You always begin with a blank canvas. Then, you fill it with as many colors and shapes you need. Ending with a blank canvas is the ideal of any meditation. Music for meditation, as the late Fumio Miyashita’s Tenkawa Isuzu intends to be, should be an oxymoron. I beg to differ.
You see, meditation itself comes in many forms. First, is the most known: the meditation within, a passive practice. This stillness of mind/body, begins by closing both eyes; trying to find divinity by losing one’s self, through self-awareness. The second is the least known, yet unknowingly the most practiced, that of the moving meditation. Yoga, tai chi, hiking, forest bathing (a Japanese idea) involve using movement to draw the focus away from one’s self into the act occurring in front of us. The idea of “drishti”, having a focused gaze on something one can examine, to draw attention away from us can occur when we do something as simple go out for a walk, admire a particular plant…then take the time to as they say “smell the roses” or trying to balance on one’s leg while staring at some fixed object on a wall. Meditation music, as Fumio imagines it, perfectly fits that second bill. Purposefully, engaging, it has a distinct affectation of drawing you in when you really focus on it.
Fumio Miyashita, if he’s known for anything, it’s for once being the lead singer of the heady Japanese psychedelic Far East Band. Hailing from Nagano, Fumio would join other notable members like Akira Ito and Kitaro to form a band that appeared trying bridge the gap between Pink Floyd and Klaus Schulze. When whatever planet they sailed away to exiled them back, Fumio seemed to take the same turn as his other bandmates would by diving into this new kind of space music called New Age.
For Fumio, his early dive into ethno-New Age and Berlin School-indebted instrumental music had more due to his own troubles with back ailments, spirituality. Originally settling in Los Angeles, with time he returned back to As he drew away from the hard-nosed life of a rock star, Fumio discovered that Chinese medicine, acupuncture, Buddhism, and Japanese philosophy were facilitating his own physical and personal rejuvenation — you know, the typical story of a “dirty” hippy discovering other forms to develop their dormant philosophies. A string of early, instrumental, solo albums soundtracking Japanese anime and manga would show him beginning as a multi-layered, multi-instrumentalist more in tune with creating music that sounded like a more bombastic cousin to Manuel Göttsching’s own work as Ash Ra. Space, apparently, was the welcome space for someone like he who needed to remove himself from the music.
As Fumio discovered and purposefully educated himself in the ideas of music therapy, or using music as a means to help others, Fumio started to shift his creative focus back to a different kind of music. Absconding the maximalism of his past, he shifted towards making more minimal music. In 1984, Fumio Miyashita began his own record label (Biwa) to pitch/promote something that was rare to non-existent in Japan: healing music. Not quite the brethren to Steve Halpern’s take, Fumio attempted to use then, cutting edge synthesizer technology to affect the same, supposed, physically/emotionally beneficial mood music that could actually “heal” you when listened to.
Fitting for a one man band, his first release 1985’s 21st Century New Sound – Healing Music, featured all, varied sorts of digital synthesis technology that could intone the right frequencies needed to create this music:
Casio CZ-5000, CZ-1000, CZ-101, Juno-60, SH-2, Prophet-600Pro, JX-3P, PG-200, PC-8801mk II, MPU-401, Six-Trak Pro, EX-800, System-100M, MC-4, Drum Traks Pro, Chroma Polaris.
This, first release was full of long, developing ambient synth music that could easily soundtrack your next bedtime doze. Fumio, himself, would perform live at some of the first Japanese “sleep” concerts ever recorded using the music he created here. Equating healing = rest, Fumio’s creativity under his Biwa label allowed him to tailor specific releases, toward specific ideas or purposes. My favorite of his multitude of releases he’d go on to make after that totemic release, is the one where anyone can get varied, quick, affirming, musical vignettes to place one’s mind at ease and in situ…if one’s mind so required it: Tenkawa Isuzu.
Fumio’s Tenkawa Isuzu, as the name implies, was inspired by a journey to the Tenkawa Dai-Benzaiten Shrine in southern Osaka. There, one could experience a temple that befitted the goddess of everything that flows viscous and earthy — rolling brooks, winding terraces, spindly bridges, and gorgeous, mountainous vistas serve as background to intriguing concerts, performances, and other festivities. One of the most sacred spaces in Japan, for ages it has been a source of inspiration for musicians and artists who journey there to divine a feeling.
And divined he was, as Fumio was able to hear the “isuzu”, or sacred treasure, of the temple — a rarity for any visitor to experience. In this case, it was Tenkawa Dai’s bell that is supposed to ring, giving out an “otodama”, unlike anything else in Japan. Fittingly, this release sounds like little else he’d release afterward.
On the album cover of Fumio’s Tenkawa Isuzu you can examine a replica of this triangular bell. On the album cover as well, you can view a few photos of the places Fumio travelled to and then came back to his rural studio to create music for. It defeats the purpose for me to describe the music in hear.
What you will hear tends to evoke the sounds found in temples. It is Japanese New Age, with a very capital J, in the New Age. Throughout this album, various synth programs are used to affect the tolling of bells, the droplets of water or samon, the jingles of shaken percussion as you’ll hear in “Seiryune”, “Ten No Sato”, and “Amatsuzumi”. Floating pads and twisting malleted instruments are found in the heart of songs like “Ama”, “Kami”, and “Uzu No Suzumai”. At the end and in the beginning, we get to hear the special ring from Tenkawa’s isuzu that inspiring Fumio so much.
Myself, what I try to focus on, are the many arpeggios Fumio uses to create a hypnotic sense of musicality and perhaps some of Tenkawa Isuzu’s otherworldliness. At the end of the day, Fumio gets it right: meditation can be as much about what’s out there…as what’s in here… Healing always seems to require a bit of effortless focus.