japan

  • Would you mind if I share something simply for no other reason than: it’s beautiful? From the packaging to the music, I have to say Tomoyuki Hayashi & ForestIII’s The Forest is just plain pretty. If you had your hands on the physical copy, you can lift up the CD cover and feel the same…

  • You’re probably getting tired of reading this but….here’s another big thank you to someone else: here’s one for Austin from Incidental Music for steering me in the direction of today’s focus, Junichi Kamiyama. What he exposed me to was the healing music of Junichi Kamiyama featuring Mr. Kamiyama’s patented “tender sound”, displayed particularly well in…

  • I almost hate to share this compilation dubbed Lover’s Hawaii not because I’m not eternally grateful for Francis, sometime Fond/Sound guest contributor, for sharing/finding it with me, but because there is scant/to no information out there about the release itself. In my opinion, such a gorgeous collection of neo-Resort Music (if I may so dub…

  • It’s time to count my blessings. The first one, of course, is that I have this platform to share what I think is great work done by others. Then, I have to admit, I think of it as a blessing to have an audience willing to inhabit this space and share their own path to…

  • Who says you need a trip out to the country to get into the spirit of Akira Inoue’s Anne: Dreaming an Island (The Light and Wind of Prince Edward Island) 夢みるアンの島 ~プリンス・エドワード島の光と風~? When I speak of road-tripping records, I speak of records just like this one, one that accepts all the conceits of the “road”…

  • You know, it goes without saying that a lot of what I try to do on the blog is simply fill in the blanks. In the case of The Gentle Wind’s Tears Of Nature, you could say the blanks are as important as the known knowns. First of all, great thanks go out to YouTube…

  • It’s rare to find someone bridging the gap between Jethro Tull, Marc Bolan’s T-Rex, The Orb, and Toumani Diabate, but it seems this world can support only one Lion Merry. Simply scroll down to the bottom of this post, past the download link, and know that I could have easily gone into multiple rows to…

  • And now: more of something I wish there was more history to share about — Lotus Kasumi Experience. It’s that kind of a week. Losing and then regaining an old hard drive — thanks, again, everyone! — sometimes yields unexpected surprises. Case in point, the album listed in the headline. 

  • Forgive me for burying the lede but I have to go back to Yassue. For all of those that thought Yassue’s story ended on A Fine Day…I have to share a wonderful coda to that story. A Cosmic Pandora, if you will. Much like Yumiko Morioka’s MIOS, it was their little-known sophomore album that proved…

  • Ambient. New Age. Japan. The tags almost write the post itself, right? Yet, we still have to talk about this intriguing turn by Akira Mitake. Akira Mitake’s Himawari (or Sunflower) was released in 1987 as a complement to, don’t quote me on this: NHK’s 8-part documentary, 日本~その心とかたち~, Japan – Its Heart and Shape, a historical…

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