zikzak 11 - Sounds Unseen. Contemporary Music From Europe & Beyond 1980 to 1994

Its been a little while since i posted up anything on zikzak. My personal life has been kinda turbulent for the past few months but things are starting to settle down now so i thought this was a good time to make a mix.

This is actually the first mix i made this year so far and I’m pretty excited to be able to bring it to you.

As you might imagine from the 10 previous mixes i have done, i am pretty obsessed with genre. To a fault i might add. I have always liked grouping things. It helps me to better understand music and music history. 

The largest part of me knows that its not particularly great to lump things together.

The one upside to this fascination, is that since i am so focused on style, i really notice when certain things fall outside of what i can easily put into boxes. 

Thats where this mix comes in.

It features music mostly from 1980 to 1994. Its dominated by artists from Italy, Spain & Japan with a variety of other countries thrown in

I have a hard time writing about music in general. Why I started a substack I will never know…) and this one is the hardest of all.

As an introduction, i wanted to make a relatively quick mention of how i became aquatinted with some of this music. Oddly enough, as i’m typing this, i now realize how i became fixated with genre in general.

In my late teens (circa 1988-1992) i was fortunate to work in a really excellent record shop. We did mostly rock music in all its forms. Next door to us was another record shop. It was called Playing By Ear. My boss and the owner of the shop next door were partners but the two shops were divided into distinct styles. They specialized in prog rock, avant garde jazz, folk, and what i called “contemporary” music. Our rock shop was a typical, poorly organized, frayed around the edges, old school record store.

The place next door was different. Very different. They had a turntable that cost more than the car i was driving. When you walked in, they would offer you espresso. Everything was neat and tidy, super organized and curated. They sold select pieces of stereo equipment that were so pricey it took my breath away. The shop was very aspirational for me. When i look on Instagram now, i see these gorgeous shops like Estuario in L.A. or Public Records in NYC. This was the same idea (just with less plants) 30 years ago.

The music my friend David sold at his shop/sanctuary changed everything for me. Most of my musical knowledge came from those few years. I learned a whole lot about prog and things like that but one of the other types of music i learned about is the stuff you see in this mix. Most of it was new or newish at the time and while it had similarities to lot of different things, it has its own place and feel that to my ears was distinct. It wasnt rock (or it would have been in my shop), it wasnt folk, or jazz, or really exactly anything i could put my finger on. Some of it was what you would call ambient now, but at the time it wasn’t really nailed down as that. A lot of the artists i liked were Spanish and Italian. Suso Saiz was a particular favorite. Some of it was on vinyl but a lot of it was coming out on CD. No one outside of this shop even talked about this music and for years, i felt like it was my little secret

Fast forward quite a few years and i learn about this label called Music From Memory. They were putting out music that was this sort of vibe and feel. Some of the artists were new to me for sure but it was this sound that i had fallen in love with. Beautiful, musical, sophisticated, stylish, mysterious & very satisfying to listen to, both in sound quality and content.

That label made a serious sonic impact and other labels started to investigate this amazing, unnamed music that wasn’t any one thing but when you heard it, you kinda knew you were onto something special

I really struggled to figure out what to call this stuff for the mix but eventually i settled on “contemporary”. Its even more reasonable to call it that because i feel a lot of the shape of the music being made today is down to these artists. A whole new generation of musicians has been turned onto this music from the 80’s & 90’s

Now we have labels like RVNG, Unseen Worlds, Seance Centre, Emotional Rescue, and so many others that are reissuing older items, and releasing new artists that are sonically right at home with this feel.

One thing i should mention is that this sound definitely has crossover with the music found on the ECM label. I have to confess that its not an area of my expertise in anyway. I do know that the C in ECM stands for Contemporary. And while its a jazz label, the artists and music it presents stand out. Music writer Ted Gioia says this about ECM…

Few were paying attention when Eicher launched ECM in 1969. The acronym stood for “Edition of Contemporary Music,” though I’ve never heard any jazz fan use that full title. For music lovers, ECM would eventually stand for many other things: impeccable audio fidelity, high production standards, and stellar musicianship, but most of all, a vision of contemporary music unconstrained by geographic borders and genre pigeonholes.

https://www.city-journal.org/article/the-most-beautiful-sound-next-to-silence

In some ways, this is my personal ECM. What people say and feel about the German label, i find in this music. I wasnt really aquainted with it growing up, so this music i understand in better context writing about it today.

Anyhow, this was my super poor way of explaining what i see in this music and how it fits together with the past and the future. I hope you enjoy. I have given links so you are able to purchase most any and all of these albums

As always, my mix is free and nearly 3 hours

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Bebo Baldan - "EB-O" (0:00 -04:45) Italy 1991

Roberto Musci - "Nexus On The Beach" (04:14 -10:24) Italy 1987

Birdsongs of the Mesozoic - "The Orange Ocean" (10:20 - 12:37) USA 1983

Roberto Aglieri - "Il Sogno Di Ghilli Du"  (12:11 - 16:42) Italy 1987

Carlos Maria Trindade and Nuno Canavarro ‎- "Blue Terra" (16:23 - 20:26) Portugal 1991

Conrad Praetzel - "Stone Circles" (23:07 - 25:59) USA 1988

The Doubling Riders - "Nights" (25:30 - 28:30)

Raffaele Serra - "Memories of an Unborn Baby" (28:14 - 31:32) Italy 1998

https://www.discogs.com/release/876424-Raffaele-Serra-Kodak-Ghost-Poems

Miguel Noya - "Olfativo" (30:54 - 33:56) Venezuela 198?

K. Leimer - "Assemble and Diffuse"  (33:51 - 38:21) USA 1981

G. B. Beckers - "Walkman" (38:09 - 43:33) Germany 1982

Macías -  "Balada Ovalada" (43:17 - 46:28) Spain 1988

https://www.fondsound.com/macias-regreso-a-valencia-1988/

Suso Saiz -"Se Que Estas Ahi" (46:01 - 48:58) Spain 1991

Francesco Messina - "Uffici del 126° Piano" (48:48 - 53:20) Italy 1983

Javier Paxarino - "Tierra Baja" (52:57 - 59:16) Spain 1994

https://www.discogs.com/release/3663516-Javier-Paxari%C3%B1o-Temura

Jun Fukamachi - "Breathing New Life"  (58:51 - (01:03:48) Japan 1986

Markus Stockhausen & Jasper Van't Hof -  "Daybreak" (01:02:57 - 01:06:26) Germany 1980

Raul Lovisoni & Francesco Messina - "Prati Bagnati Del Monte Analogo" (01:06:16 - 01:12:17) Italy 1979

Midori Takada - "Mr Henri Rousseau's Dream" (01:11:10 - 01:17:42) Japan 1983

Musica Esporadica - "Combustion Interna" (01:15:45 - 01:21:05 ) Spain 1985

Iury Lech-"Continuo ii" (01:20:29 to 01:24:14 ) Spain 1989

Craig Leon - "The Customs of the Age Disturbed" (01:23:34 - 01:29:22 ) USA 1980

Music From Temple - (Evenings Part 1) (01:28:45 - 01:31:14 ) Japan 1983

https://www.discogs.com/release/12032699-Music-From-Temple-Music-From-Temple

Ishinohana - "Lucia" (01:31:07 - 01:35:46) Spain 1986

Albert Alan Owen - "Following the Light, Part 3" (01:35:47 - 01:40:38) UK 1982

Orquesta De Las Nubes - "Tiempo De Espera"  (01:40:31 - 01:48:07) Spain 1987

Andreolina - "Market Of The Lost Illusions" (01:48:03 -  01:53:43) Italy 1990

John Lafia - "Spaghetti Western" (01:53:20 - 01:58:47) USA 1984

Hiroshi Yoshimura -  "Creek" (01:58:45 - 02:03:48) Japan 1982

Sam Mallet - "Sun Glints On The Ocean" (02:03:09 - 02:06:13) Australia 198?

Pep Llopis - "Muntanyes De Granit" (02:03:39 - 02:11:51) Spain 1987

Su Tissue - "Salon De Musique" (02:11:36 - 02:17:44) USA 1984

https://www.discogs.com/release/3072059-Su-Tissue-Arspenlian-Reeves-Salon-De-Musique

Yas-Kaz - "Junpu" (02:17:23 - 02:22:26) Japan 1989

https://www.discogs.com/release/1185214-Yas-Kaz-Darkness-In-Dreams

Attilio - "Protect Me"  (02:21:52 - 02:25:58) USA 1989

https://www.discogs.com/release/8851219-Attilio-Art-Takes-A-Holiday

Javier Bergia - "Himalaya" (02:24:34 - 02:29:00) Spain 1985

Finis Africae - "Dança Do Corpo" (02:28:46 - 02:34:00) Spain 1990

L'Empire Des Sons - "L'Année De La Comete" (02:33:48 - 02:36:54) France 1986

https://www.discogs.com/release/2045937-LEmpire-Des-Sons-LEmpire-Des-Sons

Interior -"Flamengo" (02:36:53 - 02:31:48) Japan 1982

Suso Saiz - "Naranja" (02:41:23 - 02:46:30) Spain 1984

H.N.A.S - "Welt der Getränkte"  (02:46:03 - 02:55:26) Germany 1986

Gigi Masin - "Stella Maris" (02:55:16 - 03:01:28) Italy 1991