during metropolitan commutes, afterhours office meditations, and various windows of urban stasis, the album’s six songs actualize the ambient muse of their maker, willing space from density, tranquility from tedium. As with his work in exotic atmosphere unit UNKNOWN ME, Takahashi’s touch is hushed, precise, and prismatic, coaxing spectrums of illusion and bliss in its tinted glass spirals: “Extreme tension produces extreme relaxation.”