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June Yun: Enlightenment - Solid Waves
by Dan McClenaghan
South Korean vocalist June Yun's compositional debut, Enlightenment -Solid Waves, explores the feelings and emotions elicited by the concepts of light and dark. These things are difficult to describe in words but translate, with her music, into compelling, atmospheric soundscapes full of shadows, apparitions, angelic imagery and mystical moods. Vid Jamnic's resonant vibraphone murkiness lays a backdrop for Yun's emotive clarity of expression on the disc's opener, “Little Mighty Soul." The lyrics are cryptic and bring to mind mid-career Joni ...
Continue ReadingArina Fujiwara: Neon
by Katchie Cartwright
Neon, pianist-composer--arranger Arina Fujiwara's luminous debut release, ends on an unexpected note, a solo take on Scott Joplin's “Maple Leaf Rag" (1899), his most popular and enduring tune. It complements her program of four excellent originals and an inspired reconception of “Hotaru Koi," a Japanese children's song. Fujiwara's “Maple Leaf Rag" flows out of Joplin's classic ragtime style but is full of her own playful virtuosity. Beginning out of time, she moves freely from one rhythmic-harmonic eddy to the next, ...
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