by eyes cast down | Mar 28, 2011 | Album Reviews
Ari Porki has just released Dimension, his first album with the Hungarian netlabel Limitless. Over eight tracks spanning 53 minutes, Ari channels the northern seasons of his native Finland. Like his predecessor, Jean Sibelius, he skillfully evokes their extremes of...
by eyes cast down | Mar 22, 2011 | Album Reviews
Bob Ohrum, whose 2010 release Elevated I recently reviewed, returns with a reissue of his 2005 album Subliminal Listening, also on the Relaxed Machinery label. This album is Bob’s love letter to his hometown of Buffalo, NY. It plays like an urban version of the...
by eyes cast down | Mar 16, 2011 | Album Reviews
Lucette Bourdin’s 2010 album Horse Heaven, her seventh release on the Earth Mantra netlabel, is excellently described on the album’s release page as one of Lucette’s most mystical, intimate, reflective and spiritual albums. At the same time, it...
by eyes cast down | Mar 10, 2011 | Poems
We end this cycle the way we began, with a fascinating but tortured personality. From my first reading of John Nathan’s biography of Yukio Mishima, the legendary Japanese writer haunted me for years. I read over a dozen of his novels in translation including, of...
by eyes cast down | Mar 8, 2011 | The Creative Life
On Feb. 26, 2011, StillStream featured the music of Lucette Bourdin in a five-hour edition of Zen Caffeine. This completed a week of tribute programs, which also included Kite Radio and Free Floating. That was my introduction to Lucette’s music. While she was...
by eyes cast down | Mar 5, 2011 | Album Reviews
Singer/songwriter and guitarist Prabhu das’ 2004 album Journey to the Heart lands squarely in the oft-dreaded New Age category, with many of its benefits but – to these ears, at least – none of its drawbacks. Prabhu das’ full-bodied voice is in fine form...
by eyes cast down | Mar 2, 2011 | Poems
A depressing piece, but I thought it one of the better ones. Another female character study; to me the most telling aspect is that she could be of any age. Twilight Child Another glittering frigid April sun Shivering trees and coasting birds prove the wind...
by eyes cast down | Feb 28, 2011 | Album Reviews
Guitarist Bobby Jones, who records as I’ve Lost, has just released Scáth M’anam, his first album on the Relaxed Machinery label. It follows Dissociative Fugue, a two-piece EP released on the Feedback Loop netlabel last year. Scáth M’anam is a Gaelic...
by eyes cast down | Feb 23, 2011 | Poems
Where was I? Musing on impermanence… I wonder if this piece will survive me. Victor Hugo probably had no such doubt about his legendary hunchback character. That novel’s final image birthed and informed my piece, over 160 years later. Jack or Jive named...
by eyes cast down | Feb 21, 2011 | Album Reviews
Tennessee space musicians Mark Mahoney and Michael Peck team up for their fourth duo album, A Life Incandescent (Waiting World Records 009), a feast of classic analog sounds with a strong science-fiction, exploratory vibe. The music was recorded live (at the Gathering...