Tag: ambient

Yasuaki Shimizu – Kakashi, 1982

Guest post by Ian Hinton-Smith

Jazzy, dubby, experimental, ambient, joyous, meditative and so much more. Fans of Mariah’s Utakata No Hibi will be visiting familiar territory here, as Shimizu is also the brain behind that long-awaited reissue from Palto Flats. There’s the same simplicity and attention to detail present on Kakashi and, having been released a year before Utakata, it appears to have been a learning exercise for Shimizu.

For starters, check out the repetitive marimba lines weaving throughout the space-jazz-dub of “Umi No Ue Kara” (a personal favourite) for a whole eight minutes, acting as bamboo scaffolding for drips of guitar and Shimizu’s sax lines which drift around it like a fine mist. Total masterful simplicity.

Elsewhere, expect ambient tracks that suddenly drop into a backstreet Chicago jazz club with dueling brass stabs and hand claps, only to drift out into smoke; abstract 8-bit sampling that could, frankly, send you a bit la-la until it flings you out into cosmic piano territory; uptempo psychedelic drama-ska; and, ultimately, the sound of Mongolian farmers having a stab at Arabic jazz!

Despite sounding a bit all over the place, there’s enough of a thread throughout Kakashi to bind it all together, and after only a couple of listens, I promise you the pieces fall into place.

Joan Bibiloni – Born, 1989

Really difficult to pick one record from Mallorcan guitarist Joan Bibiloni, as his body of work is unusually diverse, ranging from boogie-funk to jazz to ambient. For a more inclusive collection, pick up the excellent Music From Memory’s excellent compilation, El Sur. Born is an experiment in combining classical guitar with subtler synth textures. Though Bibiloni is first and foremost a guitarist, Born hits its peak when synth shares center stage on stunner “Sa Fosca,” which sounds like an outtake from Wally Badarou’s Echoes. Elsewhere, find Indian drum textures and saxophone (“Born”), sunny jazz-flecked meandering (“Una Vida Llarga I Tranquil·la”) and moody, nimble-fingered bravado (“El Sur,” “Water Drops”). Heavy rotation on this one. Enjoy!

Futuro Antico – Dai Primitivi All’Elettronica, 1980

Guest post by Dru Grossberg

Jetting out their debut album in 1980, this runs a neat sonic parallel to Jon Hassell’s notion of fourth world music, melding minimalism, ambient and South Asian classical tropes. Futuro Antico are an Italian group interspersed with Indian and African members, rather than another distant westerner’s constructed exotic fetishism. They live up to their name, which renders the sound timeless. Often, it’s tricky to decipher whether this is a product of childlike, spontaneous vulnerability, or calculated engineering. There’s a host of indigenous instrumentation present, as well as synths, vocals, and maybe even a didgeridoo.

If cascading pianos, howls of swinging creatures in the distance, or labelmates of Franco Battiato peak your fancy, click away.

Midori Takada – Through The Looking Glass, 1983

Midori Takada is the percussive mastermind behind Mkwaju Ensemble, as well as a member of the free-jazz trio Ton-Klami. This is her only solo release, and it’s gorgeous, comprised of percussion (mostly marimba, as well as what sounds like traditional Japanese drums), shakuhachi, and field recordings (mostly birds). It’s not all as fluffy as it might seem, though–Midori Takada is first and foremost a percussionist, so the album peaks when she picks up steam, building up to ecstatic, drawn-out drum crescendoes (especially on the closer, “Catastrophe Σ”). It makes for a record that is alternately dreamlike (“Mr. Henri Rousseau’s Dream”) and fiery (“Crossing”), but always precise and beautiful (and with an album cover that looks like a leaked painting from Rousseau’s secret hallucinogen phase, no less).

Toshifumi Hinata – Reality In Love, 1986

Guest post by Travess Smalley

I’ve been keeping a playlist with my partner Kaela for the last few years called “Home Listening.” It’s all albums, about a hundred now, that can be played at almost anytime, and allow us to work or read, to let our listening drift in and out of focus. The albums tend instrumental and spiritual–Hans-Joachim Roedelius, Alice Coltrane/Turiyasangitananda, Eberhard Weber are some of those who make repeat appearances. There’s a familiarity and comfort to most of these albums now that warm the environment whenever they’re played. I made a zine of the album covers in the playlist for Kaela while on an extended lakeside residency in the mountains of southern Austria last spring. The music was a reminder of our home 3000 miles away, of morning coffee, and reading in bed. You can see it here.

Toshifumi Hinata’s Reality In Love is the most beautiful addition to our playlist. At turns melancholic, nostalgic, ambient, and atmospheric it reminds me of the Japanese film scores from the 80s and 90s I know–or at least, imagine I know. The piano compositions, like in “Passage,” reverberate against taped strings like a vague memory of an emotion. Reality in Love’s consistency and completeness have made it a routine soundtrack to my walks around the city, or while reading on the train. Every piece holds, it’s a record that never needs a track skip and it feels complete, softly ending with a reprise of the first song, where it started.

As an introduction I’d recommend the album’s climax “光と水.” A brief and isolated piano transitions into a melody so lush it shimmers. Chimes and triangles lightly reverberate and fizzle as a harp flutters around a structured melody that feels pulled from the ballroom procession of a film you’re sure you’ve seen. I always visualize a gold color during this part. It’s truly transportive.

Joël Fajerman – L’aventure Des Plantes, 1982

Classic! The opening track of this record, “Flowers Love,” was used as the theme for the French documentary series L’aventure des Plantes–it’s unclear whether any of the other tracks were included in the series, though the whole record is excellent. Joël Fajerman is a classically trained French keyboardist who was apparently nicknamed “Flangerman” (no mystery why). Ranging from baroque organ lines to towering, sinister synth arpeggiations, L’aventure is cosmic, dense, and cinematic. For fans of Jean-Michel Jarre, Vangelis, or the beloved Plantasia! (Note: pictured above is the Spanish reissue; hi-res images of the original French cover don’t seem to exist).

[Mix for Self-Titled] OMG Japan: Rare & Experimental Japanese Pop

cover image by whtebkgrnd

We’re so excited to release this mix of experimental Japanese pop, up today on Self-Titled Mag.

“This is a mix of Japanese pop songs, most of them with a synth funk backbone. The most exciting aspect of this era of music, though, is how unafraid these musicians were to push the limits of genre: They loved Van Dyke Parks, Kraftwerk and Martin Denny, but they were never confined by any one sound, nor were they afraid to poke fun at western constructs of the ‘oriental’ or Japanese fascinations with Western cultural novelties.”

Read more HERE, and if you like it, download it HERE.



Tracklisting:
1. Chiemi Manabe – Untotooku
2. Miharu Koshi – L’amour…Ariuwa Kuro No Irony
3. Hiroshi Satoh – Say Goodbye
4. Colored Music – Heartbeat
5. Minako Yoshida – Tornado
6. Ryuichi Sakamoto – Kacha Kucha Nee
7. Mariah – Shinzo No Tobira
8. Yukihiro Takahashi – Drip Dry Eyes
9. Sandii – Zoot Kook
10. Haruomi Hosono – Ohenro-San
11. Osamu Shoji – Jinkou Station Ceres
12. Kisagari Koharu – Neo-Plant
13. Inoyama Land – Wässer
14. Aragon – Horridula
15. Asami Kado – 退屈と二つの月
16. Tamao Koike & Haruomi Hosono – 三国志ラヴ・テーマ
17. Hiroyuki Namba – Hiru No Yume

[RIP Dieter Moebius] Cluster – Sowiesoso, 1976

This is in honor of the life of the German musician Dieter Moebius, who passed away yesterday at the age of 71. He was most famous for co-founding Cluster and Harmonia, and for his longtime collaboration with Connie Plank.

Sowiesoso (“always the same”) is Cluster’s fourth full-length, recorded over a period of just two days in Forst, Germany, and mixed in Connie Plank’s studio. Compared to their other albums, Sowiesoso is gentler and more melodic, alternately wading through a dense jungle inhabited by robotic synth-chirp birds and picnicking in the countryside. It’s shimmering, warm, and surprisingly nostalgic, as far as Cluster goes, with track titles that translate to “For Eternity,” “The Wanderer” (fretless bass!), and “Once Upon A Time.” Outlier “Halwa,” replete with middle Eastern kitsch, is a reminder that Cluster still deals in the scronky sense of humor innate to so many krautrockers. Closer “In Ewigkeit” (“For Eternity”) is an opiated smoke drift, ghostly and sensual, a soundtrack to leaving the party as the sun comes up, wide awake but with heavy eyelids.

Safe travels, Moebius, and thank you for everything!

[RIP] Susumu Yokota – Acid Mt. Fuji, 1994

Guest post by Jon Williams (synths, Excepter)

I was disheartened to learn of electronic composer Susumu Yokota’s passing this past spring after a long illness. Like Florian Fricke – another musician who passed too young – Yokota’s works frequently evoked pastoral landscapes. Acid Mt. Fuji, in particular, marries the metronomic stomp of Robert Hood with the shimmering pads of Popul Vuh. Yakota’s palette of sounds was always distinctly his own, extending beyond the traditional acid staples found in the Roland TR series to include hand drums and animal noises.

This summer I took the occasion of my first solo hiking trip to listen to Acid Mr. Fuji, letting the drums set the pace as I struggled up the slopes of the Appalachian Trail, passing down swamps rimmed in Rhododendron bushes.

Guest Mix – Places I’d Rather Be

We’re psyched to share this gorgeous mix by John Also Bennett (Forma / Seabat). You can download it here. Enjoy!

Tracklist:
1. Craig Leon – The Customs of the Age Disturbed
2. Hiroki Okano with Techno Mongoloid – Leela #2 (Excerpt)
3. Steve Roach — ???? (Excerpt)
4. Haruomi Hosono – Air Condition
5. Jean-Marie Brice – Africa (Excerpt)
6. Constance Demby – Through the Stargate (Excerpt)
7. Michael Shrieve & Klaus Schulze – Communique “Approach Spiral”
8. Jon Hassell – Dream Theory
9. Software – Space Design
10. Michael Shrieve & Steve Roach – Edge Runner
11. Constance Demby – Sacred Space Music
12. Steve Roach – Western Spaces
13. Michael Brook – Hawaii
14. Jon Hassell – Vernal Equinox
15. Robert Rich – Resonance
16. Jon Gibson – Untitled
17. Nowtime Prophecies – Peace Out