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While this blog may seem like it looks backward, it is actually in service of looking forward. I firmly believe that exploring new territory sometimes requires circling back to forgotten places. Right now, I’m exploring where Japanese ambient music left off after its early, pioneering “environmental and healing” period with artists like Hiroshi Yoshimura, Toshifumi…
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If you’re like me, sometimes all it takes is one listen to feel that a certain album or artist should have made a bigger mark. When I listen to Yow Okazaki’s Damage, with its fusion of hip-hop, techno, ambient and French Pop-influenced acid jazz, I think: now here’s music that merits a certain introduction.
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Trance Nature Sounds. I feel like anything I say about Hariyo Remixe’s might not do justice to the music as clearly as what you see on its album cover.
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There’s a fine line between background music and background music. It’s something that’s easier to hear than explain. And one way to do so, is to introduce you to the melodious environmental music of Kyoji Ohno and specifically, his, Kutsurogi (サイコジェネシス・シリーズ くつろぎ) .
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I gotta say: some of my favorite albums are those “imperfect” ones. Although they may not contain a complete record full of highlights, all is forgiven, because of those that do exist in one album. It’s those albums like the late, great, Richenel’s Deep As Blue.
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The chirp of crickets, a babbling brook, the melodies of a songbird, certain things trigger a sense of new life or of spring settling in. I say this because I feel the same way about Jimi Chen’s Discovering Arts Behind The Mountains 發現後山的藝術, his “character music” soundtrack for a documentary of the same name (which…
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“Sun’s out, fun’s out.” Could it be something that simple that inspired my latest “Digging Deep” mix for LYL Radio? Looking back, I think there might be something deeper than this.
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Listening to Yukihiro Fukutomi’s music takes me back to a different time. It reminds me of the first time I encountered Japanese music. If anyone else remembers this, it was staying up late at night to tune in to MTV’s AMP. It was on AMP that someone like me – far, far, far, from any…
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If you can, allow me one more diversion for the year. In my last post, I finally found words to describe what was my album of the year for 2022. Now I’m cycling back to an album that truly lingered in my headspace just as long this past year, 2023. It’s an album marked by…
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As a writer, I try to remain as objective as possible and not inject too much of myself into what I review. Yet, as we all know, it’s impossible to completely divorce yourself from a reality: music hits differently. How any piece of music affects you has to be informed by the contours that shape…
ambient art pop art rock balearic brazilian electro-acoustic england environmental music experimental fourth world Funk fusion japan jazz minimalist mpb neo-folk neoclassical new age walearic