MUSIC

A new set of drifting electronics and meditative new age sounds from Khotin under his Area 3 project.

Khotin by Vancouver producer Dylan Khotin-Foote is a reissue of the cassette release that sold out instantly at bandcamp in 2018! The profound ambient sound is a chill-out refinement of the unfathomable depth of the previous work, which is both immersive and sleepy, and has been beautifully incorporated into the lo-fi feel of the artwork while maintaining the vibrancy of the spiritual & naturalistic sound world. This is a masterpiece of beauty that cannot be described in words, with a profound sound world that creates a dreamy fantasy land on a windowsill in broad daylight, only to sink into the border between Hades and reality. A masterpiece of unspeakable beauty. Highly recommended for all music lovers from new age to ambient and Balearic.

You can't just soak it in and sleep to it, you'll melt. From "Mood Hut" to "1080p" to "Summer Cool", Khotin, a popular Vancouver producer by the name of Dylan Khotin-Foote, has taken over the charm of the cool house coming out of Canada. The cassette, which sold out in 2017 on Bandcamp, has been reissued with 2LP! It's a lone ambient sound with a sweet layer of synthesizers drifting with dreamy ambience, a gentle beat with a hint of sanctuary, and immersive concrete sounds floating in the air. This is the culmination of the lo-fi house movement. A mysterious sound with an unfathomable depth. If you like ambient, deep house, new age, or Balearic music, this is a must have!

Born in Bangkok but rooted in Vancouver’s underground scene, the little-known legend Hussain Bokhari presents his debut album, proudly released on local ambient-dance institution Mood Hut. A deft blend of bedroom pop, lo-fi textures, and Balearic-infused guitar and synth work, the record shimmers with understated intimacy. The pillowy sonics of “Pull Me Up” and the Thai-language vocals of “Bangkok Boy” evoke a nostalgia that traverses both time and place. A superb soundscape for quiet hours, drifting between self, city, and memory.

Om Namah Shivaya from 1984 finds Laraaji using drum machines and stream-of-consciousness vocal mantra to make new-age trance pop.

In 2017 Jeremiah Chiu & Marta Sofia Honer traveled together to the Åland Islands (an archipelago that is host to around 6,500 islands) in the Baltic Sea between Sweden and Finland. They headed to the islands with the intention of helping two friends (mother/daughter duo Jannika/Sage Reed) barn raise a small inn named Hotel Svala in Kumlinge (a municipality consisting of a small group of islands and a population of about 320). The idea was that, once completed, Svala would host artist residencies and workshop programs, creating a direct link between the islands and the USA. The concept of recording music there came about as Honer & Chiu learned more and more about the islands. They were taken by the serene and strange quality of the place. The sun doesn’t set in the summer (and barely rises in the winter). The network of miniature islands is traversed by ferry which, according to Chiu, “casts a surreal horizontal movement through space and time, with islands shifting into and out of periphery, totally still and calm, yet always in motion.” In 2019 they were awarded a grant from the Department of Culture to return and perform a concert at the Kumlinge Kyrka, a 14th century medieval church adorned with incredible frescos. The concert was recorded and became source material – along with improvisations on viola and electronics, pipe organ, pump organ, piano, synthesizers, field recordings and voice memos, all captured across both their trips at various locations on the archipelago – from which they meticulously crafted a post-script in the form of 'Recordings from the Åland Islands'. Easing listeners into the feeling of the place, the album’s opening track “In Åland Air” is a dream-like haze that slows time, invoking the feeling of descending by plane onto the archipelago, a place Chiu recalls as “lush with a gentle, brackish breeze...” On “Snåcko,” a track named for the island next to Kumlinge, the music becomes a transportive portrait, painting in sound “the romantic and gentle atmosphere of the forests in Åland — a place where your eyes slowly adjust to the rainbow-colored moss covering granite boulders. Walking around, you find the forest floor blossoming with blueberries, currants, and flowers...” The longest and darkest movement in the collection, “Archipelago,” encapsulates “the experience of being surrounded in the vast network of islands” with a dense cloud of slowly modulating string layers, improvised by Honer in an empty swimming pool at Svala. “The heaviness of the track,” says Honer, “is a reference to the deep darkness experienced during the Nordic winter days.” But the plaintive atmosphere of that penultimate piece is succeeded with the triumphant final movement of the album, “Under the Midnight Sun,” which bellows forth like a vibrant chorus of melodious sighs, echoing classic sounds from Jon Hassell’s 'Vernal Equinox', or Franco Battiato’s 'Clic', or Brian Eno’s 'Another Green World'. Just as two eyes, two ears, and two halves of a brain work together to create a memory, on their duo debut, Honer and Chiu’s collective pallet produces a vivid three-dimensional hyperreality of painterly tones and textures – bright and kaleidoscopic, but with a deeply warm, earthen resonance. The music evokes a powerful sense of place, transporting and immersing listeners in the other-world of the Åland Islands. And though they achieve this in beautifully natural, organic manner, Chiu & Honer agree this album is quite unlike anything they’ve made before, and likely unlike anything they’ll make in the future. ...about Chiu & Honer... The combination of modular synthesizer and viola is an uncommon one, but Jeremiah Chiu & Marta Sofia Honer manage to create a distinctive dyad that comes together with grace and truth. They’ve accomplished this by bringing much more than their respective axes to the table. Years of collaboration, cohabitation, shared experience, and separate but equally inspired commitments to utilitarian cultural work bind their disparate timbres together into a singular aesthetic reality. The two artists met, appropriately, as members of a large ensemble performing Terry Riley’s “In C,” for an annual concert organized by Bitchin Bajas at Chicago modern music hub Constellation. Honer & Chiu had been living and working in Chicago for a long time, both active members of the notoriously interconnected improvisational and experimental music scenes, but they were somehow previously unintroduced. Chiu’s musical CV to that point included work with bands like Icy Demons and Chandeliers, but he was mostly known for his visual and graphic design work as Some All None. Honer had primarily worked as an instructor in Chicago, as well as a member of the ensemble Quartet Datura. In 2014, a year after their first collaboration, together, they decided to migrate to Los Angeles to continue developing their respective careers and crafts in sunnier climes. Relocation to Los Angeles has proven to be fruitful for both artists. Honer has since become a first-call session player for the likes of Adrian Younge and Beyoncé. She’s also played on recordings by Chloe x Halle, Angel Olsen, Fleet Foxes, and Stanley Clarke, among others, including five recordings with Grammy nominations. Along with her session work, Honer is on the music faculty at California State University. Chiu has expanded his visual work in numerous capacities, in addition to becoming an active intersectional community organizer, and refocusing his musical practice to electronic music composition and sound art. He’s also become an Assistant Professor at Otis College of Art & Design; has exhibited/performed at The Getty Center, LACMA, and other distinguished locales; has become a resident programmer for Dublab; and has generated a strong unit of regular musical collaborators that includes Celia Hollander, Booker Stardrum, Ben Babbitt, Dustin Wong, Takako Minekawa, and Sam Prekop. Chiu has also designed album artwork for several International Anthem releases, including Angel Bat Dawid's Transition East, Dos Santos's City of Mirrors, Jeff Parker's Forfolks, and JP's Myspace Beats.

大人気ユニット、Salamandaの片翼！韓国・ソウルを拠点に活動するプロデューサー／DJ、Yetsubyによる最新アルバム『4EVA』が、UK新興レーベル〈Pink Oyster〉の第1弾として登場。ブレイクビーツ、フットワーク、ジャングル、IDM、アンビエント、クラブ・ミュージックを自在に横断しながら、デジタル／アナログ／アコースティックの音響を緻密に編み上げた全10曲。遊び心溢れるサウンド・デザインと、内省的かつ親密なムードが共存する、Yetsubyのソロ作品として極めて完成度の高い一枚です。限定300部。

For AI-38 Italian duo LF58 (Giuseppe Tillieci and Filippo Scorcucchi) present ‘Radials’. A site-specific concept piece that was recorded live on location in Venice, Radials showcases the powerful and transportive sound world which LF58 have become known for. Radials takes its name from the homonymous exhibition created by the Roman artist group Sbagliato, for the 2023 Biennale Architettura of Venice. Following a landmark renovation of the Fondaco dei Tedeschi by renowned Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas, Sbagliato proposed the spatial transformation of the historic sixteenth-century building that would blur the lines between fiction and the real. The concept, to create unexpected “voids” within the fixed order of architecture, prompts the observer to question the fleeting and subjective nature of the reality that surrounds us. The building’s main loggia – a series of five archways exposed to the Canal Grande – take on a theme of reproduction and multiplication, giving rise to infinite perspectives in a dizzying mise en abyme. Through the portal-like potentialities of the loggia, the visitor enters the gateway to a fluid realm of distorted time and space. LF58 arose to translate the visual concept of Radials into sound, delivered through a special quadraphonic concert performed at the Fondaco dei Tedeschi in October 2023. Quadraphonics, with its four distinct audio channels, were used in direct correlation with the visual elements of the installation to immerse the audience in a dreamlike, multisensory experience. The opening scene of running waters and the cacophony of the bustling city streets quickly dissolves under the chiming of nearby bells, as hidden liminal spaces become revealed. It’s not long before all remnants of the ordinary are left behind, as the listener is submerged into the shimmering frequencies of parallel dimensions. A spatial soundscape of ever-moving forms and colours, Radials descends into ever-deeper waters. As the facade of what was once known falls away, a transportive journey of mind-body alterations begins.

Previously issued on three rare cassette-only editions, Joanna Brouk’s 1980 sophomore album The Space Between has finally been given spacious LP quarters. The side-long title track, performed by Brouk’s Mills College instructor and sometime-lover Bill Maraldo is among the deepest and most distinctive pieces in the new age canon, while side B’s three cuts expand the theme in hypnotic new directions.

Paris-born electronic music pioneer and 1970s GRM alumni Ariel Kalma joins with multinational New York trio Asa Tone (Kaazi, Melati ESP, Tristan Arp) for a series of intergenerational, electro-acoustic studio conversations, exploring elasticity within rhythm and winds… or as one early listener observed “space and time.”

Following a chance encounter at Ariel’s studio in the Australian rainforest during the pandemic, Melati & Kaazi began recording long live takes with Kalma, weaving in bioluminescent synth improvisations from Tristan Arp remotely. Revisited a few years later between the members of Asa Tone’s respective homes in New York & Indonesia, “○” is the document of a significant moment in the lives of all the album’s players; an ode to memory and connection in an era of crisis, illuminated via flickering fragments of steel flute, kantilan, modular synthesizer, xaphoon, tenor sax, EWI, field recordings of the surrounding rainforest, and the human voice.

Recorded, written and produced by Asa Tone & Ariel Kalma.
Ariel Kalma: Western Concert Flute, Xaphoon, Tenor Saxophone, Voice
Melati ESP: EWI, Kantilan, Voice
Kaazi: Hydrasynth, Opsix, Percussion
Tristan Arp: Modular Synthesizer, Moog Sub37, Percussion
Additional percussion on *3 by Miles Myjavec

Mixed by Tristan Arp, Kaazi and Ariel Kalma.
Mastered by Jose Arentes at GRAMA, Porto.
Art Direction & Layout : Melati ESP, Kaazi, Biscuit.
 

The latest title from Good Morning Tapes, the cult-favorite cassette label known for its extremely unique catalog, is a mixtape by New York-based new age archivist Mark Griffey (aka Ultravillage) that draws from his vast collection of US cassettes from the mid-1970s to the mid-1990s, presenting obscure ambient, minimal, progressive rock, electronic, and new age music. This mixtape features obscure ambient, minimal, progressive rock, electronic, and new age music from the mid-1970s to the mid-1990s on cassette from the United States. A wonderful selection of light rhythmic and melodic charms woven together over the course of an hour.

A collection of brand new studio recordings, recorded by Davey Jewell (Peaking Lights/Flaming Lips) and mixed by Carlos Niño (Leaving Records). A magical mixtape of tracks that run the full gamut of ‘Laraaji music’, from blissed-out percussive jams to reflective vocal hymnals to trance-inducing drones. A perfect Laraaji entry-point on his never-ending creative journey through inner light.

Praise for Bring On The Sun:

“Shimmers and glistens and throbs in all the right places.” - The Guardian

“It’s minimalistic and trance-like, made for headphone listening and intimate spaces, but in no way does it fade into the background” - Pitchfork

“Spontaneous yet cohesive; intimate yet spun-out, this is some of Laraaji’s finest work. He is finally getting the recognition for being the singular visionary that he is” - Future Music

“A remarkable, transcendental journey into the clouds” - Electronic Sound

“Some much needed waves of cosmic sunshine for our currently troubled times” - The Wire

“An uplifting transcendence that’s simply a joy to hear” - Prog Magazine

“A sprawling collection, encompassing everything from euphoric zither washes to jazzy beat poetry, without ever losing sight of its mood of sunny positivity” - Uncut

A stunning new cassette release from Yama Yuki—head of Tokyo-based label 〈ato.archives〉, known for reissuing key works by Masami Tada (East Bionic Symphonia, Marginal Consort) and Masahiro Sugaya—now arriving via the esteemed 〈Kankyo Records〉. Blending a uniquely Japanese sensibility toward nature, local spirituality, and the vacant textures of urban space, this ambient gem weaves a delicate yet intricate soundscape. Rooted in the lineage of environmental music, minimalism, and post-New Age ambient, it offers a quiet prayer in sound—an auditory landscape you can almost touch.

Interior” was formed by Daisuke Hinata and Hideki Nonaka, who were alumni of the Berkeley College of Music. Their first album “Interior” was released in 1982 on Haruomi Hosono's label, Yen Records. Their musical style of instrumental synth-pop with an emotional flavor based on “ambient music” and “environmental music” style is one of the most popular styles in the new age music scene in the U.S. Windham Hill Records, one of the leading new age music labels in the U.S., has also taken notice.

Placenta is the fourth collection of broadly imaginative and highly collaborative Carlos Niño & Friends music released on International Anthem in the last four years. It is also the first new music to be released by Carlos Niño & Friends following the November 2023 release of André 3000’s New Blue Sun – an album which Carlos produced alongside André, while co-writing, co-creating/playing, and co-mixing every song. Placenta is announced on April 11th, 2024, a date chosen because it is the 1st solar return of Moss Niño (a new being in human form, who Carlos and his partner Annelise are Earth parents of). Their experience of pregnancy, labor and delivery were all profoundly impactful for Carlos. Becoming a father again (a whole 24 years after the birth of Azul Niño, who has become a regular artistic collaborator with Carlos) he felt total Inspiration for this set of recordings, and hence it is perhaps the most conceptually-grounded Carlos Niño & Friends album we've yet to present – fully connected to the spirit of family, birth, and "how we get here."

和製コズミック・サイケ／アンビエントの秘宝。今年2月7日に逝去した日本の音楽シーンにおける最大のレジェンドのひとり、Magical Power Makoが、1993年に自主制作で発表した知られざる音宇宙『Next Millennium Vibrations』が、アートワークを新装し、リマスタリング仕様でCD再発！祈りのようなシンセサイザーの波動、メディテイティヴな旋律、そして内面宇宙を旅するようなスピリチュアルな浮遊感。クラウトロック〜ニューエイジ〜環太平洋の民族音楽までを呑み込みながら、誰にも似ていない独自のサイケデリックなサウンドスケープを形成。極私的な録音の中に潜む、未だ聴かれぬ「次の千年」の響き。まさに未来への密やかな手紙です。

Leading figure of modern ambient Florian TM Zeisig drifts in adult contemporary neo classical space for a shimmering 2nd turn with Stroom, blessed by harp and saxophone from Róisín & Cathal Berkeley and Lia Mazzarri’s cello.

Fresh from minting his Angel R project with Aaliyah Enyo, and building on a handful of cherished albums on enmossed, including the ambient soundtrack to Berghain’s cloakroom, Zeisig curves back onto Stroom with an album of effortlessly lush floatation tank/massage parlour music (delete as applicable).

The spirit of Eno and pot pourri is strong on this one as Zeisig diffuses instrumental gestures into aerosolised synth tones with a gossamer touch that’s come to be expected of his work. It’s all super smooth and florid in the procession from new age waft on ‘Life’s a Spiral’ to the spiritual jazz whims of ‘Thank You Pharoah’ and chill out scenes of ‘Eternal Shore’ on the A-side.

There’s a possible tongue-in-cheek wit to the title and sentiment of ‘Diddy’s Lament’, and ‘Earth Loop’ lists off into powdered 4th world ambient bliss-out and a sublime closing couplet of the plangent sax to ‘Die Große Natur’ and ‘Embody Source Energy’ primed for touching grass from the comfort of your duvet.

Uncleared is the name of my new 29-track instrumental beat-tape. In a more “back-to-basics” approach to beat-making, this tape began as a creative exercise for myself to return to the music that made me who I am. Around Q3/Q4 of 2023 I had read about a “one 4-bar loop a day” regimen to keep output flowing, and this practice was entirely effective in churning-out beats during self-imposed down-time for music making amidst my record label/family balance lifestyle. It was then that I had set a goal to produce & release 40 new beats by the time I turned 40. I found an almost entirely sample-based production flow in Ableton referencing an ongoing list I kept of material to sample & chop as the foundation for the track, culling from the timeless All The Breaks folder for the drums, and finishing the track with a synth bass-line that I’d quickly dial-in & play by hand using Teebs' old M-Audio midi keyboard controller that I am somehow still borrowing and cherish. Most of these beats are under 10 stems in any given project - drastically different in comparison to my projects in the past (Outmind, In My World, Time Flying Beats et al) where stems would be consistently breaching 50+. Furthermore relating to the title, I was recently served an uncleared sample notice from a bigger label entity. It’s the first time this has happened so I suppose we’ve been lucky, and it’s honestly the first time I’ve reconsidered casually releasing this type of material - particularly on major streaming platforms. I’m not sure what lies ahead for sample-based music culture - but i'm hopeful it will be able to sustain and evolve as we attempt to emphasize the reclamation of the spaces on the internet where this music can be safely & responsibly shared, supported, and appreciated. During the last few weeks leading-up to release, artist neighbor / bestie Aaron Raays would come over to my backyard studio shed at night to listen to the developing material and provide me with trusted feedback notes. I have a habit of whip-testing music obsessively in my 2010 Prius driving around Los Angeles, and at the Leaving offices on the Mobius Acoustics system there. These check-ins were crucial in seeing this one through. Only 29 beats made the cut, but I had a lot of fun making these, and I’m having even more fun performing them.

Minneapolis-born saxophonist Cole Pulice, acclaimed for the ambient jazz masterpiece To Live & Die In Space & Time, returns with a long-awaited new album on the spiritually rooted West Coast label Leaving Records. Celestial echoes of modern classical, glacial drones of profound stillness, and a radiant landscape where spiritual jazz and ambient music interweave—this is music that dissolves into the air, where even silence feels sonorous. Pulice’s horn traces ripples that linger long after the notes fade, offering a meditative expanse of emotion, memory, and time. A deeply introspective and prayerful work that resonates with the space between sound and silence.

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.

California’s Nico Georis has always straddled (or, rather, negotiated) multiple dimensions. As a child, Georis flitted between the rigors of classical training and DIY experimentation—studying under a disciple of Franz Lizst (a mentorship that would enshrine the piano as his primary instrument), then squirreling away to the basement of his childhood home, strewn as it was with his father’s instruments and home-audio equipment, to play and record freely. Despite his evident virtuosity as a trained pianist, Georis has, across numerous projects, stints, incarnations, and chapters, persisted in this gentle and exploratory approach to music-making. Foregoing the pursuit of technical mastery and acclaim within the confines of the contemporary classical world, he has dedicated his talents to songcraft, broadly-defined — channeling unseen (or inaugurating altogether new) worlds through melody and repetition. Conceived after an isolating, five-year struggle with a severe case of Lyme disease, Cloud Suites (out June 9th on Leaving Records) documents Georis’s initial return to experimental ambient keyboard compositions. Conceptually, there is little ambiguity here: the songs—the “suites”—are clouds, or, rather, reflections of clouds, each named after a particular formation. Track titles range from the meteorologically specific to the expressive: “Cumuloids,” “Sundog,” and “Soft Yellow Gazers.” Georis composed the suites in real-time, peering out the windows of his Big Sur cabin-home/recording studio (dubbed The Sky Shed), responding improvisationally to render specific clouds as music—in effect to pluck them from the sky. Georis has referred to this process as a kind of musical game, and, indeed, its end product conveys the recurring and joyful revelations of play. But for a project born of levity and improvisation, Cloud Suites’ path to realization has been winding—harrowing, even. Over three years in the making, the recording process was beset by all manner of technological and environmental setbacks, ranging from broken equipment to a mudslide that tore through the Sky Shed. Nevertheless, even as other projects saw fruition (see 2022’s beautifully elegiac Desert Mirror) the Cloud Suites continued to gestate. When circumstances finally aligned, Georis entered the studio with a rag-tag collection of tape recordings. Performing over these Cloud demos, Georis would eventually weave these initial recordings into finished tracks, an analogue collage/cut-up approach recalling his childhood basement experiments, and his long-time affinity for Dub. Morphing seamlessly across eleven tracks, Cloud Suites functions wonderfully as a record (that is to say, as a discrete release—a standalone musical artifact), but one also senses the limitlessness of the project. Having stumbled, largely by accident, upon this inviting dimension (at once bracingly psychedelic and achingly nostalgic), Georis may not wish to close the door behind him. Or maybe it isn’t his door to close.

Froid Dub continues to explore its synth-lined slowed down digi-dub cave flooded with waves of echoes and acid bleeps. Bass lines and flanged delays sail over deep waters, seemingly barely disturbed by the minimal pump of the synth-wave vibe.

Over the past few years, concert patrons have stopped the musician Carlos Niño after gigs to ask two simple questions: “Are you a shaman?” “I hear the medicine in your music, can I come to your next ceremony?” The queries are fair enough: Looking at Niño, a tall man with a wild beard and kind eyes, one would think he’s from some faraway time and could maybe cast spells. Once you get to know him, you find that he’s just an incredibly sweet guy with a laid-back demeanor, and that he isn’t some guru claiming to have an all-access pass to the otherworld. So what does he say to those wondering if he’s a spiritual teacher? “I’m just chillin’, on fire,” he declares. “I'm not rolling with or out any kind of religious or traditional focus, rules or doctrine. I'm just presenting something that has a lot of energy, and is intended to be an opening for those of us who are journeying, creating musically, and for those who gather with us.” Indeed, there’s a communal essence to Niño’s self-described Energetic Space Music. As leader of Carlos Niño & Friends, he encourages his collaborators to improvise without preconceived ideas of what the sound is supposed to entail. His new album, (I’m just) Chillin’, on Fire, features more than a dozen musicians and includes a who’s who of sonic experimentation — everyone from guitarist Nate Mercereau and saxophonist Kamasi Washington, to New Age cornerstone Laraaji and hip-hop legend André 3000 playing his now trademark flute. On purpose, Niño lets the music drift and the unity ensue, making (I’m just) Chillin’, on Fire another highlight in a recent run of sublime work. But where albums like 2020’s Chicago Waves (with multi-instrumentalist Miguel Atwood-Ferguson) and last year’s Extra Presence hovered in the speakers, (I’m just) Chillin’ forges ahead in certain spots through energetic drums equally indebted to jazz and electronic funk. It eschews genre, but the tenets of ‘70s underground jazz are present. Fifty years ago, acts like Brother Ah, the Ensemble Al-Salaam and Mtume Umoja Ensemble crafted music that scanned as Spiritual Jazz yet flared in many different directions. They leaned into the transcendence of the music overall, not artificial terms used to market it. (I’m just) Chillin’ emits the same emotion: On “Mighty Stillness,” when the experimental violinist V.C.R proclaims her “ancestral right” to rest, she evokes Black women like Jeanne Lee, Jayne Cortez and Beatrice Parker, innovative vocalists from indie scenes who embodied the same freedom. Then on “Love Dedication (for Annelise),” Niño uses subtle bass (from Michael Alvidrez) and a serene piano loop (from Surya Botofasina) to speak of endearment in broad terms. “Love is unconditional — everywhere, everything, flowing always,” he observes. “Totally alive, no upper limit.” Though he hesitates to embrace comparisons to the spacious arrangements heard on indie labels of the ‘70s like Strata, Strata-East and Tribe (only because of how much he respects their legacies, not wanting to claim any space in their fields), there’s no denying his stature as an anchor in the jazz, hip-hop and beat scenes in Los Angeles over the last nearly 30 years, and how his influences are alive in what he makes. “All of those labels to me are hugely influential,” Niño says. “When I think about Strata-East, I immediately think of Pharaoh Sanders, and I think of one of my favorite albums of all-time, Live at the East (on Impulse!), and how The East and that movement is a huge influence. I'm not from that community. I don't claim any direct connection to it, but my awareness of it and my appreciation of it is gigantic.” The vocals for (I’m just) Chillin’ were compiled unconventionally. “I was like, ‘I'm going to turn on the mic, and you're going to listen all the way through the album and record anything you're feeling at any moment,’” Niño says of the creative process. “It was completely open to their interpretation.” He found that the vocalists Cavana Lee, Maia, Mia Doi Todd, and V.C.R interpreted the music in similar ways: “People who are not even in the same room, who did not hear what the other person did, they all created these really cool weavings — and it was so fun.” While the album compiles live and studio arrangements recorded in places like Venice, Leimert Park and Woodstock over the past three years, it feels harmonious, as if captured in one space with all musicians present. This highlights Niño’s ability as a conductor and producer. That he could winnow such vast experimentation into a seamless set is a worthy feat on its own. Much like Niño’s other LPs, (I’m just) Chillin’ is an immersive listen that requires attentive ears to fully absorb. In a world dominated by social media and the 24-hour news cycle, it seems we’re all in a hurry for no reason in particular. By creating music with tender messages and leisurely pacing, Niño nudges listeners to slow down and appreciate life’s natural wonders, to savor the journey and not rush

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!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!