I only keep up with Mats Gustafsson's discography intermittently, mostly when he collaborates with someone I like, which happens pretty much once a year anyway. Never listened to his band Fire! but this is apparently their sixth release? "Darkjazz" is not a genre, more of a descriptor, and if it had a home and a sound it would maybe be Rune Grammofon and Supersilent, so this slots in decently, doesn't even really sound like jazz so much. It's slow and drone-y and has lots in common with Sleep or Black Sabbath or the Melvins even. But also with traces of some of Gustafsson's other bands like The Thing and Two Bands and a Legend. Overall it's pretty cool, definitely different than what I expected, not a home run but a pretty cool record nonetheless.
DOPE re-ish of Midori Takada's 1981 debut album as MKWAJU Ensemble - you may recall last year WRWTFWW released Takada's Through the Looking Glass LP, but this one's even better - a wild mix of Japanese ambient and African rhythms played on marimba, vibraphone, synthesizer and percussion. RIYL Terry Riley or Tubular Bells, or even more new age-y weirdness like Vangelis, but these rhythms are so wild I wouldn't bat a lash at all if you told me the Animal Collective bros stayed up nights listening to these. Check out "Angwora Steps", totally out of pocket. "Hot Air" is a spacious breather, the other tracks pile up the rhythms in slowly-shifting crescendos...crazy stuff.

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