How does one get into the surprisingly prolific work of S.E.N.S. made up of the duo of Akihiko Fukaura and Yukari Katsuki? You start at the very beginning. Japanese readers probably don’t need me to rehash all this old history, but seeing as how S.E.N.S. is practically an institution (if not an actual company) in and of itself and a household name, I’ll do my best to catch everyone else up to speed.
Prodigious as heck and oundtracking all sorts of CMs, dramas, movies, TV shows, and radio programs, there hasn’t been one bit of mass Japanese culture that hasn’t been graced with S.E.N.S.’s rich New Age music. And because it’s summertime, I’m highlighting one of their most diverse and quite summer-like releases: 1988’s Masala Tea Waltz ～海のシルクロード サウンドトラック II (or Masala Tea Waltz ～The Silk Road Of The Sea) as it’s known elsewhere.
Part of a trilogy of sorts, Masala Tea Waltz was the second in a series of wildly successful New Age soundtracks to NHK’s quite popular “The Silk Road Of The Sea” documentary. Thematically and musically tied to the styles of music originating (as you guessed it) from the countries the transcontinental Silk Road traverses, this second release goes past the Grecian, Mediterranean stylings of their debut, Kaishin -The Silk Road Of The Sea-, and digs deep into the microtonal, droning, ambiance of the Indian subcontinent and Chinese sphere of influence.
Just four years removed from their beginnings in 1984 as the “Sensitivity Project”, once young college friends Akihiko (originally the rock-influenced one) and Yukari (the prodigious classically-trained singer-songwriter) both fantastically gifted pianists rechristened themselves S.E.N.S. (short for Sound. Earth. Nature. Spirit. — a mix of sensual and incense) a completely electronic-driven unit dedicating themselves to a nascent style of Japanese music dubbed “healing music”.
Before we begin to think of the duo as delicate flowers, one must actually sample their music. Bombastic, orchestrated, slippery, melancholic, joyful, those are some of the adjectives I would use to attach to their form of healing music. S.E.N.S. was less Eno and more indebted to the Oldfield siblings and Enya school of New Age music. With all of that in mind, it should come to no surprise that their music sounds impeccably composed and arranged.
Songs like “Happy Arabia” take cues of the Middle Eastern persuasion and run them through the open-hearted ideas found in classic Japanese BGM. Spacious, quite complex in its own way, it’s full of little blips and bloops that one Ryuichi Sakamoto would have killed for. As much it loathes me to overuse a term that’s bandied about far too often and incorrectly, there is something positively Ghibliesque about their vision — if not entirely inspired by the first generation of Japanese New Age masters like Joe Hisaishi himself, they know where their lineage lies and that’s in musicality and composition.
Tracks like “Beyond” function as solid imaginings of where to take the very personal earlier New Age into this new more technologically-driven impersonal musical environment. Here wayward, contemplative plonks of other, similar, New Age stripe get that furthering treatment, going into the realm of the good stuff; interior music, for a newer generation of listeners. “Jambia Dance” shows a distinctly Arabian influence transposed into the occidental experience met with a fascinating piece of Mideast meets Far East electro-acoustic minimalism — that’s the thinking behind all of Masala Tea Waltz ～海のシルクロード サウンドトラック II.
Where S.E.N.S. shines are the times Yukari’s impressionistic piano playing comes to the forefront and Akihiko helps build the sonic environment. Dripping in sentimentality it graces songs like “絹のベール (Kinu No Veil)” with little atmospheres on the edges of all sorts of intricate computer-generated arrangements. On that track slight Persian vibrations make their head.
Forlorn closers like “Sailing”, a massive nostalgic hit for many, still sounds like pitch-perfect mood music ready to christen any drama. What makes S.E.N.S. rise above mere background players are the ton of small things that sound very tasteful when the balance could have fallen to schmaltz. Even without the documentary S.E.N.S. taps into the spirit of all lands to create a vision that needs little introduction.