With a minimalist style based on simple equipment, Japanese musician/architect H.Takahashi has been regarded as a legitimate successor to Japanese “kankyo ongaku (environmental music)” of the late 1970s and 1980s, like Hiroshi Yoshimura.
This new release from Kankyo Records is a compilation of two independent works he was involved with. Both are related to Shiseido, a Japanese cosmetics company with over 150 years of history.
It is a keen insight that a company that values beauty and wellness in life has chosen to focus on ambient music, a genre of music that is closely connected to our living space and that has experienced a quiet revival on a global scale over the past few years.
However, this work sometimes goes beyond such frameworks and sounds very adventurous.
This cassette work captures a moment in H.Takahashi’s musical evolution and could later become an essential document in the history of Japanese ambient in the 2020s.
Purchase Cassette: H. Takahashi & Jesus Weekend – 『LIVE at SHISEIDO GALLERY』&『Music for ’70s Shiseido Magazine Ads』
Joyful Union Cassette Resource 