general Kankyo Ongaku / '80s Japanese Ambient - Hiroshi Yoshimura, Midori Takada, Satoshi Ashikawa, Yoshio Ojima, Inoyama Land

I can't get enough of this shit

It LITA comp got nominated for a Grammy??

Also, the Bandcamp version of the comp only has ten tracks?

Missing this for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xdi1oqK-5U

Yeah, you gotta cop the CDs on that one. Nice package, twice as many songs, thorough liner notes

I can't get enough of this shit

Same. In case anyone hasn't heard it, Spencer Doran's Music Interiors was the predecessor mix to the LITA comp (a few tracks overlap, but it's its own journey):

https://soundcloud.com/visiblecloaks/music-interiors

Music Interiors Vol. 2 was Italian ambient/minimalism/electronica from the same era (worthy of its own thread tbh)

https://soundcloud.com/visiblecloaks/music-interiors-vol-2-interni-italiani

Also how sick is Yoshimura's Wet Land?

Spencer's mixes tipped me to so many great albums. Big debt owing to him.

I picked up the Inoyama Land Commissions set recently, it's great

Missing this for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xdi1oqK-5U

― brisk money (lukas), Thursday, May 5, 2022 12:29 AM (eleven hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

this was the first track on the comp that really blew my mind. I listened to the full album (it's hard to find because it's actually NOT Joe Hisashi, but rather a band called "Wonder City Orchestra" for which Hisashi was the synth guy for) and it's nothing like this, it's kind of an odd electrofunk album with a lot of vocals on it. The context of the track there vs. on this compilation is way different.

One nice discovery was the Interior album. For some reason it's oddly cheap, I was able to get a good copy for about 10 bucks. This is my favorite track from it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYRK2Z0-2Mg

Of the albums from here I know, most of them are pretty unlike the track that was selected. That makes this comp even cooler IMO, since it stands as its own thing.

yeah the interior album was released on windham hill in the US, surprised I don’t see it more often

hot beach owns

Some of you might enjoy this mix which crosses over into these sounds in parts - “Polyphonic Cosmos (Japanese Technopop and Synthscapes 1979 - 85)"

https://www.discogs.com/release/18305380-JD-Twitch-Polyphonic-Cosmos

D/L link - https://spaces.hightail.com/receive/XcPZ8ZCIeN

Thanks for the link to the tape, stirmonster!

One of the highlights of lockdown was exploring and starting to catalogue this stuff. I have a Spotify playlist, with the dumb title Japanbient: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2Vx4Vo2u531byq3wSmurPL?si=9baf74909e6646f0

xp love that one so much stir

Also: a tilt at a chronological, semi-comprehensive playlist from Yoshimura's albums:

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVamTFSGhoX71M5IR1_iseycMrBOKmBqS

Should be asleep made a really nice mock compilation of some deep cuts recently, well worth a look https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgTm1GDPQOI

loving the mix Stirmonster, thx!

https://wereleasewhateverthefuckwewantrecords.bandcamp.com/album/cutting-branches-for-a-temporary-shelter
New Midori Takada album!

Awesome! Caught her in Melbourne recently is she was in fine form.

Really enjoying this, not a big surprise as I've been listening to a lot of mbira music.

great video of Midori Takada in action, what a master

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4Ld9--WnTc

I used to do this shit in the kitchen when I was 9. in my mind it sounded like this too.

Lotsa expensive Japan/European vinyl reissues of this stuff. Wish there was more American and compact disc love

Adjacent: https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/various-artists-virtual-dreams-ii-ambient-explorations-in-the-house-and-techno-age-japan-1993-1999/

I picked this up (on CD). It's not what I'd necessarily call ambient, but it plumbs straight into my unconscious from that period, listening to The Orb, Namlook stuff, progressive house, Aphex/Polygon Window. Magnificent.

damn, Riow Arai - 1969 sounds like a lost Orb track, loving this

― go polish your nose ring (sleeve), Wednesday, October 23, 2024

contempo adjacent: https://omnigardens.bandcamp.com/album/golden-pear

yeah this is definitely the sound

https://www.discogs.com/digs/music/essential-japanese-ambient

probably gonna check out all those that I haven't heard. Danzindan-Pojidon is such a great LP. it sounds like something that could be released today. hopefully more of those Yoshimura LPs get reissued. my local shop got a few copies of Green and they sold quick. I'm very curious who exactly was buying them. probably folks who wish to remain private.

guess they were reading my posts

https://hiroshi-yoshimura.bandcamp.com/album/flora

I'm very curious who exactly was buying them. probably folks who wish to remain private.

There was a copy of Morio Agata's triple album for sale on the Chinese secondhand market. "Well, THAT'S not a hurry," I thought, "probably been sitting there for years." And by the time I scrounge the money together to buy it..... gone. Blew my mind. Who is this other Agata fan in China and why are they not my friend?

my shop had an original copy of the Van Der Graaf Generator debut for $75. it's not in good shape and you can get a reissue for $20 so I kinda figured it would be there forever. nope, gone in about a week. I asked the owner who bought it and he said it was a 19 year old kid. I guess it's nice to know I wasn't an aberration at that age :)

oh man, I might be the only person that feels this way, but that might be my fave yoshimura record. instant buy.

nice

did anyone else know Inoyamaland put out a record in 2020 and it's really good like maybe even better than their famous one. it still uses the same sounds as their early stuff too. each member takes a side. first half is pure melodic bliss like D-P, second is like a cozy Popol Vuh. final track is amazing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELXcx1lEaf4

wait. second-to-last track I mean

oh and one track drives me absolutely nuts because of Mario Kart. you'll know which one

Brimstead posted this on the ambient thread but it totally fits here too: Meitei - Sen'nyū.
https://meitei.bandcamp.com/album/senny

ummm...holy shit?

https://www.discogs.com/release/36200380-Inoyama-Land-INOYAMALAND-BOX

I was at the London show on disc 6 and was interviewed by a Japanese crew for a documentary... I wonder if that'll show up somewhere!

awesome! it's always been a dream of mine to see a show like that...what was it like? do you bring a blanket??

1993 but still
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmGEMh8Q4UQ

recommended to me recently; layered polyrhythm becomes fiercely irresistible balearic citypop groove. maybe a loose fit in this topic, but ya'll need to hear this one―
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RdRAvpUu98

michael+kevin shrieve with klaus schulze ― "transfer station blue" (1986)

https://www.discogs.com/master/29711-Michael-Shrieve-With-Kevin-Shrieve-And-Klaus-Schulze-Transfer-Station-Blue

no other mentions on ilm that i could find, the whole album is very 80s new age instrumental pop. still quite new to me. i had to share!

that's a wild find, thanks

should say that was a recommendation from a real person, not algo. humanity lives another day!

also this track is mega. when the handclaps hit is usually where i start thinking, "ya one more time."

In case people don't know about this Midori Takada album with Jakob Bro from last year -
https://lovelandcph.bandcamp.com/album/until-i-met-you

and now there's another one coming:
https://lovelandcph.bandcamp.com/album/from-such-a-blue-sky

the two tracks currently streaming sound lovely

New Hiroshi Yoshimura reissue alert!

https://hiroshi-yoshimura.bandcamp.com/album/quiet-forest

never even heard of that one. bring it on.

curious what people think of Green in its original form with all the nature sounds included vs. the reissue that omits all of it. I have always thought that album is so crystalline and perfect that it doesn't need the additional ambience but after getting used to the original again I think its better with that stuff. my favorite thing about any Roedelius project is when he comes up with something particularly pretty and then records some birds on top of it just to make it sound prettier. nature sounds will never go out of fashion. maybe this is too lame a discussion for even this place.

The OG Japanese version released in 1986 was NO nature sounds and THEN it was reissued in America later that year with nature sounds included. The 2020 LITA reissue reverts it back to the nature-free but they also sell an "SFX version" on Bandcamp.

In general I'd always want to default to the original version, but I think added sound effects makes sense too, since it fits right in with '90s St. Giga broadcasts.

ah okay that makes more sense. the tags on the MP3s I downloaded way back when are screwed up then.

It's always good news to see more of his stuff reissued, but please can they do Wet Land next.

Sfx version rules. I've listened to Green so much that I've ruined the unruinable. I gave the cassette to my dad and he has it stuck in his 1980's corolla playing every single time he drives anywhere. He loves it, i loved it, but now I have to do the unthinkable and remove it from tape player when I go back home and borrow the car.

I still love the final one-two punch tho, STREET-TEEVEE. Yoshimura sheds the melancholy on those two. Dreamy sunset STREET drives. TEEVEE floating on those warm rising synths. The little ornamentation on the dawdling synth lead. I can listen to those two tracks forever

Quiet Forest is my favorite Yoshimura, very very underrated IMO. I guess it could be a bit controversial for some fans of Green cuz it has a few (gasp) beats! But I like the new-agey downtempo of it all.

I feel like four post cards is similarly underrated since it's a bit of an outlier due to the short length and the reason it exists:

Composed for the Museum of Modern Art, Kamakura & Hayama in 2003.
The sound design is played twice daily, to mark the opening and closing of the galleries.

it's lovely tho. sounds a bit like music from an old nintendo OS that plays while you're futzing around with the settings.