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'smooth and mild'

Pizzicato Five: Hi guys! Let me teach you - Surprisingly good

Sunday, July 30, 2006
I'm on record in the comments as having said Pizzicato Five's pre-1994 material is of questionable merit. Well, I have to take it back a little, because I forgot completely about 1991's Hi guys! Let me teach you. It's an über-smooth instrumental set, with a jazzy groove and a relaxing downtempo lounge feel. It was recorded as a soundtrack to a japanese tv show and is ...

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Yoshinori Sunahara - Pan Am: The Sound of the 70s

Monday, July 24, 2006
I recently had the pleasure of reacquainting myself with a little record called Pan Am: The Sound of the 70s, a dazzling example of late-90s downtempo shibuya-kei from producer Yoshinori Sunahara. Some truly funky beats, lush arrangements, and (surprisingly for an offshoot of electronic music), some engaging songcraft grace this remarkably enjoyable album. Sunahara, who has an obsessive fascination with air travel demonstrates that ...

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Nobukazu Takemura - For Tomorrow: Downtempo Premonition

Thursday, July 6, 2006
Bouncing off my recent Mudhoney post, I'd like to bring up Nobukazu Takemura once again. I was recently given the pleasure of listening to his For Tomorrow disc, which like My Brother the Cow, was released in 1995, and is the accompanying single to the album Child's View. It strikes me that, even though the two records were released around the same time, Takemura's offering appears ...

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The Cinematic Orchestra - Man With a Movie Camera: Watch it

Saturday, July 1, 2006
The Cinematic Orchestra is a relatively new addition to my library, arriving late last year. the group's style is a kind of downtempo modern jazz with flavors of hip hop and rock and electronics that, as the name of the band implies, give it a sound like a very cool soundtrack. In fact, that's what Man With A Movie Camera is. A couple years ago, the group ...

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K-pax: Electronic, Score, or Electronic Score?

Saturday, June 24, 2006
If I didn't already know differently, I would never have guessed that the soundtrack to K-pax was from a movie. indeed, it plays more like a backroom-in-the-club chill-laced downtempo record than a film score. This is the only record by Edward Shearmur that I have, so I don't know whether this is out of the ordinary for him, but I must say that I thoroughly enjoyed it ...

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Jim O’rourke, Cinematic Orchestra and DJ Krush: Downtempo day

Friday, June 2, 2006
First off today, Jim O'rourke's i'm happy, and i'm singing, and a 1, 2, 3 , 4, which consists of precisely three songs of significant length, one for each of the phrases in the album title. O'rourke is a musical genius and I'm convinced that if he had lived 100 years ago he would have been a master composer. This album is a bit of departure for ...

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Gomez - Bring It On: Brits with the blues

Wednesday, March 15, 2006
beware the ides of march indeed. today's showing is a rather pitiful 16 songs. That's just one complete album and a handful of live Soul Coughing tracks. gomez [bring it on] So it was a short day, but a quality one. One that answers the question "what do brits do when they get the blues?" the answer is "Bring It On." Sporting a trio ...

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