minimalist

G. B. Beckers: Walkman (1982)

2017/12/05

Günther Beckers music has a perfect word for it: Gesamtkunstwerk. Gesamtkunstwerk is an interdisciplinary artistic work combining various disciplines — music, painting, poetry and design. Wagner conjured up this idea when trying to produce a work that could also wrap in artistic ideas derived from theatrical, poetic, and musical influences. Aesthetics would be the English word…
Masahide Sakuma & dip in the pool: 黒いドレスの女 OST (1987)

2017/12/01

This is such a rare album, for a truly forgotten movie. Masahide Sakuma and dip in the pool’s soundtrack for 黒いドレスの女 (otherwise known as Kuroi Doresu No Onna/A Woman With A Blass Dress) hints at darker themes underlying the whole movie. The movie itself, one starring Tomoyo Harada, was a sexy noir movie based on…
Mix: 7. Only Love

2017/11/22

I was going to write about how much I appreciate all of you, the readers, who keep visiting this blog and give your precious time to discover music I feel passionate about. It’s been over a year since FOND/SOUND began. It’s because of your encouragement and support that this labor of love keeps going. With…
Hiroshi Yoshimura: Flora 1987 (1987)

2017/11/14

There’s something about fall that makes me play Hiroshi Yoshimura’s music much more often. On prior albums like Green, A・I・R (Air In Resort), and Soundscape 1: Surround, Hiroshi perfectly seized on exactly what “environmental music” could be and how it could differ from BGM (background music). No longer mere ambient music, it was decidedly rich, melodic experimentation…
Takami Hasegawa (長谷川孝水): L’Ecume Des Jours (日々の泡) (1983)

2017/11/10

These are the kind of stories that make me smile. Truth be told, there is desperately little story out there to tell of Takami Hasegawa’s sole release L’Ecume Des Jours (a nod to Boris Vian’s novel Froth on the Daydream…). Singer-songwriter Takami Hasegawa from Fukushima decides to release an album of Gallic-style, Les Disques du…
New Child: Rehabilual (1990)

2017/11/07

Maybe Harry Hosuono was onto something? Mishio Ogawa, the “Trance” part of the Love, Peace, & Trance equation…and also ex-lead singer for Japanese experimental New Wave act Chakra…seemed like an odd choice to be one of the three vocalists for his eclectic and forward-thinking quasi-ambient techno group of the same name. However, judging by the…
Pictures: Pictures (1983)

2017/11/03

I’m still floored that such an album like Pictures exists and that it exists in such an arrested state of discovery. In 1983, Andy Stennett and John Rocca, of influential British electro-funk group Freeez, decide to hide away from their record label and sure chart-topping success (courtesy of their infamous/ubiquitous hits, “Southern Freeez” and “IOU”)…
Andreas Vollenweider: …Behind the Gardens-Behind the Wall-Under the Tree… (1981)

2017/10/18

…Behind the – Behind the Wall – Under the Tree…or right here, after a long scroll to the bottom of this post you might find my favorite release by Swiss-born Andreas Vollenweider. Now more widely known his placid work backing up Carly Simon or his milquetoast New Age, “fantasy” music, there was a time when…
Yoshiaki Ochi: Natural Sonic (1990)

2017/10/13

Released on Wacoal Art Center’s NEWSIC label, Yoshiaki Ochi’s Natural Sonic shares some of the same magic heard in the music of fellow roster mates Yoshio Ojima, Motohiko Hamase, and Mich Live. This time the aural trick would be one of the most simple of them all. Largely composed, conceived, and performed on organic material…
Masayuki Sakamoto: Psyche (1987)

2017/10/11

One name stuck out to me when listening to Japanese label Shi Zen’s wonderful Windham Hill-like compilation Shizen Collection ’87, it was Masayuki Sakamoto’s contribution “Psy’chy”. Even with other, like-minded Japanese New Age artists like Sojiro, Kiminori Atsuta, and the parent label’s creator Kitaro, there was always a high amount of cheesy aplomb in the…