japan
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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,…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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Today we’re joined by man of good taste and many great shares, one Mr. Francis Heaney, for a guest post sharing his first of two guest mixes giving you a peek into the work of Japan’s visionary musician: Akira Inoue. A titan of ’80s Japanese Pop and underground music as well, it was his wildly…
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If we can thank the heavens for something today, it is for bringing together Mayumi Miyata and Midori Takada. Released as part of CBS/Sony’s short-lived Sound Forest (サウンド・フォレスト・シリーズ) series,「星雲」～サウンド・フォレスト・シリーズ (Nebula) presents a different aesthetic within that series idea of “environmental music”. Not necessarily made to attract electronically-minded listeners, Nebula is a nebulous blend of truly…
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Guest post by Giacomo Lee. You’d think being in one of the biggest cult Japanese bands of the ’90s would make one of your biggest side projects pretty well known, but Yasuharu Konishi’s Girl Girl Girl must be the exception to that rule.
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Life sure has it mysteries. Years ago, I encountered Naoki Asai’s gorgeous Aba · Heidi and had to share an album I feared would be lost to time. Privately pressed, and featuring an eclectic mixture of Lewis Caroll-like psychedelia and jangly post-punk (think Pale Fountains, The Smiths, etc.), its accompanying haunting design signaled that Aber…
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