Coppé is one of the most eccentric and eclectic electronic music artists to come out of Japan, although she might as well be an alien from outer space... and although you might not have heard of her or her species in the western world she is actually celebrating her 20th anniversary with a very beautifully packaged and ambitious release available as a double colored vinyl LP + DVD or a CD + DVD occasionally even packaged and delivered in a soft see-through netting-type cloth with pins that you can put on your clothes or bag.

"20rpm" starts out with her 45 seconds "happy anniversary" prelude opera and then goes into 20 tracks of mad bubbling electronica with her vocals (and occasionally some guest singer) and music that was created in with her collaborators, including Hilotoshi, Atom, Nikako, Luna 9, Kettel + Secede, Terry D, Plaid, Lentils + Senzafine, Tone, Camel Season, T'mouse, 666, D3PTHS, Takachie, Chibaty, The Kitchen Cynic, Nico, Dijkin, DF Tram, Taz, Christ, Jacob Koller.

It's hard to describe music when the music is so collaborative and contains the experiences, influences and inspiration of so many guest artists, but the overarching common thread is obviously electronica, one that dances around edm ("Beethoven in Antennae" with Atom), flirts with trip-hop ("Golden Crushes (Luna 9 remix)" with Luna 9 and Nikakoi), pays homage to jazz ("urmythrill" with Kettle+Secede, "Ajisai [disguise]" with Jacob Koller), visits the intersection of pop/r&b/urban/hiphop ("I fall in Luv remix" with Luna 9), fumbles in dark cinematic ominous ambient ("777" with Nico & Dijkin), entertains corky glitch electronica ("Illegal Lingo" with DF Tram).

Coppé sings in English and sometimes in Japanese ("Ajisai" and a few other tunes only), which I find cool and actually gives the music and even more unique aura when she does. The DVD contains multimedia menu with information on her 17 records to date and retrospective of 20 music videos (dated between 1998 and 2015) directed by a number of different, mostly American, directors which come in all sort of varieties and styles (from odd, corky, weird to experimental, from absurdly Japanese to very futuristic and high tech). The DVD also contains 4 video footage bonus clips from an album release party in Tokyo, and a few mini features.
She releases all her records on her own label Mango + Sweet Rice. Coppé is a mover and a shaker and she is unstoppable and independent. If you wanna know more about her crazy eccentric career check out her Wikipedia page.

If I had to describe Coppé in one short and easy sentence I would probably say that she is the Japanese Bjork, and just like Bjork she is super talented and not contained within or limited by one musical genre. She collaborates with so many artists that it is only normal every album, or even every track, that she releases sounds a little bit different and is a sonic world of its own that Coppé orbits around with her alien spaceship making contact and engaging with the other species of the planet.

This is intergalactic planetary music for the future!

I've been listening to electronic music for 25 years and have been running this very electronic music magazine for 22 years, so when a pioneer of electronic music like Jean-Michel Jarre makes a series of albums called "Electronica" featuring dozens of guests from the early stages of electronic music to the new comers of the genre, it sure does certainly not go unnoticed in my book! Quiet the contrary!

"Electronica 1: The Time Machine" and "Electronica 2: The Heart of Noise" came out in late 2015 and early 2016 respectively and truly celebrate the entire span of growth and evolution of the elctronic music genre throughout the last 4 decades by bringing together the leading voices of the genre as well as some interesting artists that have differing degrees of connection to it.

Volume 1 features some true early visionaries of the genre like the amazing Laurie Anderson and Tangerine Dream, as well as mainstream names such as Moby, Massive Attack, Armin Van Buuren and possibly unexpected names such as John Carpenter, Lang Lang, Pete Townshend and various other really interesting artists (Boys Noize, M83, Air, Vince Clarke, Littel Boots, Fuck Buttons, Gesaffelstein).

Volume 2 re-invites some of the names from Volume 1 and then takes it to the next level with an equally stunning array of names, including Pet Shop Boys, Gary Numan, Yello, Jeff Mills, The Orb as well as potentially unexpected ones such as Primal Scream, Cyndi Lauper, Hans Zimmer and then so many others worthy of attention (Rone, Julia Holter, Peaches, Sébastien Tellier, Siriusmo, Chrisphe) as well as some truly unexpected ones like Edward Snowden himself (more on that later!).

The album pretty much is a who's who of electronic music history and stylistically ranges from dance-tracks to more EDM/EBM inspired tracks with a good balance of instrumental tracks and tracks that feature vocalists. Some of the vocal cuts flirt with pop in a way that is even chart-suitable. If you know the artists JMJ is collaborating with the listening experience will be some much more fun because you can truly recognize the character and style, or sometimes simply the unique voice, of the collaborator.

I recently went to a talk event that Jean-Michel held in NYC and found out some very interesting details about these albums. One thing that truly impressed me is that JMJ insisted on making it a truly collaborative effort, so this is not one of those albums made by sending files around the globe, but rather JMJ travelled to meet with all the artists involved to be in the same room with them and actually co-write/compose/arrange everything together. Needless to say it took years and many miles of travel to finish this record, all the more reason you should check out the fruits of his labour!!!

I spent about two weeks listening to these two albums at least 4-5 times each and I've come to the realization (something JMJ also touched upon in his talk event) that electronic music is truly timeless. Some of the guests on these album are in their 20es others are in their 60es and it's hard to "age" these collaborations if you don't know who's on the track you are listening to. You go ahead and try!

One of the guests that intrigued me the most was Edward Snowden, partially because he is the only non-musical guest of the album, but also because I am a huge supporter, fan and sympathiser of Snowden, of what he's done and what he stands for (being somebody who truly believes in freedom, transparency and justice and who put his life on the line for it). Snowden met JMJ in Moscow (a meeting that JMJ explained was facilitated by the Guardian and Snowden's lawyers) and JMJ interviewed him and used bits of that recording in a track, Jarre also mentioned (in the talk) that one of his close relatives was a political activist in France and that he closely identifies with Snowden's cause. He also commented on how this collaboration was very newsworthy in Europe but seems to have been largely ignored in the US... Such a pity!

I've asked JMJ what he thinks of the future of music creation and distribution and he theorized that one of the things we might see in the future is a collaboration with machines, a sort of music-ex-machina scenario, and he even mentioned that it might be the subject of an "Electronica 3" or "Electronica 4" album, so while I hope he will get to another "Electronica" volume before machines are fully capable of making music without human intervention, at least there is hope for more volumes to come...

Stay tuned!

Nik BÄrtsch's fifth record on ECM is his first with the "Mobile" ensemble, which is pretty much the acoustic version of his main band "Ronin" (which adds a bass player to the line up).
I have seen both Ronin and Mobile live and both are amazing experiences, engulfing you in a vortex of patterns and sounds, and from what I can hear on "Continuum" the CD experience is very much true to the live experience, save for the fact that the CD has some cuts with a string quintet as well.

BÄrtsch's composition and dexterity on (and most definitely also inside!) the piano are complemented by Sha's bass and contrabass clarinet and by the tuned percussions, drums and multiple bass drums with different tunings played by Kaspar Rast and Nicolas Stocker. The whole experience is a very rhythmic one, where even the clarinet, who one might expect might soar over everything else, in fact, quite to the contrary, becomes a very integral part of the rhythms itself, playing a bass part in a very percussive part way. The dynamic and tonal range of the percussions is comparable to that of the 88 keys of the piano, and stretches all the way from the low rumbles of the 32" concert bass drum to the piercing icicle sounds of the xylophone, which often blends in subtly with the upper register of the piano notes.

The music is so expansive, it makes you forget time, in spite of the fact that it is all about time and its subdivisions... Somebody is quite obviously doing a lot of counting. Plenty of odd meters to be had for all you math-musicians out there, but more importantly plenty of gorgeous and masterfully executed suites of trance-inducing soundscapes that definitely well understand and embrace the concept of tension and release, which is so important in music.

It's hard to imagine, let alone describe, a band like this, but suffice it say that it is some of the most creative use of variation enriched repetition I've heard in a long time, along with those of Philip Glass. And just like Glass' compositions, BÄrtsch's capture, engulf, fascinate and enchant, except they do so in a more assertive, almost endearingly aggressive way, if you will, that almost has an undercurrent of stealthy military-on-foot-like advance and proud royal samurai-like dedication (if you take a hint from the composer's kimono clothing and occasional Japanese-in-performance-like short-upper-throaty-screams it all makes sense) under the commandeering direction of its main composer and leader.

All I can say is, you've got to hear this for yourself. This is not your average ECM record. This is not your average record. These compositions are magical, transcending space, matter and most definitely time!

Daniele Brusaschetto has been a staple in Italy's sad and ever-more-shrinking industrial/rock scene for at least 20 years now, and honestly I lost count of how many records he's made... he just keeps putting them out, as he should!
The latest one is called "Radio Stridentia" (full disclosure: I did master this CD) and is a collection of 6 songs, some in Italian and some in English, featuring guest drummer Bruno Dorella on two tracks, guest e-bow guitarist and synth-player Francesco Lurgo and guest synth player Marco Milanesio (of DsorDNE fame) on two tracks. This CD even has a Leonard Cohen cover, which I hadn't initially recognize.
Musically I would say Daniele revisited his darker and moodier songwriting and orchestration chops... the guitar is ever present, being his main instrument, and so is his peculiar vocal style, of course, but the surrounding instrumentation and arrangments are a bit less abrasive than in some of the previous releases, so the focus is back on the lyrics and the ambiance... The opening tune sounds like it is came straight out of one of the quieter Einsturzende Neubauten releases (think "Haus Der Luge" but with Daniele's languid, smooth and less atonal voice) but then turns into a mixture of that and a more nordic, almost Autechre/Boards of Canada sound. Right after that the fuzzy guitar comes at you strong to keep you on your toes and remind you what you just signed up for. This is maybe one of the hardest and harshest songs with a four on the floor almost techno-industrial beat that is subdued by the industrial fierceness and distortion. Then the strident radio tunes back into something initially more approachable, and by track 4 you even get a glimpse of a nylon string guitar (if not a first, definitely a rare sight in the Brusaschetto world). This is also the first track in English and it eventually turns into a drum'n'bass opus with a reverberated distorted synth line that kinda hovers over the interesting chord changes that evolve and devolve around the initial chord progression. Very interesting track. The punk roots of this artist sometimes shine through but never really make themselves known in a clear or obvious way or just hide under the noise-rock umbrella. When he goes from his low register to his falsetto singing and throws in clean arpeggios of electric guitar there are almost some echoes of Radiohead, or even The Cure (on track 7), but Brusaschetto always retains his harsher nature and his bedrock of industrial activity and art-rockerism, and he likes to remind you of that with a great closing track that has a bunch of guitar overdubs over some kind of repurposed and highly treated drum beat that carries one of his more melodic vocal performances.
If you are tired of the usual industrial rock or of the usual rock or of the usual industrial, and definitely if you are tired of the usual Italian music, you must check this guy out!

I've been familiar with Iusco's name since the early '90es as the founder of Minus Habens, one of Italy's most prominent electronic music labels (which released things by Angelo Badalamenti, Brian Eno, Depeche Mode and a number of Italian artists). I was less familiar with Iusco as a composer, but it turns out he's moved operations to Los Angeles and has been working hard as a film composer scoring mostly Italian movies for the better part of the last 15 years.

"Transients" is his second album and showcases his evolution from electronic music tinkerer to full blown orchestral composer. The cover art work of the digi pack looks like a blurred version of a dutch masters painting or a Rembrant portrait but it's actually by the internationally-acclaimed artists Miaz Brothers.

The album starts off with tracks that are very cinematic (as is most of the record, really) and more orchestral. Layers of more than 20 real world wind, brass, string instruments and atmospheres that range from mysterious and melancholic to grand and majestic... When there is a real violin (like on track "Mobilis in Mobili", played by Pantaleo Gadaleta, who also played with the great Morricone and Antony and the Johnsons) you can really hear how the track is lifted to a whole other level, proof of what true musicianship can contribute to any computer generate music project! Then from the fifth track on Iusco pulls out his nails and teeth out and sinks them into the largely unprepared listener with some great mean-ass IDM/industrial/electronic sounds... Two tracks later the album takes another sudden turn and becomes a more vintage sounding, dare I say, almost nostalgic old-school electronica record (echoes of Clock DVA, maybe even Tangerine Dream...). On the eight track ("Circuitless") a female vocalist is introduced (it's Tying Tiffany, who's been featured on CSI, The Hunger Games)... Then Ivan dips back into ethereal ambient soundscapism that almost leaves you with a sense of uneasiness and peace at the same time. But obviously, he prefers to pick things up again and go out in a blaze of glory because the closing "Unconquered" track is what you'd expect from the end scene of some epic battle movie or even a spaceship battle sci-fi film: it's as victorious, dazzling and magnum opus-like as you'd imagine it, the perfect end credit music for this album, even though it almost ends too soon and abruptly...

If you are into soundtracks and epic movie music that is a mixture of electronica and classical music, or any of those genres taken on their own for that matter, I'd recommend you give this a spin, or at least preview it on iTunes. There's some really good stuff in there!