When I went about curating my latest mix for LYL Radio, a phrase kept guiding me forward: “atmosphere as culture”. If any of you are like me, I imagine one of your passions might be exploring how much music can drive culture and vice versa. Some of that urge to simply “dig deeper” might lead one to more questions than answers. Yet, this exploratory journey takes you somewhere. As fuzzy as the picture tries to come into focus, some thing (of course) is in our line of site. And in today’s case it is our continued exploration of the lesser-known parts of Japanese ambient music.
Looking back, it’s a realization of just how much more “ambient media” plays in the world of Japanese culture. Everywhere in everyday Japanese life – from home to commute to work – spaces are full of specially-curated or created sound design. When the density of the Japanese city needs a respite for the person transiting through it, most often than not there will be a place where moments of silence are deepened with a sonic atmosphere coloring its edges.
It’s something in the West, we hear moments of when we consume exported media like video games or interact with consumer electronics like rice cookers and the like. From interstitial music to whole soundtracks, we consume pieces of atmospheric culture in some way. Yet, somewhere, out there, we tend to miss some of its bigger aesthetic design.
It’s something you can experience in the kind of music I’m sharing on this mix. Whether it’s the moment when Mitsuhiro’s “幽谷 / Deep Valley” meditative ambiance opens up to melodic ambient rumination or Shikibu’s “Beautiful Silence” transforms elegant, impressionistic melody into more ephemeral, environmental abstraction, every selection from this mix tries to find that connection between an atmosphere within our atmosphere.
Deep valley (幽谷)
Tracklist:
Yukiyo Nakamura (中村幸代) – 誘惑
Katsuhiko Nakagawa (中川勝彦) – 夜空に (Overture)
Mitsuhiro (光氷櫓) – 幽谷 / Deep Valley
Yoshihiro Kanno (菅野由弘) – 紙のオーケストラ (Paper Orchestra)
The Gentle Wind (ザ・ジェントル・ウインド) – Sun Dance
Yassue (ヤッシュー) – Leaves On The River
Tomoyuki Hayashi (林 知行) – ウォーター・ブルー (Water Blue)
Acoustic Café (アコースティックカフェ) – Woodlander’s Land
Akira Mitake (見岳 章) – 冷艶の窓辺
Toyo B.G.M. Corp. – レガレージョ
Shikibu (式部) – Beautiful Silence
Junichi Kamiyama (神山純一) – ミスティー パストラル (Misty Pastoral)
dip in the pool (ディップ・イン・ザ・プール) – View
Editor’s note: Cover image in post and other images generated by Dall-E 2 AI with prompts by author. “Cover” image reimagined by author for post.