Various Artists – Heisei No Oto (Japanese Left-Field Pop From The CD Age, 1989-1996)

In a few days I’ll be in Japan, together with fellow Listenings-writer Mark. I’m very excited to walk through the largest city on Earth, climb the 100,000 years old Mount Fuji and be surprised by a unique culture.

Evidently I’ve been listening to a lot of great Japanese music lately. The Heisei No Noto compilation by Music from Memory hits the spot for me. It contains many well composed dreamy ambient tracks, that take me to far away places yet to discover. There are also two more beat driven, almost Krautrocky, tunes I especially recommend you to listen to. Pi Po Pa by Yosui Inoue will probably unconsciously make you sing along to the three words of the title, leaving you with a feeling that everything will be alright. On Harai, Keisuke Sakurai sounds like the Japanese brother of Shaggy (you’re right Simon). Mr. Bombastic from Tokyo does a great job mumbling over a fine piano house beat.

The compilation is almost entirely on Spotify. However, to get the full experience, I recommend to buy it on Compact Disc and hook up your old Sony player. Like I did.

~ Stef

Check out the album on Spotify

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