Rural Japan

[ESP029] POWDER - Highly - Vinyl/Digital EP

Facebook: www.facebook.com/pvndvmusic

Follow "Idle Mind" on soundcloud: @idlemindmusic
Guitar by: Paul Francis (@paulllfrancis)

Idle Mind - Mine (PVNDV Remix)

Nguzunguzu - Skycell
Out November 5th 2013 on Fade to Mind

Digital: itunes.apple.com/us/album/skycell/id725318474
12": http://shop.fadetomind.net/product/nguzunguzu-skycell-12-pre-order

01. Foam Feathers
02. Harp Bell
03. Vision of Completion
04. Break In
05. Tumultuous
06. Mecha
07. Skycell

Nguzunguzu - Foam Feathers

Buy/Stream: https://reflections.ffm.to/mbsy.pbt
Pre-order the album 'Jōhatsu (蒸発)': https://reflections.ffm.to/mbjohatsu.pbt
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Release date: 27th March 2023

Mark Barrott shares the third single from his upcoming soundtrack album 'Jōhatsu (蒸発)’, 'Shinrin-yoku (森林浴)’ is out now.

Mark Barrott is an artist that creatively speaking, never stops moving. His musical career has taken many forms. Some know him as Future Loop Foundation, the alias he used to create and perform ambient drum and bass from the mid-90s. Some know him for his Sketches from an Island albums, which he released under his own name, and others know him as the founder of the highly influential International Feel label, a label that spearheaded the bespoke vinyl movement of the 2010’s and brought DJ Harvey out of studio retirement. Barrott has spent close to four decades exploring new sonic territory and pushing the boundaries of various genres and is considered a pivotal figure in the revival of the Balearic music scene of the last decade.

Barrott’s new album, ’Jōhatsu (蒸発)’, is predictably unpredictable. Due for release this April on Above & Beyond’s new downtempo imprint Reflections, the album is a full departure from anything Mark has written before, partly because he was writing to moving picture. In 2019, Mark was commissioned by a director to write the score for their new documentary, ‘Jōhatsu (蒸発)... the art of Evaporation’.

‘Jōhatsu (蒸発)’ is an 8-track journey through the sounds, sights, smells and sensations of traditional and contemporary Japanese culture.

Every year, it is estimated that as many as 100,000 people in Japan vanish, without a trace. These are the so-called johatsu. The “evaporated people”. People become jōhatsu for many different reasons including addiction, divorce and job loss. While some people may consider taking their own lives, others simply… evaporate. Jōhatsu refers to these people who purposefully leave the lives they knew behind.

‘Jōhatsu... the art of Evaporation’, shadowed a Japanese man as he went through this exact process, paying a contractor to help him vanish, moving from central Kyoto to Scandinavia. Scene notes from the director and shots of Kyoto at night-time, rural Japan, and Scandinavian forest-scapes informed Barrott’s musical direction for the project. The tracks on this album are the ‘full’ pieces - those written for the longer sequences of film. 

Mark approached the whole album much like a Japanese calligrapher. He prepared the room, the paper, the brushes and the ink to make the actual act of creating as spontaneous and unencumbered as possible. Inspired by the art of minimalism and Zen, with this album he wanted to create space and simplicity while allowing room for spontaneity.

You can hear this ethos across much of the album, particularly in the piano-led tracks like 'Shinrin-yoku (森林浴)', which is Japanese for forest-bathing. The track is minimalism personified, with field recordings of rain on leaves painting an aural picture reflective of the title. 

'Jōhatsu (蒸発)' is out 17th April on Reflections. 'Shinrin-yoku (森林浴)’ is out now.

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Buy/Stream

Mark Barrott - Shinrin-Yoku (森林浴)

A remix of the title track from Vök's EP "Tension"

Fall in love with the dreamy Icelandic band here http://soundcloud.com/vokmusic

And check out their EP via Record Records!

Vök - Tension (Nuages Remix)

Strong wind blowing into young bamboo trees, a few birds, and some human sounds on a cold New Year's Day, 2015, in rural Japan. 

Wind in Young Bamboo

Powder is a young producer raised in rural Japan, now living in Tokyo. She wakes daily at 6AM, squeezes onto a packed subway and commutes to a bland office building where her day is consumed by the electronics industry — a banal world of blank stares, uniforms, data entry and soliciting phone calls. She cherishes her lunch break, a solitary hour of astral projection where her daydreams cull inspiration for another life, her nocturnal routine. At 9PM the day closes, as her co-workers flock to the Izakaya for beers, Powder rushes to her micro home-studio to exorcize her daily demons, constructing a tropical temple to house her immaculate vision. She slaves away, unabashed until sunrise, when her routine begins again, however, today's lunch break is an escape into her headphones where she will revisit her soundtrack inspired by lights, colors, hometown memories, and the imaginary worlds where the fruits of her labor will live.

B3 - Highly

B2 - Busy Port

B1 - Humid Wind

A2 - Manhole

A1 - Lost Of Light

milky way heartbeats

May 28 will see prolific Japanese vibraphonist, multi-percussionist and composer Masayoshi Fujita mark a new sonic direction with his forthcoming album Bird Ambience on Erased Tapes.

The lead single ‘Thunder', which blends mildly abrasive effects on the marimba with a warm feeling of benevolence, was inspired by the poem You Will Hear Thunder by Anna Akhmatova. It comes with an equally breathtaking video directed and shot by Ryo Noda in the mountainscapes that surround Fujita's new life in Hyogo, rural Japan.

Watch: https://youtu.be/IvqjqrDRALs

Bird Ambience brings several fresh changes for the artist. Until now, Fujita would separate his acoustic solo recordings, the electronic dub made under his El Fog alias, and his experimental improvisations with contemporaries such as Jan Jelinek. The new album sees him unite all these different facets for the first time into one singular vision. He also makes a lateral leap from his signature instrument the vibraphone – on which he created his acclaimed triptych Stories (2012), Apologues (2015) and Book of Life (2018) – to the marimba, which takes centre stage on his new album alongside drums, percussion, synths, effects and tape recorder.
 
“The way of playing the marimba is similar to the vibraphone, so it was kind of a natural development for me and easier to start with, yet it sounds very different”, explains Masayoshi. “The marimba bars are made with wood and it has a wider range than the vibraphone, which gives me a bigger sound palette with more possibilities. I play the instrument with bows and mallets, and sometimes manipulate it with effects.”
 
The record also marks his liberation from fastidious preparation for past solo releases to new endeavours in improvisation. “I prioritised trying to capture the wonder which happens during those occasional magic improv moments. Sometimes the mic-ing and placement of instruments was pretty rough; things weren’t perfect and everything was done quickly, but it turned out as the final recording. Overall when I couldn’t decide between two takes, I told myself to go with the first”, Masayoshi recalls. 

Arranged with a perfect Kanso-like balance, the unhurried pace of Bird Ambience allows each sound and phrase enough time to be mindfully absorbed and savoured. This subtle but affective work carries ethereal remnants of Midori Takada’s minimalism, the static atmospheres of Mika Vainio, To Rococo Rot’s organics and the bucolic electronics of Minotaur Shock. Fujita vaporises contemporary and classical, ambient and dismantled dub, controlled noise and fragments of jazz into an atmospheric, static mist, which he skilfully coerces into new forms.
   
Bird Ambience will be released on Erased Tapes in 2LP, CD and digital formats on May 28.

Bird Ambience

Thunder

Stream & pre-order

Masayoshi Fujita - Thunder

From the upcoming EP "Out Of Body" out May 6th digital on Danse Noire
Including remixes by Peaking Lights and Nguzunguzu.

www.dansenoire.com


Vaghe Stelle - Video Game Paraphernalia (Nguzunguzu Remix)

Squadda B - "Ridin Dirty Past 50" (Instrumental)
Produced by FRIENDZONE

SQUADDA B - "RIDIN DIRTY PAST 50" (INSTRUMENTAL)

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