DOMINIC VALVONA’S MONTHLY RECCOMEDNATIONS AND DISCOVERIES (Photo credit: Ben Semisch, courtesy of Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts) Jaimie Branch ‘Fly Or Die Fly Or Die Fly Or Die ((word war))’(International Anthem) 25th August 2023 As an unwittingly last will and testament, the late experimental trumpeter Jaimie Branch’s final led album with her Fly Or Die ensemble is a beautiful collision of ideas and worldly fusions that pushes and pulls but never comes unstuck. In fact, despite the “world war” suffix backdrop this album of both hollered and more disarming protestation colourfully emb ..read more

New Music on our radar, archive spots and now home to the Monolith Cocktail “cross-generational/cross-genre” Social Playlist – Words/Put Together By Dominic Valvona PHOTO CREDIT:: ZOE DAVIS A new thread, feed for 2023, the Digest pulls together tracks, videos and snippets of new music plus significant archival material and anniversary celebrating albums or artists -sometimes the odd obituary to those we lost on the way. From now on in the Digest will also be home to the regular Social Playlist. This is our imaginary radio show; an eclectic playlist of anniversary celebrating albums, a s ..read more

Dominic Valvona’s Reviews Roundup A Glitterbeat Records Double-Bill:- Liraz ‘Roya’ (Glitterbeat Records) 7th October 2022 With one foot on the nostalgic dance floors of, a pre-revolutionary, Tehran, Cairo, Beirut and Tel Aviv, and another, sweeping a fantastical Persian landscape, pop princess Liraz oozes passionate yearns and diaphanous delivered protestations on her third album, Roya. In the adopted Farsi-tongue that title translates as ‘fantasy’. And this latest harmonious Israeli-Iranian traverse has plenty of it; swirled in vaporous whispers, veils and the airy across matinée romant ..read more

Dominic Valvona’s Reviews Roundup The Invisible Sessions ‘Echoes Of Africa’ (Space Echo) 29th January 2021 The very first sounds you hear on the long awaited follow up to The Invisible Sessions last album in 2006 are those of an aircraft touching down on the runway, somewhere between a straddled geography of Lagos and Addis Ababa. From then on in those compass points of inspiration permeate the collective’s first album for the newly launched Space Echo imprint. An odyssey across the motherland, The Invisible Sessions instigator Luciano Cantone (also the co-founder of the Schema label) is ..read more

Album Review/Dominic Valvona University Challenged ‘Oh Temple!’ (Hive Mind Records) 29th January 2021 A cosmic couriers union of transcendent, experimental and Kosmische scions the University Challenged play-on-words entitled trio of Ajay Saggar, Oli Heffernan and Kohhei Matsuda make their 2021 debut on the adroit and carefully curated Hive Mind imprint. Synonymous for its eclectic output of global releases, with albums by the late doyen of Moroccan gnawa music, Maalem Mahmoud Gania (and his son, Houssam Gania) plus volumes dedicated to Indonesian Jaipongan and the Atlas Mountains electric ..read more

ALBUM REVIEW/DOMINIC VALVONA Gunther Wüsthoff  ‘Total Digital’ (Bureau B)  Album/10th July 2020 Attuned to the signals and broadcast traffic chatter of a very different kind when serving out his military service as a naval radio operator, the one-time Faust instigator and soloist Gunther Wüsthoff tapped into that formative training to search and tune-in to more imaginative and alien frequencies when set loose from the tumult of post-war Germany. As the legend goes, Wüsthoff’s pathway towards sonic experimentation was laid out in art school, where he met future Faust comrades Rudo ..read more

Album Review/Dominic Valvona Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Paraiso U.F.O. Ft. Geoff Leigh   ‘Chosen Star Child’s Confession’    (Riot Season)   LP/15th May 2020 Krautrock replicates, bowing in reverence at the temple gates of their German inspirations, but also carrying on the lineage of their native country’s own experimental doyens (groups like Les Rallizes Dénudés and the Far East Family Band), the Acid Mothers Temple have carried the torch for acid-rock, the avant-garde and progressive when forbearers and contemporaries have faded or disbanded. Coming o ..read more