Phurpa are an intriguing band. How many Russian groups inspired by Buddhist throat singing and ritual music are out there? They're pretty cool. Here they're teaming up with Visions, not a project I'm familiar with. Visions is Cyclic Law label boss Frederic Arbour's dark ambient thing, and I have to compliment the pairing here because of course dark ambient compliments Phurpa's ritual music extremely well - although admittedly it feels like Sunn O))) mined this vein already. At 40 minutes it's surprisingly short for a Phurpa outing and if you already like them then you'll like this as it's nothing too out of the box but more of the same goodness.
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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