• This next one, for me, has been pretty special ever since I received it. It took me a while to pinpoint why exactly I loved Tomoyuki Asakawa’s Relaxation Music For Harp And Wave. Everytime I put it on bits and pieces of familiarity crept into my subconscious. I kept thinking the whole time: “I’ve heard…

  • There’s always a lovely melodicism to Italian minimalist music. Lately, I’ve been fascinated by the works of little known Italian record label Stile Librero for that reason. Let me introduce you to a slice of this spirit, through the work of harpist Andrea Piazza who released his gorgeous debut album dubbed Tirtaganga on it.

  • I have a confession to make: I didn’t quite “get” Criola’s Winter Songbook, for a long time. Looking back, though, this season, I’ve been blessed with many things in life and one of them has been running this blog. Never have I been so inspired, influenced, and devoted to maintain this running conversation with people…

  • Celebrating Christmas a bit early? Well, it seems I am (or for those stumble into this post in the future), you might be… Joyful, meaningful, and at times, quite lovely, Haruomi Hosono and Yukihiro Takahashi’s Yen Records released in 1983 a special compilation for their fans of their homegrown record label, Yen Records.

  • There’s a palpable meditation hovering around Lyu Hong-Jun’s masterwork 大地の詩, otherwise known as “Songs Of The Earth” or “Earth Songs”. Recorded for pioneering Japanese prefab home maker Misawa Home, landing place of equally pioneering musical works by Hiroshi Yoshimura and Yutaka Hirose, this album was supposed to provide another soundtrack to the unique, holistic experience they were selling. It’s…

  • Guest Mix by Klas Trollius Editor’s Note: I thought about what FOND/SOUND reader Klas states below: “connected to place-making (by creating a certain atmosphere, specific to the time and place of a recording) and displacement (by transporting you to a mental, perhaps fleeting place in your own mind)” and it made me truly understand his mix, in…

  • Illustration by Laura Gomez I usually don’t gravitate towards writing about something I didn’t include in a mix but I just have to make an exception this time, with the final volume of the Japanese New Age and Ambient series I created for NTS. Satoshi Sumitani’s “金の星と銀の星” (Kin No Hoshi To Gin No Hoshi) from 不思議の森~Forest…

  • That intersection between organic and inorganic has been something I’ve been chewing on lately. What makes something one or the other? I’d argue that something as simple as the introduction of sampler instruments revolutionized the way we can make that argument immaterial.

  • So very lovely. Forgive me if some of you are expecting something more experimental, electronic, or whatever else now. Me, I just want something like this. What is this? It’s the beginning of Ryokyu Endo’s sublime form of Japanese New Age music. In 1994, Ryokyu Endo’s Song Of Pure Land, or The Song Of Pure…

  • “Endlessly moving, always alive” no better words can describe this album than Windsor Riley’s own. There’s no way around it, The Move Of Life sounds lame on paper. A late ‘80s release, on another nameless record label, trying to peddle harmless instrumental music that would be at home on the Weather Channel or your local dentist…

ambient art pop art rock balearic brazilian electro-acoustic england environmental music experimental folk-rock fourth world Funk fusion japan jazz minimalist neo-folk neoclassical new age walearic