MUSIC

Tidal Perspectives is an album by Giovanni Di Domenico, Pak Yan Lau, and John Also Bennett. Recorded across a single afternoon in Brussels, Belgium, the album’s four parts are a rippling alchemy of processed Rhodes piano, sizzling ceramics, and liquified bass flute, a rare meeting of three unique voices from the contemporary music landscape that manages to flow with the effortless inevitability of the oceanic tides. Giovanni Di Domenico, an accomplished composer and prolific collaborator who has released albums with Jim O’Rourke, Eiko Ishibashi and Akira Sakata, among many others, initiated the collaboration with Bennett after the two met at a record fair in Saint-Gilles, Belgium and bonded over a shared inquisitiveness for unconventional sonic combinations. Along with Pak Yan Lau, a Belgian-born sound artist and improviser who has developed her own rich and unique sonic footprint, the trio entered the studio with little, if any, discussion beforehand, jumping right into playing without preconceived structures. The resulting recordings had a depth of sound and emotional resonance surprising even them, with finished pieces emerging from single live takes and minor edits. Bennett, known for his solo work as well as his collaborations with Christina Vantzou as CV & JAB, gives us here a taste of his bass flute in free flowing form. Unconstricted by concept, joyfully and lazily bouncing off the melodic shimmers of Di Domenico’s Rhodes, Bennett uses his flute’s pitch information to trigger long tones that emerge like rays of light piercing through low hanging clouds - moments of clarity among a clicking world of sonic stimuli. Meanwhile, Lau’s crackling and sometimes dissonant contributions on prepared piano, live hydrophone, and custom ceramic sound objects balance out the triangle, adding a sense of microcosmic intrigue that allows the music to seamlessly ebb and flow between moments of comfort and foggy uncertainty. The album’s title track and climax, the eighteen minute “Tidal Perspectives”, drifts in with some kind of clarity, Lau’s glinting tonal waves edging in just beyond the horizon lines drawn by Di Domenico’s Rhodes and Bennett’s bass flute. But like the tidal flows of the Atlantic that inspired its title, just as you begin to perceive what’s happening, the currents have already taken you out to sea.

Some marriages are made in heaven and this is definitely one of them. Two of the great ambient masters of recent times concoct a stunning EP full of spine-tinglingly beautiful moments, subtle rhythms and soul-soothing tones. Echoes of Ry Cooder and Eric Satie mingle with found-sounds and warm electronics to create a landmark of ambient exotica.

'Apodelia' is Hotspring's second solo release on Mood Hut, and is partly a further exploration of song forms, studio techniques and instrumentation explored on 2020’s 'Obit for Sunshade'. 'Apodelia' explores lifting into revealing; scouring fidelities, playing with emotion, and improvising by night.

The KLF's 1990's great album that created ”Chill Out” zone and grew up ambient techno.

Invisible Inc once again presents another incredible full-length album from the talented Double Geography. Following on from 2020's “The Indoor Gardener”, the new LP “Open Water” is bathed in a similar blissful atmosphere. Double Geography aka Duncan Thornley (one half of Weird Weather and studio engineer at MAP Studios), following the success of his debut album now presents his second album for Invisible Inc. Leaning towards the label's more ambient and laidback output, the album is themed around water, transience and escape and sounds as unshackled and free-flowing as you'd expect...you can almost feel the breeze in the air and the sun on your skin. There is a noticeable progression in the music from his previous releases, this time featuring several additional musicians to compliment Thornley's electronics with live instrumentation...adding a complexity and depth to each of these compositions and an overall 'organic' quality that makes these new pieces sound like quite a departure from the first album. Fretless bass, clarinet and saxophone decorate the music with refrains and melodies that have been enchanting our imagination even in their absence since first hearing them.

Balmat began our journey in 2021 with the release of Luke Sanger’s Languid Gongue. Now, three years later, we turn an important corner as the Norfolk musician rejoins us with Dew Point Harmonics, the first repeat appearance on the label. Sanger’s new album feels like a natural extension of his inaugural record for Balmat: It’s a bewitching collection of esoteric synth sketches that slips unpredictably between consonant repetition, poignant melodies, and gnarled bursts of noise that catch in the ear like burrs in hiking socks. That natural metaphor is perhaps not accidental. Despite having been composed on Sanger’s diverse array of hardware and self-written software, many of the tracks were first conceived while Sanger was hiking in a particularly wild and isolated section of the Norfolk coast. The field recording that opens the album, on “6am Beach Walk,” was taken on one of his many early-morning walks there, in which he and his dog might go for miles without seeing another soul. The album’s title was inspired by the overnight condensation covering the long marram grass in the dunes, glistening in the early light (and drenching everything coming in contact with it) before evaporating in the morning sun. Indeed, the concept of dew point—the temperature at which water vapor condenses into a liquid—feels like the perfect metaphor for Sanger’s music, in which foggy ambience is distilled into glistening quicksilver orbs, transient spheres of perfection eventually absorbed back into the atmosphere. A shapeshifting collection of richly detailed and deeply expressive electronic miniatures, Dew Point Harmonics is both a testament to the mysteries of transformation and an invitation to get lost in the wilderness of your own imagination.

In an era of rampant, man-made climate chaos, “solastalgia” (the longing and distress experienced by individuals as a response to environmental change/degradation) has emerged as a useful, semi-viral concept — a catch-all term for the pervasive sense that the world as we know it is far from well, and only growing less so. But, for many of us, a problem, a trap, an ineffable hollowness, exists at the very crux of this concept/premise: how can we mourn (or even sense the loss of) that which we have never known? Especially for lifelong urbanites estranged from nature, who nevertheless grasp the severity and complexity of the problem—how might they remember? How might they mourn? Perhaps indirectly—that is to say, in an exploratory and non-dogmatic fashion—Green-House, a project birthed by Olive Ardizoni and now officially a duo project featuring long-time collaborator and confidant, Michael Flanagan, seeks to address this gap in understanding. Six Songs for Invisible Gardens, the debut Green-House EP whose 2020 release coincided with the depths of Covid-19 “lockdown,” responded to the rampant heartsickness of human and plant life, especially in non-rural areas. The packaging of the cassette release famously included wildflower seeds for the listener to scatter. This gesture (at once simple and daring, especially when one considers the logistical element) exists as testament to the sincerity and seriousness of Ardizoni’s convictions. Music for Living Spaces, the first full-length Green-House LP, followed in 2021— a refinement of the formula that enshrined Six Songs as a cult, eco-ambient hit. Out October 13, 2023 on Leaving Records, they have returned with the LP A Host For All Kinds of Life, a third entry in a series of releases whose titles have incidentally all revolved around the “for” construction: an unofficial canon of offerings, or maybe rather instructions as to how the music contained therein might, could, and should operate in/on the listener’s life and “living space(s).” Decidedly the most expansive Green-House release — one need only consider the LP’s title and the kaleidoscopic, fractal cover art designed by Flanagan—A Host For All Kinds of Life troubles the very notion of “ambient music,” a category with whom Green-House has always existed in some degree of tension. What if a song’s seeming softness constitutes its biting edge? What if easeful, contemplative pleasure can radically alter our mindset? Our very role as worldly subjects? Drawing on the works of Lynn Margulis and our burgeoning understanding of the evolutionary role of biological mutualism (associations between species in which both species benefit), A Host For All Kinds of Life is a deeply entrenched and politically grounded song suite. And there are indeed discrete songs here, with defined structure, momentum, and sway; see the gilded, sixties-evoking melodic arabesque of the record’s ninth and penultimate track, “Everything is Okay” (which incidentally ends with the release’s only human voice—a tender message left for Ardizoni by their mother). In conversation, Ardizoni speaks often of the centrality of joy—that Green-House’s very existence can be traced to a conscious decision they made to not only choose joy as an act of rebellion, but to find that joy in whatever plant life they could access in their immediate environment. In this sense, all of Green-House’s releases (and A Host for All Kinds of Life especially) embody a radicality that may elude the casual or first-time listener. To choose, model, and express joy in an ailing world requires courage, a courage that must be jealously guarded and constantly replenished. A Host For all Kinds of Life encourages the listener to slow down, take stock, tune in to the more-than-human world around them, and gather their courage and joy in light of the uncertainty to come.

Leaving Records presents Music For Living Spaces, the debut LP by non-binary Los Angeles-based artist Green-House. Olive Ardizoni helms the project, which made its debut with the charming 2019 EP Six Songs for Invisible Gardens. Music for Living Spaces represents an evolution of its predecessor’s minimalist compositions into songs that move with winsome melodies and emotional arcs. Though recorded during a pandemic, the transporting nature of Music For Livings Spaces offers a remedy for dreariness. Ardizoni states, “I’m trying to hit that part of the brain that’s affected by the emotional state that you’re in when you perceive something as cute.” 
 
Music For Living Spaces' first single “Sunflower Dance” sports a breezy, bucolic vibe. The track is intended to invoke the whimsical image of hamsters happily dancing in a field. Ardizoni brings an intentionality to these playful atmospheres. They state, “In our culture, we prioritize profound artistic expression through emotions like sadness or aggression, but cuteness, silliness or fun, are the things that we trivialize in our culture. We say that they’re childish and it gets invalidated.” The complex and radiant productions on Music for Living Spaces counter this view. Ardizoni continues, “Cuteness and joy are gateways to compassion. It’s the gateway to empathy and activating the network in your brain that boosts moral concern for other people in the world around you.” Despite its general sunniness, Music For Living Spaces does not solely rely on exuberant, colorful moods. “Royal Fern” is a sophisticated composition of voices calling and responding to each other in rippling waves, while towards the closing of the album we hear Ardizoni’s ethereal voice for the first time that carries a nuanced, contemplative aura that defies categorization. 
 
Music For Living Spaces is a step forward for Green-House. Ardizoni states, “The intention of this project is to facilitate the connection between humans and nature. Instead of perceiving nature as something that's separate from us, or outside of our homes, we can recognize nature as something that is within us and in everything we do in our daily lives. You don't need to have access to the great outdoors to feel connected to the environment.”

A must-have for fans of Japanese environmental music such as Hiroshi Yoshimura, Satoshi Ashikawa and Yutaka Hirose! Organic new age music that is swallowed by the beauty of nature that sways gracefully! Leaving Records is proud to present the debut EP by Green-House, a project by local artist Olive Ardizon. "The six tracks are based on the concept of "communication between plant life and the people who grow it. Based on field recordings that capture the sounds of water and the voices and movements of plants and animals in nature, this is a superb new age/ambient work that breathes an aesthetic synth sound that encompasses the beauty and serenity of the pull that is common in Japanese environmental music. Artwork by Michael Flanagan.

Music From Memory is thrilled to introduce Dead Sound, the collaborative project of Marco Sterk (aka Young Marco) and Berlin-based pop-auteur John Moods. Both artists are no strangers to the label; Sterk forms one third of the trio Gaussian Curve, while Moods released the 2022 album ‘Hidden Gem’ with The Zenmenn. Their collaboration was both planned and spontaneous; Sterk initially reached out in 2022 expressing his desire to work with Moods. The pair finally got together in 2024 to produce ‘Into The Void’, an album that burst into life over the course of a few creatively charged days in each other’s company. Moods’ dream-like, emotionally charged music wears its heart on its sleeve; its very human vulnerability makes it a perfect match for Sterk’s strong sense of melody and textural sonic visions. ‘Into The Void’ carries these psychedelic traits in its DNA, but they exist layered deep amongst the shadows. Painting on a wide canvas that effortlessly skips between genres, the pair weave anything that inspires them into a truly unique tapestry; a bold attempt to touch at the beyond. Exploring the space between perception (level of the mind) and the nature of the universe (actual level of reality) seems traditionally like an impossible task. But there’s gotta be a time and a space for the profound and this album invites the listener to go deep, letting go of concepts such as love and opening oneself up to one’s own authentic journey. This transformative force of healing is a central theme of ‘Into The Void’, a path that is lined with light and darkness in equal measure. But, as Moods says, “do not skip the darkness, let that door open and swallow you. And maybe you’ll find, it's not as dark as you perceived at first."

If Surround can be listened to as music that’s as close to air itself, allowing us to enter each listener’s sound scenery, or as something that exists within a new perspective, expanding the middle ground between sound and music, and transforming it into a comfortable space, it would be much appreciated. — Hiroshi Yoshimura Originally released as an album in January 1986, Surround was recorded by Yoshimura as a commission from home builder Misawa Homes, intended to function as an “amenity” designed to enhance the company’s newly built living spaces. In his original notes for the album, Yoshimura recommends that Surround be placed in the same family of sounds “as the vibration of footsteps, the hum of an air conditioner, or the clanging of a spoon inside a coffee cup.” And, as he suggests, “with the addition of city noise from outside the window,” you may hear Surround in a completely new way. A pioneer in the field of environmental music, Yoshimura’s previous works included Music For Nine Post Cards (1982), originally produced to be played back inside a museum space, and designing sound environments for public spaces and subway systems. Surround was recorded almost concurrently with the acclaimed and popular GREEN (1986); the two albums are described by Hiroyoshi Shiokawa in his liner notes as being Yoshimura’s yin and yang. 12月上旬入荷。遂に満を持して登場。あの『Green』を凌ぐ人気を誇る、長年失われていた吉村弘最高峰のアンビエント・クラシックこと1986年作品『Surround』が〈Light in the Attic〉配給の〈Temporal Drift〉レーベルより待望の公式アナログ再発！日本の環境音楽のパイオニアであり、都市/公共空間のサウンドデザインからサウンドアート、パフォーマンスに至るまで、傑出した仕事を世に残した偉才、吉村弘。その最難関の音盤として君臨してきた幻の一枚が、今回史上初の公式アナログ・リイシュー。ミサワホームから依頼されて録音された作品で、これらは同社の新築居住空間をより充実させるために設計された「アメニティ」として機能することを目的としていた環境音楽作品。吉村自身による当時のライナーノーツに加え、オリジナル・プロデューサーであった塩川博義氏による新規ライナーノーツも同封（日／英）。 MASTERPIECE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If Surround can be listened to as music that’s as close to air itself, allowing us to enter each listener’s sound scenery, or as something that exists within a new perspective, expanding the middle ground between sound and music, and transforming it into a comfortable space, it would be much appreciated. — Hiroshi Yoshimura Originally released as an album in January 1986, Surround was recorded by Yoshimura as a commission from home builder Misawa Homes, intended to function as an “amenity” designed to enhance the company’s newly built living spaces. In his original notes for the album, Yoshimura recommends that Surround be placed in the same family of sounds “as the vibration of footsteps, the hum of an air conditioner, or the clanging of a spoon inside a coffee cup.” And, as he suggests, “with the addition of city noise from outside the window,” you may hear Surround in a completely new way. A pioneer in the field of environmental music, Yoshimura’s previous works included Music For Nine Post Cards (1982), originally produced to be played back inside a museum space, and designing sound environments for public spaces and subway systems. Surround was recorded almost concurrently with the acclaimed and popular GREEN (1986); the two albums are described by Hiroyoshi Shiokawa in his liner notes as being Yoshimura’s yin and yang. 12月上旬入荷。遂に満を持して登場。あの『Green』を凌ぐ人気を誇る、長年失われていた吉村弘最高峰のアンビエント・クラシックこと1986年作品『Surround』が〈Light in the Attic〉配給の〈Temporal Drift〉レーベルより待望の公式アナログ再発！日本の環境音楽のパイオニアであり、都市/公共空間のサウンドデザインからサウンドアート、パフォーマンスに至るまで、傑出した仕事を世に残した偉才、吉村弘。その最難関の音盤として君臨してきた幻の一枚が、今回史上初の公式アナログ・リイシュー。ミサワホームから依頼されて録音された作品で、これらは同社の新築居住空間をより充実させるために設計された「アメニティ」として機能することを目的としていた環境音楽作品。吉村自身による当時のライナーノーツに加え、オリジナル・プロデューサーであった塩川博義氏による新規ライナーノーツも同封（日／英）。 MASTERPIECE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is the official reissue of the fantastic 1998 solo album by Naoki Toushi, a solitary guitarist who was an original member of the "King of Noise", JUKAI-KAIZEI, and also a member of the Japanese psychedelic rock band "Nagisa de". The latest mastering from the original mixed DAT master!

Tokyo deep house master Soshi Takeda returns with a long-awaited six-song sequel to 2021’s landmark Floating Mountains, surfing deeper into mystery, motion, and liquid dreams: Secret Communication. Recorded across 2022 and 2023 at his home studio with a unique assemblage of 80’s and 90’s hardware, the tracks cruise through a latticework of skyways on lush pads, bubbling bass, and blissed BPMs, dusted in sunrise acid and cosmic piano. His is a dance music of idyllic emotions and inner worlds, yearning for new horizons. Dramatic events overlapped with the album’s creation: “Wars broke out. On the other hand, my child was born. There were sad and beautiful moments in my life.” Secret Communication contains vistas, valleys, glimpses of lives unled, swirling above the grey noise of the city. From the jazzy daydream of “Can Imagination Transcend Distance?” to the sleek starlight house of “Rainstorm” to the farewell ecstasy of the title track, Takeda’s music touches and transports, a portal to places beyond. Fantasy and feeling, intention and inspiration, all become one: “When I listen to beautiful deep house, I feel a mysterious atmosphere. Dreamy scenes come to mind. I aim to create that sound."

Tokyo visionist Soshi Takeda’s second album took shape across eight months of the winter and spring, inspired by an iconic mid-80’s photography book of Chinese landscapes. Scenes of lantern-lit fishing boats on misty mountain lakes seeded a mood of hidden paradise, with ancient waterways snaking secret paths into the past. Recorded at his home studio using hardware synths and samplers from the 1990’s, the six songs of Floating Mountains (plus digital-only bonus track, “Deep Breath,” from the 2nd Life Silk compilation) evoke shrouded vistas of liquid skies and shining lakes, like some Li River twist on Balearic half-light house. Shades of cosmic drift and crystalline electronica ebb and flow within the nocturnal pulse, pagodas and pearls reflecting the waning moon: “I hope you can feel the cool and exotic atmosphere.”

The concept for and palette of Crystal Dorval aka White Poppy’s ‘Paradise Gardens’ trilogy first germinated in 2016 as a notion of “paradise music” combining new age, bedroom shoegaze, and bossa nova into “transcendental Tropicalia.” As she filled tapes of recordings exploring the idea, many of the songs gradually gravitated towards the hermetic dream pop her project is best known for, becoming the albums Paradise Gardens (2020) and Sound Of Blue (2023). Dorval describes these collections as a sort of “emotional purging or shadow work,” before arriving at “the state of inner paradise:” Ataraxia. As the third, final, and most purist realization of the original ‘Paradise Gardens’ vision, Ataraxia delivers. Nine instrumentals of nimble guitar, elevated bass, clean rhythm, and clear light, gliding like swans on a shimmering pond. There’s a sense throughout of playful tranquility, of serenades at sunset, of kisses of blissful Muzak wafting along a boardwalk. But behind the music is a patience, grace, and levity born of Dorval’s personal journey with spiritual healing that paralleled the trilogy. A process of transmuting pain into beauty, day by day, melody by melody, cleaving the darkness from the soul and re-entering one’s rightful home in the Garden.

Farmer and deep house producer Hiroyuki Tanaka aka Charles A.D. has been quietly cultivating his crop of live hardware dub techno and devotional acid since debuting with the 熱い海 (‘Hot Sea’) EP on Austria’s Dream Raw Recordings in 2017, followed by two long-form classics for Tokyo’s Umé label in 2019 (Inception) and 2021 (Dry Flower). His latest, West Pontoon Bridge, further refines Tanaka's composite of rhythm, repetition, and vanishing point electronics, shaded in what he calls “characteristic sadness.” Schemed and tracked across a half decade of studio explorations, the album moves through gradient landscapes of twilit trees, mossy waterfalls, and hidden temples shrouded in ocean mist. Named for a nearby Japanese landmark of boards laid across boats at the river mouth in place of a permanent bridge, the collection unfolds in a similarly improvised and panoramic sweep. Lean percussive systems crosshatched with bass, haze, liquid loops, and spatial FX, the album subtly accelerates as it advances, spiraling softly towards a strobing dance floor in a sacred grove.

Edward Artemiev's re-recording of his scores to Andrei Tarkovsky's classic films Зеркало (Mirror) (1975) and Сталкер (Stalker) (1979), reissued on 180-gram vinyl. When Artemiev recorded these scores in Moscow in 1989 and '90, there were no legitimately available releases of the original soundtracks. Artemiev chose to fill that void himself with these recordings, released on Torso Kino in the Netherlands as part of a 1990 double-LP set also containing re-recordings of Artemiev's score to Солярис (Solaris) (1972). This set is now long out of print, and Mirumir is pleased to present the collection on two separate LP releases, remastered, with new artwork, and officially licensed by the artist himself.

Tokyo architect Hiroki Takahashi is a world-builder both in matter and sound. His latest collection of serene micro-miniatures was inspired by “the dissatisfaction with reality that I feel on a daily basis.” Escapism offers exactly that: percolating patterns of fiberglass synthetics and fluorescent melody, assembled into minimalist bio-domes of refracted light and hanging gardens. Recorded during metropolitan commutes, afterhours office meditations, and various windows of urban stasis, the album’s six songs actualize the ambient muse of their maker, willing space from density, tranquility from tedium. As with his work in exotic atmosphere unit UNKNOWN ME, Takahashi’s touch is hushed, precise, and prismatic, coaxing spectrums of illusion and bliss in its tinted glass spirals: “Extreme tension produces extreme relaxation.”

The second outing by Hunter Thompson’s tribalist dub alias Tegu skews more spectral and environmental, a canopy of cascading keys, hand percussion, and swells of everglades bass: Owl Island. Recorded in early 2024 on the banks of a Floridian canal, the album’s 11 tracks roll in like warm fog over an ancient marsh, swaying with low end and loops of humid synths. Across 53 minutes, the music moves between séance and visitation, alternately lurking and expectant, bathed in a sheen of starlight and streetlights. Fellow voyagers Wave Temples and X.Y.R. join for a pair of smoky, cosmic cameos, but otherwise this is a solitary affair – locked in, looking up, mapping new constellations in the expanding void.

Following releases on Sähkö Recordings and The Trilogy Tapes, "Fever of the World" is the Soda Gong debut by Memotone, the nom de plume of UK-based multi-instrumentalist Will Yates. As a collection, it is both intimate and expansive, like the feeling of gathering one's thoughts before setting off on a long journey or committing to an irrevocable course of action. Throughout, Yates' talents as both player and sound designer are on full display, as are the sonic signatures that have come to characterize the Memotone catalog: low-lit, ECM-inflected noir; evasive and evolving loop-based accretions; and mellifluous mosaics of keys, guitar, reeds, and percussion. It is patient and focused music, built around production techniques and compositional ideas that have been perfected both in studio and in live performance over a period of several years. "Catherine, On Fire" sets the scene, one of two languid, longform selections, and develops slowly from a spare, harmonic-laden guitar loop into a bed of rippling textural ambience and woozy clarinet filigree. Later, "The Bus" and "When the Bakery Has What You Want and It's Cheap" conjure images of rain-streaked windows, fanciful baked confections, and grey skies broken finally by sunlight. Warm, generous, and comfortable in its own skin, this is music that reminds us that when it feels easy to resign ourselves to world weariness, we should pause for a moment and listen to the rustle of the leaves. The wind knows not to linger.

Joanna Brouk's most ambitious recording, Sounds of the Sea is a concept album full of mystery and eroticism. A conch shell bookends this journey into the deep, going down and down and down further, never reaching bottom. Drawing inspiration from various legends of mermaids and sailors, Brouk weaves circling flutes, vocals, drones and whale songs to describe a sense of unfathomable longing more clearly than words could ever express. Sounds of the Sea is a hypnotic and profound achievement by one of new age's greatest composers.

Minecraft - Volume Alpha is the work of German composer and musician Daniel Rosenfeld. Using C418 as his moniker, Rosenfeld crafted the sweeping soundtrack and vibrant sound design which helped breathe life into Minecraft's voxel-based universe. Fans and critics were universally enamored with his beatless, nuanced electronic pieces upon release. Popular gaming site Kotaku named it among The Best Game Music of 2011, calling the music "remarkably soothing," and The Guardian has compared Rosenfeld's delicate piano and sparse ambient motifs to legendary artists Erik Satie and Brian Eno. In an interview feature with C418, Polygon distilled Volume Alpha to its essence: "It's not bound by the retro aesthetic of Minecraft's graphics. It transcends them. The album is an attempt to uplift the combined game/music experience into the sublime."

Kindred spirits Passepartout Duo and Inoyama Land embody the essence of play – charting a new chapter and reinvigorating the environmental music and electronic landscape.

Passepartout Duo is formed of Nicoletta Favari (IT) and Christopher Salvito (IT/US), who since 2015 have been on a continuous journey travelling the world’s corners, engaged in a creative process they term “slow music”. Having been guests of many notable artist residencies and with live performances in cultural spaces and institutions, their evocative music escapes categorisation. With no fixed abode their musical pilgrimage brought them to Japan first in 2019, which prompted a deep connection to Kankyō Ongaku ‘environmental music’, a genre in which Inoyama Land is often associated with, soundtracking the duo’s first immersive experience. In 2023 the duo revisited Japan and set out to reconnect in particular with the music of Inoyama Land, performed by Makoto Inoue and Yasushi Yamashita. The highly revered album ‘Danzindan-Pojidon’ (1983) produced by Haruomi Hosono amongst other well publicized and acclaimed reissues (Light in The Attic Records’ Grammy-nominated compilation ‘Kankyō Ongaku’), produced a global resurgence and admiration of the environmental music movement. Nicoletta took the lead to seek out Inoyama Land and in making contact successfully their intrigue and eagerness to meet was warmly reciprocated, and the group scheduled to meet in the form of a spontaneous improvisation session.

“We’re deeply concerned with what it means to be a duo, and what it means for people to connect through music.”

'Radio Yugawara' was recorded in 2023 in Makoto Inoue’s hometown of Yugawara where his family runs a kindergarten, whose space has doubled as a Sunday recording studio. Upon arriving a circle of four tables was set up in the school’s auditorium - the tables were carefully populated with children’s instruments: a full set of handbells, a glockenspiel, a xylophone, recorders, melodicas, and harmonicas. Surrounding the tables were racks hanging all sorts of bells and wind chimes and within this environment each performer set up their own electronic instruments. Dialling into each other, a simple set of playground ‘game rules’ was devised where time was divided into three separate sessions (1) ‘only electronic instruments’, ‘only acoustic’, and ‘a mix of both’, (2) ‘revolving duets’ each taking turns to play through a cycle of ‘four duos’ and (3) ‘anything permitted’, accumulating to more than three hours of material which was then carefully distilled into succinct tracks. The alluring album opener ‘Strange Clouds’ oscillates into view, setting a lush scenery built from a bed of synthesisers and the first glimpse of the chromaplane, the hand-built analogue instrument designed by Passepartout Duo, featuring a touchless interface and endless organic sounds that underpin the album’s 11-track inlets. Percussive pulses act as the heartbeat to ‘Abstract Pets’ before earthy sub-swells open the pathway to glistening glockenspiels and wind chimes. The atmosphere shapeshifts with ‘Simoom’ and ‘Tangerine Fields’ with swirling synth lines and subliminal beats resembling changes in weather patterns. At the centre points the idyllic ‘Observatory’ and ‘Mosaic’ could illuminate the deepest oceans before the hypnotic, arpeggiating synth lines in the otherworldly ‘Xiloteca’ propel the album towards ‘Solivago’, with its gentle lullaby of playful ambience. The reflective closer ‘Axolotl Dreams’ resolves their somewhat chance meeting with elegant pastoral chord strokes and uplifting synth swells, sending final signals upwards into the ether.

'Radio Yugawara' is a unique one-off transmission from a specific place and point in time, unlikely to ever occur again. The respective duo’s approach can really be described as “tuning in”, a tuning into each other, to themselves, and to the surrounding nature of Yugawara. Like waves that travel off-world, sounds travel through the universe and can be lost forever if we don’t seek them out. In finding a harmonic affinity within their instruments and a spiritual kinship in their interwoven performance, Radio Yugawara at its core is an interpretation of feeling, of close human interaction and the true essence of discovery.

“The album is both a transmission from a location, but also a tuning into the surroundings and to each other. Music in this kind of ephemeral moment is much less about active creation and more about discovering something which is already there in the air.”