Another treasure from Sound Process, a Japanese label, book publisher, and sound design consulting firm founded by Satoshi Ashikawa, whose Still Way was included in the label’s short and excellent catalogue (as was Hiroshi Yoshimura‘s cult favorite Music for Nine Postcards). Oscilation Circuit was a four piece outfit, and this was their only release. True to the label’s ethos of sound design not as a means of filling up space, or “decorating,” but instead as a highly-conscientious way of paring sounds down to those that “truly matter,” Série Réflexion 1 is extremely minimal, though it feels uniquely adjacent to minimalism in its more academic Steve Reich-esque sense when compared with many of its Japanese ambient peers (particularly closing track “Circling Air,” which is almost certainly an homage to Terry Riley). There’s no synthesizer. There are no field recordings of birds or running water. No bells. Minimalist minimalism? Ideal winter listening. I started ketamine infusion therapy last year and this has been a favorite soundtrack during my infusions. I hope it brings you some joy too.
My newest episode of Getting Warmer for NTS Radio is a continuation of the late summer ambient series. It’s also an extra-luxurious two hours long, so I hope it’s helpful in soundtracking a lazy picnic or an afternoon nap. I went slightly off-script this year, incorporating some tracks that aren’t as strictly minimal or classically ambient, and I included more folk, more vocals, and more guitars. Pretty pleased with how it turned out, so I hope you enjoy it. If you do, you can download an mp3 version here.
Tracklist:
1. Brian Eno & Robert Fripp – Wind On Water
2. Yoshio Ojima – Sealed
3. Contraviento – Desencanto
4. Yas-Kaz – The Gate of Breathing
5. Mark Pollard – Quinque II
6. Klaus Wiese – Dunya (Excerpt)
7. lovesliescrushing – Butterfly
8. Oscilation Circuit – Homme
9. Takashi Kokubo – Quiet Inlet
10. Julianna Barwick – Wishing Well
11. Al Gromer Khan – Mumtaz
12. Not Drowning, Waving – Frogs
13. ironomi ft. Coupie – 楓
14. Margaret Gay – Prelude No. 1 in C Major from the Well-Tempered Klavier (Bach)
15. Bobbie Gentry – Courtyard
16. Meitei – Ike
17. Priscilla Ermel – Folia Do Divino
18. William Barklow / Loons – Wail Duet
19. Harold Budd – Afar
20. Bill Douglas – Lake Isle Of Innisfree
21. Nuno Canavarro – Antica/Burun
22. Edson Natale – A Flor
Here’s my most recent episode of Getting Warmer for NTS Radio. I wanted it to be an over-the-top shot of dopamine, songs that make me feel euphoric and credits-rolling optimistic. I’ve been trying to be a little bit more adventurous in combining genres and decades, so there are some odd transitions in here–hopefully they make you feel good as they do for me. I’m very pleased to say that this episode gave Jessica Simpson her first ever airtime on NTS. Happy spring–I hope you and your loved ones have all gotten vaccinated and that the world feels a little brighter. You can download an mp3 version here.
Tracklist:
1. Jun Miyake – Relaxn’
2. Jessica Simpson – I Think I’m In Love With You
3. Ahmed Fakroun – Nisyan (Edit)
4. Renée Geyer – Be There In The Morning
5. Blondie – Sunday Girl
6. Throwing Muses – Not Too Soon
7. Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons – C’mon Marianne
8. Bananarama – Shy Boy
9. The Three Degrees – When Will I See You Again
10. Forrest – Rock The Boat
11. Plustwo – Melody
12. Brandy – Top of the World ft. Mase
13. Pet Shop Boys – What Have I Done To Deserve This ft. Dusty Springfield
14. Ryuichi Sakamoto – You Do Me
15. Mr. Twin Sister – Expressions
16. George McCrae – Rock Your Baby
17. Jon Secada – Just Another Day
My newest mix for NTS Radio is an hourlong Yoko Kanno special. If you’re unfamiliar, Kanno is a Japanese composer, arranger, and musician. best known for her extensive work soundtracking anime films and series, though she’s also scored a number of video games and live-action films. Some of her noteworthy anime scores include Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, Cowboy Bebop, Macross Plus, Turn A Gundam, The Vision of Escaflowne, Darker than Black, Wolf’s Rain, and Terror in Resonance. My entrypoint to her work, as I suspect is the case for many, was the terrific theme for the Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex series, “Inner Universe,” which is sung in Russian, English, and Latin by Japanese-Russian singer Origa, who is a regular collaborator of Kanno’s. Since then it’s been a joy to dig through her enormous discography, so I’ve compiled a few of my favorite moments here, ranging from opiated trip hop and jazz to sweeping cinematic modern classical to devastating choral pieces and churning dystopic breakbeat. I hope you like it! You can download an mp3 version here.
Tracklist:
1. Yoko Kanno – Blue Tone
2. Yoko Kanno – Stamina Rose
3. Yoko Kanno – Pulse
4. Yoko Kanno – 縮緬エアー
5. Yoko Kanno – Chorale
6. Yoko Kanno – Go DA DA
7. Yoko Kanno – She Is
8. Yoko Kanno – Some Other Time
9. Yoko Kanno – Bang Bang Banquet
10. Yoko Kanno – Aqua
11. Yoko Kanno – Orphan
12. Yoko Kanno – On The Earth
13. Yoko Kanno – A Sai En
14. Yoko Kanno – This EDEN
15. Yoko Kanno – Ephemera
16. Yoko Kanno – Bells For Her
17. Yoko Kanno – The Clone
18. Yoko Kanno – Torch Song
19. Yoko Kanno – Siberian Doll House
20. Yoko Kanno – Inner Universe
There’s a significant chance you’ve already heard half of this record, as I’ve regularly been using it in mixes for the past year and a half. And with good reason! Aside from being objectively beautiful from start to finish, it feels particularly aesthetically situated to resonate well with listeners right now, so I wouldn’t be surprised if this prompts a reissue. (Do it!)
It’s a mysterious record–the only release from the eponymous duo Goddess In The Morning, comprised of Akino Arai and Yula Yayoi. Akino has left a pretty dense paper trail, credited on 95 different releases for vocals, writing, arrangement, and production, notably as a regular contributor to Yoko Kanno scores. Yula is a little harder to trace, with a handful of releases that I’ve had limited success in tracking down. I’d particularly love to hear her 1999 record Summer Aura on the basis of its cover art and release year alone, if anybody has a copy they’d be willing to share. (She also shows up as a vocalist on Seigén Ono‘s behemoth 20-disc Saidera Paradiso, and fittingly, Ono is credited with mastering Goddess, which seems particularly cool in light of how divergent the record is from Ono’s wheelhouse.)
Goddess In The Morning is a wild ride in the truest sense, ranging from hazy trip hop on “Ucraine” to the Celtic folk-inspired prog “Saga” to the Virginia Astley-esque pastoral closer “14.” Across them all are (what I assume to be) Yula and Akino’s heavily layered vocals (effectively musical catnip for me), processed into intricate electronic landscapes that feel both spacious and heavily polished to a reflective chrome sheen. I’m not gonna try to sell this too much harder, because if it’s for you, it’s very obviously for you, but I do hope you love this, as it keeps worming its way nearer (and dearer!) to my heart.
Here’s my most recent episode of Getting Warmer for NTS Radio–pleased to realize that it’s my 48th episode, meaning that this show recently turned four years old. Sharing this show has, in all sincerity, been one of the most rewarding and pleasurable things I’ve ever done, so I’m grateful to all who have listened.
As I was putting this mix together I was thinking about the million people we’ve lost to COVID-19, a fifth of whom were Americans. Many of them died alone, with no family or friends present, and many of them still haven’t yet been given funerals because of travel or safety restrictions. Here in America, there has been no national mourning, reckoning, or even acknowledgment of what we’ve lost. Our president trivializes the disease and its impacts, and he belittles and dismisses the 210,000 lives we’ve lost to it, every day. It feels incredibly difficult to move through collective grief when our leadership has not only learned nothing from its mistakes but is actively denying that mistakes were ever made or are still being made.
This is my dedication to those who’ve died and to those who loved them: music that, to me, feels otherworldly, reverent, and resonant with the gravity of loss. It’s mostly Russian choral music, which I love for its dark, watery awe, though it there are also a few moments of Japanese medieval futurism. It also includes two of my favorite choral pieces, Rachmaninoff’s “Bogoroditse Devo” from his All-Night Vigil and a choral adaptation of Bach’s “Komm Süsser Tod.” I hope you enjoy it–you can download an mp3 version here. Sending love, and thanks as always for being here 💙
Tracklist:
1. Yoko Kanno – Aqua (Cello Version)
2. The USSR Ministry Of Culture Chamber Choir – Hymn Of The Cherubim (Excerpt) (Comp. Tchaikovsky)
3. Osnabrücker Jugendchor – Amplius (Comp. Gregorio Allegri)
4. This Mortal Coil – Song To The Siren
5. MDR Rundfunkchor – Bogoroditse Devo (All-Night Vigil, Op. 37 “Vespers”) (Comp. Rachmaninoff)
6. Erik Westberg Vocal Ensemble – Komm Süsser Tod (Come, Sweet Death) (Comp. Bach)
7. Yoko Kanno – Aqua
8. St. Petersburg Chamber Choir – Chorale (Comp. Josef Ketchakhmadze)
9. Bulgarian State Radio & Television Mixed Choir – I Have Chosen The Blissful (Comp. Alexander Gretchaninov)
10. Geinoh Yamashirogumi – Falling As Flowers Do – Dying A Glorious Death
11. Choir of King’s College – Nyne Otpushchayeshi (Nunc Dimittis) (All-Night Vigil, Op. 37 “Vespers”) (Comp. Rachmaninoff)
12. St. Petersburg Chamber Choir – Alleluia, Behold The Bridegroom (Anonymous)
13. The Cambridge Singers – Libera Nos, Salva Nos (Comp. John Sheppard)
14. Unknown – Russian Cathedral Bells
Here’s my most recent episode of Getting Warmer for NTS Radio. It’s two hours of late-summer ambient and ambient-adjacent sounds, meant to capture the hazy, humid, golden quality of August and September, featuring field recordings, sunbeams, and bugs. It’s ideal for mid-day napping. (It’s also kind of a sequel to this mix from two Augusts ago, if you’re curious!) A modified one hour version of this was broadcast live on the air last week, so this extended two hour version is a director’s cut of sorts. Thanks as always for listening and being here; I hope this can serve as a moment of quiet in what, to me, feels like a very loud time. You can download an mp3 version here.
Tracklist:
1. Richard Burmer – Riverbend
2. Jean C. Roché – Nightingales: In A Waste Ground Beside A Stream In Provence, June
3. CFCF – Lighthouse On Chatham Sound
4. Finis Africæ – Ceremonia Màgica En El Estanque (Magical Ceremony In The Pond)
5. Elicoide – Mitochondria
6. Takashi Kokubo – 満月の木陰
7. Notte & Bush – Wake Up In Baby’s Room
8. Steven Halpern & Daniel Kobialka – Pastorale
9. Toshifumi Hinata – ミッドサマー・ナイト (Midsummer Night)
10. Hiroshi Yoshimura – Green Shower
11. The Durutti Column – Vino Della Casa Bianco
12. Susan Mazer & Dallas Smith – Kalimbo
13. Haruomi Hosono – Wakamurasaki
14. Joanna Brouk – The Space Between (Excerpt)
15. Goddess In The Morning – 14
16. Virginia Astley – It’s Too Hot To Sleep
17. Constance Demby – Om Mani Padme Hum
18. Michael Stearns – As The Earth Kissed The Moon (Excerpt)
19. Ghostwriters – Slow Blue In Horizontal
Here’s my newest episode of Getting Warmer for NTS Radio. Nothing too conceptual here, just an hour of gooey and pretty sounds and transportive ambient synth pop. I hope you like it–mp3 download is here. Cheers, sending love.
Tracklist:
1. Ingus Baušķenieks – Kur Tu Esi
2. Akira Inoue – アントルシャ・ディス (Entrechat Dix)
3. Mahae – Sailing On Board
4. Takashi Kokubo – Before You Dream
5. Kathi Pinto – Almost Daylight
6. Aragon – かかし
7. Barbara Young – No Game At All
8. Takashi Kokubo – Quiet Inlet
9. The Beach Boys – All I Wanna Do
10. Steve Kindler – Something From The Heart
11. Frank Chickens – Mothra
12. Mami Koyama – Love Song
13. Tetsu Inoue – Magnetic Field
Hi friends, I hope that whatever your personal circumstances are at the moment, you’re hanging in there. Once the pandemic is over, I think we’re going to have to figure out how to channel our political rage into meaningful change–I know I will, otherwise I think I might poison myself with being so angry–and I hope to talk with some of you about what this could entail and work with you to make it happen when the time comes. I’m realizing as I type this that even using soft platitudes like “stay safe” feels inappropriate, given that safety and isolation are luxuries that many don’t have. Anyway, that aside, I’m grateful that you’re here and reading and listening.
I’ve been sitting on this one for awhile, largely because for me me, this blog has always had a pretty strict ethos of listenability. While a lot of what I share is admittedly leftfield, I like to post records that aren’t super challenging, are a pleasure to listen to from start to finish, and that can appeal to a wide range of people. While this record is definitely pleasurable, it has some pretty wild avant garde moments in a way that might turn some listeners off. But something that I’ve had to regularly remind myself of in the almost six (!!) years that I’ve been doing this is that most of the people who end up here are preternaturally open to musical oddness, and also that my tastes aren’t as singular or rarefied as I sometimes think they are–which means that when I like something, there are usually others who like it too. Musically, that’s exactly what’s made this blog so fun to write–realizing that I’m not alone, that there are throughlines through my taste that line up with other people’s throughlines, that we love what we love. So I’m going to assume that because I love this record, others will too, even if it’s a little more eccentric than a lot of what gets posted here.
I first came to this record through this excellent compilation of Japanese favorites. I recognized the luminous “Kokorowa” from the track “Kokoro Da” by Love, Peace and Trance, but hadn’t realized that the Love, Peace and Trance version was actually a cover of this one–written, according to Discogs, by Killing Time’s drummer, Jun Aoyama, who was a longterm member of Tatsuro Yamashita‘s touring band. I have since put the original on about 29 different mixes because I love it so much, but excitingly there is much more to be found here.
“既知との遭遇 (A Close Encounter With You Know What)” hints that it’s a deceptively breezy bossa nova-esque puff, but ultimately devolves into fully free-form summertime jazz, with multiple time signatures happening at once, tabla and talking drum, and more mallets than you could shake a mallet at. “沈黙する湖 (Psychotropicnic)” turns an abrupt 180 into a cinematic soundtrack for a steamy 80’s movie, with reverbed out hazy saxophone, murky and gorgeous synth pads, and a sleepy, wandering piano. But it’s with the title track that things get properly weird: it’s a 20 minute long five part odyssey, featuring some very sinister vocal processing, bonkers percussion, a wildly cathartic take on the Japanese favorite Indonesian folk classic “Bengawan Solo,” a full free jazz meltdown, and a very stoned lūʻau interlude featuring Sandii (!) serving the most impressively slow vibrato I’ve ever heard (fittingly, she’s trained extensively as a hula dancer and now runs two hula schools in Yokahama and Harajuku).
I think what makes this record so exciting for me is hearing a group of extremely technically skilled musicians making a record that is diverse and ambitious but still ultimately sounds like them all goofing off together: if Irene makes one thing clear, it’s that everyone involved had a sharp sense of humor. The end of the title track really lays into it with a short interlude featuring a childish, singsongy boy-girl duet over an end-of-the-carnival instrumental and a very cute errant giggle. After the exhausting tour-de-force we’ve just been on for 20 minutes, it feels particularly funny. The people who made this were truly sick session musicians with a massive discography between them, and their ability to play together–in the musical sense but more importantly in the game sense–is a joy to be brought along for.
Sorry this got so long–not usually my thing–but anyway, I hope you love it, and at the very least I hope it takes you somewhere else for a few minutes. Thanks again for being here.
