minimalist
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It’s not often I revisit works from artists I’ve already written about, but when I do, it’s because these other works shed light on a new dimension of their creativity. In today’s case, few artists reveal as many fantastic—and drastic—sides as Naoko Kawai through her work as The Gentle Wind.
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If there’s one thing I’ve learned from a recent trip to Japan, it’s this: I might be too ahead of the curve. And no, not in the way you might think. It’s in turning my recent focus towards music lost in the shuffle of the CD era.
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Do you feel and see it? Isn’t “Spooky Season” unofficially around us? Whenever a certain air descends on most of us, I entertain certain kinds of records I normally wouldn’t. And in today’s case, on Norihiro Tsuru’s soundtrack to 人魚の傷 aka Mermaid’s Scar, it forces me to revisit a chilling story that really stuck with…
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Don’t you just love it when the story writes itself? I say this because the story of Something In The Air has been written by the Danish band of the same name. For once, forget about what I think, focus on the music, focus on the noise of the air in your room – if…
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Lately, I’ve been thinking about how we remember our past. As summer continues winding down and vacation time dries up, I’ve been reflecting on how we try to capture those special moments in the places we visit, whether on holiday or during a break from day-to-day life. How does one remember these experiential places? Increasingly,…
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Who says I don’t like a good mystery? I say this because it appears that lately I’ve been hitting on this theme: unsolved mysteries. Once again, I’m caught torn between sharing some work that absolutely pushes all my right buttons and not sharing it because: all stones left turned reveal nothing about who made it.…
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You know, sometimes you’ve gotta go with what you’ve got. It was over three years ago when I first discovered Blue (ブルー・碧い海のイマージュ) by Blue on yaoiboi92’s YouTube channel (whom you really should subscribe to if you haven’t done so). I was immediately taken by this album’s meditative blend of aquatic ambient music and organic, almost…
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There’s a fine line between background music and background music. It’s something that’s easier to hear than explain. And one way to do so, is to introduce you to the melodious environmental music of Kyoji Ohno and specifically, his, Kutsurogi (サイコジェネシス・シリーズ くつろぎ) .
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The chirp of crickets, a babbling brook, the melodies of a songbird, certain things trigger a sense of new life or of spring settling in. I say this because I feel the same way about Jimi Chen’s Discovering Arts Behind The Mountains 發現後山的藝術, his “character music” soundtrack for a documentary of the same name (which…
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Listening to Yukihiro Fukutomi’s music takes me back to a different time. It reminds me of the first time I encountered Japanese music. If anyone else remembers this, it was staying up late at night to tune in to MTV’s AMP. It was on AMP that someone like me – far, far, far, from any…
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