japan
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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Streams of understanding, via spiritual land bridges, or how a Navajo-Ute found a musical connection with Japanese sonorities/tradition. Somehow, I feel a sense of myself in this music. The first time I heard of Island Of Bows by R. Carlos Nakai (with the Wind Travelin’ Band, Shonosuke Ohkura, and Oki Kano) I was struck by…
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Illustration by Laura Gomez By fits and starts I struggled, for some reason, to create this latest mix for NTS. I had so many ideas. Scrapping them one by one, until I settled on something. “Fire”, this element could mean so many things. I wanted it to mean one thing: breath.
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Oh, the joys and pains of promoting private press records. First of all, a huge debt of gratitude is extended to one Discogs record collector (mvns) who kindly shared with me this beyond interesting release by Japanese band (or solo act, hard to tell, at times), Milky Way Band. Released in 1989, through infinitely small…
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Certain albums linger in your mind for certain reasons. Tôsha Suihô’s 四季の笛 (Die Vier Jahreszeiten In Kyoto) or Four Seasons In Kyoto is one that I can never forget. The premise for its creation was simple: master flautist Tôsha Suihô travels to various sites in Kyoto and records himself performing within the environment he’s in. What happens, though, is…
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For my first show with French broadcaster LYL Radio I felt obliged to engage in a bit of navel-gazing. I began by asking myself: How in the world did I end up having a radio show with a French radio station? These are the things you learn to accept when life opens certain doors for…
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