japan

Gonzalez Mikami: Gate Of Notion (1993)

2020/02/21

It’s perhaps uncommon knowledge that the best marriages (and relationships) are those comprised of two individuals coming together not in spite of their differences but because of their differences. One can clearly hear this in practice in the nearly telepathic playing of Osaka Japanese New Age guitar duo, Gontiti. In the past I’ve written a…
Kenji Sawada (沢田研二): Aux Femmes 女たちよ (1983)

2020/02/07

Don’t you just love it when everything comes together? Kenji Sawada must have taken forever to match up his forward-thinking persona with his stagecraft and music, but on Aux Femmes 女たちよ) it all fell into place. Toying with gender, electronics, and all sorts of compositional elements, Aux Femmes 女たちよ proved he just wasn’t some emptyheaded…
Kohsei Morimoto (森本浩正): カオス・ゾーン (Chaos Zone) (1990)

2020/01/24

Put on your headphones. Put on and listen to this album. Spatial audio. Ambisonics. 3-D, virtual sound. There are many words to describe the technology Kohsei Morimoto’s Chaos Zone: Three Dimensional Sounds Created by Roland Sound Space System (カオス・ゾーン) or カオス・ゾーン (Chaos Zone) for short, tries to exploit a technological demo of sorts to promote…
Michio Mamiya (間宮芳生): Grave of the Fireflies Image Album (火垂るの墓イメージ・アルバム集) (1987)

2020/01/17

Right off the bat, I promise this review will be spoiler free. However, in this age of increasing troubling times, this seems like a good time to revisit Michio Mamiya’s score for 火垂るの墓, Hotaru no Haka (otherwise known as Grave of the Fireflies). Now, for those that have seen Isao Takahata’s animated masterpiece one can’t…
Masatsugu Shinozaki (篠崎正嗣): A Roar Of The Tiger (1992)

2019/12/20

Winter heat from an unlikely source. Perhaps I’m showing my bias as a violinist, but I have to share another of my favorite (sadly unknown) releases from my fellow brethren. Another wonderful cross-thatched affair of fourth world and new age grooves not from the west but this time from Japan’s other uber-talented, and quite prolific,…
Yukie Nishimura (西村由紀江): L’espoir (～レスポワール～) (1989)

2019/12/13

I told you things were going to get real here. Let’s get intimate. Let’s get closer to the work of Yukie Nishimura. Call it various names: neoclassical, ambient, new age, easy listening or BGM. You can call it anything you want but you can’t call it boring. Romantic is the key word here. Take one…
Mix: 35. Japanese Healing Music

2019/12/06

Certain things aren’t lost on me. Whenever I look at my time slot at LYL Radio I feel a sense of responsibility. Each month on Wednesday, I end their programming day. For some, it’s 11 PM Paris time. While for others (like myself) it’s 4 PM Central Standard time. While one part of the world…
Mix: 34. Akira Inoue Special II (Guest Mix by Francis Heaney)

2019/11/28

Note: Guest, Francis Heaney, rejoins us to share the second part of his mix series covering Japan’s incomparable Akira Inoue. This time around the focus is on his brilliant collaborative work with others like Aska Kaneko, David Rhodes, and many more. I’ll let Francis take it from here…
Shiho Yabuki (矢吹紫帆): New Meditation (1990)

2019/11/22

Let’s hope this post posits something with clarity. You see, yours truly, has been mightily under the weather this week and propping myself up to put words on screen has been (equally) that much of a struggle. Thankfully, this week, Shiho Yabuki’s New Meditation the subject of this post, has provided perfect backgrounding music to…
Syun (旬): Landscapes (1994)

2019/11/15

Sometimes certain albums force you to ponder just how the heck that certain something was created. Syun’s Landscapes speaks of using fractal theory to both influence and create a lot of what you’re hearing here. Found on older Amiga, Mac and PC computers, software like VistaPro was responsible for creating virtual landscapes in an early…