7FO - RYU NO NUKEGARA (LP)

"7FO: pronounced "nana f o" in English, "nana" being seven. Ryu no Nukegara: "dragon's husk". These are the only difficulties you'll encounter here. This is warm, friendly, relaxed music, very "understandable" and yet intriguing, sure to appeal to fans of electronic ambient, dub and chill-out music, as well as artists like Haruomi Hosono, Captain Ganja, La Monte Young, Equiknoxx and Tapes. The Osaka-based 7FO combines groovily sparse electronic percussion with similarly sparse dub-feel synth bass, as well as pentatonic synth and steel pan melodies, the latter with an intriguing Okinawa/Sunda/Malay feel. Sparkling dub-influenced processing and thoughtful mixing gives us a music which is trans-oceanic, warm, and enveloping. Following releases on RVNG, Bokeh Versions and Metron, 7FO's new album Ryu no Nukegara is available on LP and CD, featuring a suite of four tracks and the 20-minute title track, whose titular dragon is Asian: a potent symbol of water, strength and good luck." (label info)