Geinoh Yamashirogumi - 3 records

(band's logo)

This is probably the weirdest and the most different, also most fascinating kind of sound I can imagine. It's a mix of buddhist chanting, japanese folk, indonesian gamean music and synthetizers. The band's most well-known and probably best work is Akira soundtrack. Nevertehless, I would recommend the people who are new to the band to download and listen in the order of this post.
"Geinoh Yamashirogumi (Japanese: 芸能山城組, Geinō Yamashirogumi) is a Japanese musical collective founded on January 19, 1974 by Tsutomu Ōhashi, consisting of hundreds of people from all walks of life: journalists, doctors, engineers, students, businessmen, etc.
They are known for both their faithful re-creations of folk music from around the world, as well as their fusion of various traditional musical styles with modern instrumentation and synthesizers." Links taken from Zombiepaper's list on RYM .

Ecophony Rinne (1986)

1. Primordial Germination 11:49

2. Falling as Flowers Do - Dying a Glorious Death 7:55

3. Dark Slumber 5:11

4. Reincarnation 13:37


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Akira OST (1990)

1. Kaneda 3:10
2. Battle Against Clown 3:36
3. Winds Over The Neo-Tokyo 2:48
4. Tetsuo 10:18
5. Doll's Polyphony 2:55
6. Shohmyoh 10:10
7. Mutation 4:50
8. Exodus From The Underground Fortress 3:18
9. Illusion 13:56
10. Requiem 14:25

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Osorezan/ Duo No Kenbai (1976)

1. Osorezan (Mountain of Fear) 18:55
2. Doh no Kembai (Copper Sword Dance) 18:47

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Christian Zanesi - Le Paradoxe de la Femme-Poisson

"Christian Zanési (1952) is a younger composer who has been active with the GRM since 1977 after studying with Pierre Schaeffer and Guy Reibel. He is “a pure studio composer, a ‘sound sculptor.’ His music, which is inscribed and elaborated in the stereophonic environment, aims at establishing via loudspeakers a physical connection with the listener: that vibrant, organic being.” He says: “I have the very distinct feeling that music is only a ‘grand noise’ and that its interior is sculpted in a thousand details. It opens like a living organism to let my hearing wander around in it.”"

Music composed for a choreographic spectacle by Michel Kelemenis. Atmospheric musique concrete / electroacoustique, one of the best things I've heard from this genres.

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Paweł Łukaszewski - Choral Music

1. Beatus vir, Sanctus Paulus
2. Beatus vir, Sanctus Antonius
3. Beatus vir, Sanctus Martinus
4. Memento mei, Domine
5. Crucem tuam adoramus, Domine
6. Ave Maria
7. O Sapienta
8. O Adonai
9. O Radix Jesse
10. O Clavis David
11. O Oriens
12. O Rex gentium
13. O Emmanuel
14. Psalmus 102
15. Nunc dimittis



A compilation of choral works by probably the best of the young generation of polish sacred music composers, Paweł Łukaszewski, written between 1992 and 2007. Performed by the Choir of Trinity College conducted by Stephen Layton. Some of the material performed here has never been released before, thus is it my favourite brand-new classical release from 2008.

Łukaszewski manages to be somewhat innovative while staying tonal and gentle. He calls his style "renewed modality", thus standing in line with Part, Tavener, Gorecki, and such like, but I consider his style more harmonicaly adventerous than theirs. This record is a fine perfomance of well-crafted choral works which manage to be hauntingly beautiful without becoming conservative or repetitive. Good reviews from Gramophone and BBC.

publisher's description: "This latest disc from Trinity showcases the talent of this marvellous young choir in a disc of seductively beautiful spiritual music from Poland.
Pawel Lukaszewski is the most outstanding of the younger generation of Polish composers specializing in sacred choral music. His ability to encapsulate the expressive essence of a text with immediacy and economy of technical means is unrivalled, as is his facility of idiomatic vocal writing. He has an enormously subtle and varied harmonic palette—unlike some of his contemporaries—and creates an organically new harmonic world for each piece. His extended tonal sound world is enriched by highly selective use of vocal effects such as glissandi, parlando (speaking) and susurrando (whispering), all of which occur invariably in direct response to clear textual stimuli."

the composer himself:


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Kayhan Kalhor and Brooklyn Rider - Silent City (2008)

I discovered it yesterday, and to my great surprise it turned out to be brilliant, my favourite record from 2008. It's persian folk-classical music merged with western tradition to a hautingly beautiful result. Of course ithas nothing to do with choral music, but it's "brilliant enough". ;) Kayhan Kalhor is a Kurd born in Iran, truly a master of his instrument, Kamancheh, you can see it, as well as the master himself here:

Silent City (2008):

1 Ascending Bird 6:54

2 Silent City 29:10

3 Parvaz 6:23

4 Beloved, do not let me be discouraged 10:34

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Vladimir Hirsch - Tobruk

1 Agami (Introduction)

2 The Presage

3 First Victory

4 At The Grave

5 Reentry Of Enemies

6 The Escape

7 Through Ther Desert

8 Inertia Of Space

9 Destiny Command

10 Back To Struggle

11 The Final Gleam

12 Catharsis (Ending)

One of the best records I've heard from this year. Some tracks are brilliant, the rest is at least good. This isn't choral music, but I consider it great and obscure enough to deserve some promotion. The author is a promising young Czech composer, known for his experiments with mixing dark ambient with contemporary classical, the result he calls "integrated music".

"Soundtrack to the movie with the same name. Musicians: Vladimír Hirsch - keyboards, synthesizers, samplers, digital technique, programming) with participation of Martina Sanollová (vocal in no.12) and Czech Integrated Ensemble. Thematic album, created from the author´s original soundtrack, where he participated unsuccesfully in competition for the movie with the same name. Twelwe tracks with mainly descriptive names of scenes or acts, bring together an axis of the story, respecting in contours the movie screenplay. Total time 44 min. CDR (© 2008 CatchArrow Recordings, Catch 057)."

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