Sunday, June 5, 2016

Japanese ambient mix

To be honest I can’t quite remember the exact reason how this started. The real origin of the seed of the idea could have come from anywhere, perhaps just the need to have a basic concept to tie a mix together. Why Japanese in particular I cannot really say anymore. I don’t remember if there was a particular album or anything that triggered it off. But in any case, I remember discussing it with my good friend, fellow music lover and radio presenter Josh/DJ Tropical Breeze  while in Melbourne at Christmas time. The idea from that time was that we would each prepare a mix of Japanese ambient music and publish them around the same time. Since then it has been a steady immersion in as much Japanese ambient, synth pop and experimental music as possible, around 6 months of focussed listening. While we did exchange names of artists and albums, there was no other insight into what the other was doing until we shared our mixes and track lists this week. Several of the artists consequently overlap, although in the end there is only one track that is the same between mixes, Hidekazu Imashige/Gallery Six’s Hakasui [Shimmering Moods].

My shortlist for the mix was 100 tracks clocking in at around 12 hours of sound if unedited and unmixed, so about one third of the tracks made the final cut and plenty more that didn’t make it. Consequently there is also quite a bit of overlap between tracks, with the first 17 tracks all fitting in to the first 25 minutes alone. That is, for the first 25 minutes there is generally at least two and sometimes up to four tracks playing at the same time. It’s a bit less crowded by the end.
One thing that surprised me making the mix, which was assembled carefully on Adobe Audition and in no way was mixed live, was that the tendency was to mix down tracks and not up as is usually the case. Not sure if this is something specific to Japanese ambient or it relates more to the superimposition of multiple tracks at the same time. In any case, the mix uses a lot of dynamic range and tries to emphasise the noise and the silence where possible.

I have seen quite a few Japanese artists complaining about lazy Western journalists describing their music in terms of Zen and related concepts, probably without really understanding anything about Zen and having only a post-card image of what Japan is really like. In any case, I really appreciate a lot of the material I found was based on field recordings and even in some cases people playing instruments as if joining in with nature and natural sounds as well as of course some temple sounds and related audio phenomenon. It would be interesting to talk directly to a lot of the artists and to see what terms they would use to describe their sounds and if Zen is a genuine interest or it is just a coincidence.


Artists who didn’t make the final mix but who deserve a shout out include (in no particular order): Artman (DJ Kudo), Tujiko Noriko, Ikue Mori, Ken Ikeda, Nobuo Uematsu, Fumio Miyashita, Akio Suzuki, Saito Koji, Yuya Ota, Masayoshi Fujita, Iluha, Takuya Yamashita, Eitetsu Hayashi, Hiroshi Sato, 吉村弘 (Hiroshi Yoshimura), Koss, Hirotaka Shirotsubaki, Tomoko Sauvage, Pass Into Silence and of course Takehisa Kosugi. Apologies to anyone I may have overlooked.


Cabeza de Vaca Facebook


Track
Artist
Title
Label
Year
1
Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Paraiso U.F.O.
La Novia - Speed Guru (Live in Tokyo)
Acid Mothers Temple
2002
2
Tetsu Inoue
Background Story
 Instinct Ambient
1996
3
Ametsub
Faint Dazzlings
Mille Plateaux
2010
4
Ghost
Masttillah
Drag City
1996
5
Geinoh Yamashirogumi
Shohmyoh
Victor
1988
6
Ground Zero
Paraiso 1
Trigram / ReR Megacorp
1995 / 2005
7
Gallery Six
Hakusui
Shimmering Moods
2015
8
Yui Onodera
Rhizome 4
Gears Of Sand
2007
9
Buddhastick Transparent
Labyrinth (Lunatique Lux)
Sharira
1997
10
Adzuki
/ Autumn
Adzuki Self-released (Bandcamp)
2014
11
松本 一哉(Kazuya Matsumoto
たゆたう水月(Tayutau suigetsu
Spekk
2015
12
Chihei Hatakeyama
A bronze pike
Room40
2015
13
松本 一哉(Kazuya Matsumoto
秋霖(Shurin
Spekk
2014
14
Yasuaki Shimizu
Kono Yo Ni Yomeri #2
Better Days
1982
15
Tetsu Inoue
Remote
 DiN
2005
16
Stilllife
彗星
Nature Bliss
2014
17
Ippu-Do
Alone
Epic
1982
18
Stilllife
やがて霞とともに
Nature Bliss
2014
19
Ametsub
66
Mille Plateaux
2010
20
Michiru Aoyama
World
Shimmering Moods
2015
21
Yoichiro Yoshikawa
Crater On The Moon (Short Version)
Eastworld
1987
22
Yamaoka
Late in summer
Twice Removed
2015
23
Fourcolour
Double
12k
2016
24
ENA
Absorption #2
Samurai Horo
2014
25
Go Hiyama
Hiku
Stroboscopic Artefacts
2011
26
A.O.T.
フィードバック (Go Koyashiki Remix)” (Rundgång)
SonuoS
2013
27
Yui Onodera
Semi Lattice Part 5
 Baskaru
2015
28
Dumbtype
Drawing #3
Digital Narcis
1997
29
Toshifumi Hinata
Colored Air
Alfa
1986
30
Maki Asakawa
Onna
Honest Jon's Records
? / 2015
31
Fruit Of The Original Sin
Interscape (-X)
Kin Sound Recordings
2001
32
Susumu Yokota
Shinsen
Leaf
2000
33
Buddhastick Transparent
Morpheus (Eve Eva : X)
Sharira
1996