Tag: American Dreams (record label)

MANAS’ Layering of Texture and Rhythm on Free Jazz Single “100 sunset” is the Soundtrack to a Transformative Experience

MANAS is a duo comprised of Tashi Dorji and Thom Nguyen who will release the album The most yielding thing in the world will overcome the most rigid on October 30 via American Dreams. Conceptualized as the score for 100 Sunset, the feature film debut from Tibetan-Canadian director Kunsang Kyirong. The piece “100 sunset” sounds like the music you’d expect to hear in an ancient temple. It sounds mysterious, the production is immersive in its use of space and how it captures the texture of Dorji’s unconventional use of guitar and Nguyen’s almost impressionistic employment of drum, gong, cymbal and utility items for an effect like abstract free jazz. But it also has an analog, tactile quality that keeps you in wondering where this evolving set of sounds is going as it does move into different dynamics as the song progresses with the soundscape not so minimal and spacious at times but with an intricacy and establishment of atmosphere that isn’t fully dependent on sustained notes although there are some of those in the drones Dorji brings forth. By the end of the song one feels like one has undergone some kind of internal change of perspective and expectation in a way no standard pop song could effect. Fans of how John Hassell established unique moods in his own compositions with a transformative processing and performance of trumpet will recognize a creative kinship here. Listen to “100 sunset” on Spotify and follow Tashi Dorjii on Instagram.

Patrick Shiroishi’s Ambient Jazz Piece “There is no moment in my life in which this is not happening” is a Meditation on the Ongoing, Daily Impact of the Legacy of Racism and Colonialism

Patrick Shiroishi, photo courtesy the artist

Patrick Shiroishi’s forthcoming new album Forgetting is Violent (out September 19, 2025 on vinyl, for download and streaming via American Dreams) promises more of his exploratory compositional technique. The track “There is no moment in my life in which this is not happening” features Elizabeth Colour Wheel’s elemental vocalist otay::onii contributing a slow wailing chant alongside Shiroishi’s own spoken phrases to the layered, ritualistic drones paired with rhythms embodied in the iterative flow of organic textures. The sound of Shiroishi’s signature saxophone is transformed into characteristically nearly unrecognizable forms. One imagines this music being performed in a remote, Zen meditation retreat in a spot that continues to be a place of deep, internal, mystical experiences once your mind is freed of the distraction of the press and demands of commodified modern existence in the global capitalist dystopia. Once freed of that energy the recognition of one’s ongoing connection to eternal forces and patterns becomes obvious and this song seems to speak to the process of reconnecting with that which is ongoing underneath the illusion of atomized, monetized, contingent social reality. The album itself is a meditation on the legacy of racism and colonialism and the title resonates with the lingering and still very present impacts of such historical realities that permeate daily existence whether society collectively chooses to acknowledge them or not. Listen to “There is no moment in my life in which this is not happening” on Spotify and follow Patrick Shiroishi on Instagram.