Exposé Online » Reviews of releases for 2019

Tim Burness - Interconnected

This past November UK musician Tim Burness released his latest album, Interconnected. Like his previous album, this one features a wide range of musical styles, touching on electro-pop,...

Kevin Kastning / Sándor Szabó - Ethereal III

While there is a good chance I haven’t heard every one of Kastning and Szabó’s previous collaborations, I think it can be safely said that Ethereal III is unique among...

Alio Die & Lorenzo Montanà - The Threshold of Beauty

These are two names that any floating ambient music enthusiast can trust with certainty, and much like Alio Die’s collaboration with Mathias Grassow Expanding Horizon way back in...

Various Artists - Romantic Warriors IV - Krautrock Part 1

This is the fourth in a series of excellent documentaries produced by José Zegarra Holder and Adele Schmidt, and judging by the title, it probably won’t be the last. I checked my video...

Der Finger - Le Cinque Stagioni

Der Finger is a band from Moscow, Russia who play avant-free, dark jazz, noise, and psychedelic improvisational music. Their new album, Le Cinque Stagioni, is a set of five instrumentals...

The Yardbirds - Live and Rare

The 60s were turbulent times, the decade where rock music grew up, going through a number of phases and reaching new extremes as time went forward. Within the span of just two years, from 1963 to...

Petunia-Liebling MacPumpkin - All My Friends Live in Uncanny Valley - The Remixes

Now, if you thought that the lovely Miss MacPumpkin’s latest album

Various Artists - Romantic Warriors IV - Krautrock Part 1

The latest installment of the Romantic Warriors series takes us to Germany, a country with such a rich and varied history that it will require three full-length films to cover. As...

Moon Letters - Until They Feel the Sun

For a couple of years now in the Seattle area, Moon Letters has been impressing audiences with their modern take on classic progressive rock. The band could be considered a Northwest supergroup of...

Kuhn Fu - Chain the Snake

What do you do when you try to surpass your previous success? Try something different. And that is exactly what Kuhn Fu has done on their new album, Chain the Snake. The same elements are...

Breidablik - Nhoohr

Breidablik is back with another choice set of tasty electronic music. For the most part, Nhoohr is firmly in mid-70s Tangerine Dream mode, starting with icy string synth and the sounds of...

Subshine - Easy Window

At the risk of sounding like one of those old farts who’s always going on about how the “good old days” were better than today, I’m going to throw out the generalization...

Stratus Luna - Stratus Luna

Stratus Luna is a new four-piece from Brazil, but to hear this, their debut release, one would think these are old pros who have been at it as long as most of the members have been alive. The band...

Jeff Kelly - Beneath the Stars, Above the River

Those who know Jeff Kelly only from his work in The Green Pajamas might be a little surprised hearing Beneath the Stars, Above the River. His distinctive voice and a tinge of psychedelia...

Ni - Pantophobie

Three years after Les Insurgés de Romilly and time spent on side project PinioL, Ni is back with a new album, Pantophobie, released on March 1, 2019. While being faithful...

Various Artists - Post Now: Round One - Chicago vs New York

With a roster that includes such diverse artists and Cheer-Accident, Koenjihyakkei, Flying Luttenbachers, Space Streakings, Yowie, and many more, Skin Graft has become one of the most reliable...

Thirteen of Everything - Our Own Sad Fate

Austin’s progressive rock scene continues to produce excellent music. The latest is Thirteen of Everything’s second album Our Own Sad Fate. The band has a long and storied...

Satoko Fujii - Stone

Satoko Fujii piano solo Stone, not what you think! Yes, these fifteen pieces are most definitely performed solo on piano, but using mostly extended techniques, rather than sitting at the...

Tom Eaton - How It Happened

Tom Eaton is a Massachusetts based composer, multi-instrumentalist, producer, and engineer who has spent most of his career behind the scenes, producing and engineering dozens of releases for other...

The Ed Palermo Big Band - A Lousy Day in Harlem

After six albums on Cuneiform, all nothing less than superb, the Ed Palermo Big Band is back in action on Sky Cat records with A Lousy Day in Harlem, this time taking it in a slightly...

Sam Rosenthal with Nick Shadow & Steve Roach - The Gesture of History

Sam Rosenthal is probably better known for his band Black Tape for a Blue Girl, who have been releasing albums since the mid-1980s, or his label Projekt Records specializing in gothic,...

Emily Bezar - Out of the Moment

If you come to Out of the Moment as a listener unfamiliar with Emily Bezar’s music, I can only try to imagine what you might think. “The Longest Way” starts out with a...

Djam Karet - A Sky Full of Stars for a Roof

On their site, the band claims that this is their 19th album, but in fact their discography shows a few additional releases that they must not be counting (and that’s not even counting those...

Aria Primitiva - Sleep No More

It wasn’t that long ago that we reviewed the three song teaser Work in Progress, which was a preview of sorts to this, Aria Primitiva’s first full-length foray into their...

Byron Metcalf / Mark Seelig - Persistent Visions

One has to wonder... If this was designed to be a continuous 71 minute listening experience, why the heck was it broken into six tracks, especially when the end of one track is no different than...

Kuhn Fu - Chain the Snake

Surely what Kuhn Fu accomplished on their last album Kuhnspiracy couldn’t be topped, so this time out they seem to have wandered down a slightly different path, bringing forth their...

Rudolf Heimann - Die Unendlichkeit des Augenblicks

Electronic musician Rudoph Heimann is back with a new album, which is possibly his best to date, Die Unendlichkeit des Augenblicks or The Infinity of the Moment. This new album...

Kenyon Bunton - All Planes Must Land & This Guy's Disguised This Sky

Kenyon Bunton is a musician with roots back to bands in the 90s, ultimately unsuccessful, but mainly in the Cardiacs and London avant noise scene. Disillusioned with the music scene, Kenyon...

French Boutik - L'Âme de Paris

Overall all, L’Âme de Paris is an excellent set of aggressively pleasant French psych pop songs by French Boutik. L’Âme de Paris is meticulously...

Bobby Beausoleil - Voodoo Shivaya

“Bad breaks and hard knocks, it’s been a long hard road” are the opening lyrics on “Hard Road,” a dark, bluesy number that opens the first disc of this two disc set,...

Peter Orins - Happened by Accident

If one goes to the ‘discogs.com’ website and searches for Peter Orins, they will find that it simply says ‘drummer,’ though that’s certainly an oversimplification of...

Cabezas de Cera - Contigo y en Directo / En Vivo en el Alicia

One has to be amazed at how just two guys can make such absolute mind shattering music in a live setting, but the evidence is right here on this 71 minute compact disc, recorded on June 6, 2018 at...

My Favorite Martian - Martian Chronicles, Los Angeles 1990's

In the annals of American garage rock, My Favorite Martian is an interesting footnote, and this archival release serves to illuminate a little-known corner that deserves to be remembered. Al Bloch...

Massergy - Fire Opal

Massergy is the floating ambient electronic music project of one Eric Jensen, based in Austin, Texas. There’s an interesting back story here: Massergy was originally created to honor...

The Honey Pot - Bewildered Jane

The Honey Pot have come a long way since their first album and then debuting on Fruits de Mer Records. Their fifth full album, Bewildered Jane, was just released on Mega Dodo Records and...

Alister Spence and Satoko Fujii Orchestra Kobe - Imagine Meeting You Here

Moving into 2019, after releasing twelve albums (seems like more) last year, Satoko Fujii takes a back seat on this album, leaving composer and co-conspirator Alister Spence to take the reins of...

Craig Padilla & Marvin Allen - Toward the Horizon

For many years at Exposé we have been reviewing the work of Craig Padilla, both as a solo artist and in collaborations with Zero Ohms, Skip Murphy, Howard Givens, and others. A...

Robert Forster - Inferno

Robert Foster has a long musical career starting as the co-founder of the indie band The Go-Betweens in 1978. After that band broke up in 1989, he released his first solo album, Danger in the...

The Telescopes - Exploding Head Syndrome

The only thing constant with The Telescopes is founding member Stephen Lawrie. Every release explores a different musical direction. For his 11th album, Exploding Head Syndrome, Lawrie...

Radiant Mind / Steve Roach - Heliosphere

Radiant Mind is a soundscape and meditation music artist who prefers to exist in relative anonymity, but we suspect his real name is Robert Englis. On his first two releases Sense (2012)...

Ape Shifter - Ape Shifter II

A couple years since their debut, Jeff Aug and company are back for their sophomore release, another (almost) instrumental exploration of edgy hard rock played with a punk vengeance with only a few...

Kevin Kastning - Piano I

Kastning has played piano on many of his albums to date, mostly on collaborations where someone is playing guitar, but for his sixth solo album, he has crafted nine pieces – over an...

Steve Roach - Atmosphere for Dreaming

Released on January 1st 2019, I’ve been spinning this nearly every early morning for almost three months as this review is written, and it could go on like this for much longer too. We have a...

Chris O'Leary - Ashes to Ashes

Exhibit A

Ashes to Ashes covers The Songs of David Bowie, 1976-2016 — every song Bowie wrote or recorded in that time period in chronological order....

Jon Lundbom & Big Five Chord - Harder on the Outside

Big Five Chord’s ninth recording, Harder on the Outside, celebrates their 15th year as a band, and offers a mighty eight tracks, all purely instrumental explorations of hard-grooved...

Dr. Mark Lomax, II - 400: An Afrikan Epic, Vols.1 - 4

Dr. Mark Lomax, II is a 2018-19 Artist in Residence at the Wexler Center for the Arts at Ohio State University, and he has taken advantage of the Center’s support in a big way, putting...

Dr. Mark Lomax, II - 400: An Afrikan Epic, Vols.1 - 4

Dr. Mark Lomax, II is a 2018-19 Artist in Residence at the Wexler Center for the Arts at Ohio State University, and he has taken advantage of the Center’s support in a big way, putting...

Dr. Mark Lomax, II - 400: An Afrikan Epic, Vols.1 - 4

Dr. Mark Lomax, II is a 2018-19 Artist in Residence at the Wexler Center for the Arts at Ohio State University, and he has taken advantage of the Center’s support in a big way, putting...

Dr. Mark Lomax, II - 400: An Afrikan Epic, Vols.1 - 4

Dr. Mark Lomax, II is a 2018-19 Artist in Residence at the Wexler Center for the Arts at Ohio State University, and he has taken advantage of the Center’s support in a big way, putting...

Celeste - Il Risveglio del Principe

A short history of Celeste. There was a band called Il Sistema that existed from around 1969-71, never released anything during their lifetime, their permanent place in history only assured fot two...

Xochitzin & Ixonetzli - True Love Vol.1

A most unusual collection of folksongs by Mexican singer Xochitzin, with several previous albums to her credit, and multi-instrumentalist Luis ‘Ixonetzli’ Perez, who penned most of the...

Forrest Fang - The Fata Morgana Dream

Appropriately titled, most of Forrest Fang’s catalog could seem like the soundtrack of dreams, and this latest release underscores that sense, from the sprawling eleven-minute opener...

Ed Wynne - Shimmer into Nature

It’s been a good four years since the last Ozric Tentacles album Technicians of the Sacred came down from on high, a double CD and a great one which was promptly

Metaphor - The Pearl

It’s been at least ten years since Metaphor’s last album, The Sparrow, so the band certainly can’t be accused of flooding the market with product. Even with the passage...

Ruphus - Ranshart

The Norwegian group Ruphus suffered a drastic lineup shift after their 1973 debut, New Born Day, which resulted in the loss of, among others, both vocalists: Gundy Aspaas and Rune Sundby....

Mark Feldman's Level 5 - The Sybil EP

This short but anazingly effective helping of crisp, snappy, aggressive instrumental funk clocks in just shy of twenty minutes, and is in fact the debut offering by Level 5, the four-piece led by...