Best of Year 2019 - 3LP - Triple LP Set housed in deluxe Stoughton “tip-on” jackets and slipcase.
We're all seemingly fucked and so once again we venture back into the past when the future was better... Light In The Attic's exhaustive efforts to document Japanese ambient experimentalism from the 80s reaches its apotheosis with a 25 track, 3 LP boxset of 'environmental music' that pulls together some of the more celebrated names associated with the 'movement' (if that's the term?) - Yoshimura, Shimizu, Hosono, YMO etc - alongside a pleathora of other arists all seemingly reaching towards the same goal. If you know only a little of this music you'll be aware of the uptopic principles that appeared to underscore the ambient credo of the time - how can music be used to foster better experiences and interactions with its environment.
Being the hyper-commercial Japan of the 80s, there's a capitalist imperative to some of this that could be perceived as either subversive or cynical (or both!), but that's part of the appeal and the experiement. More than anything, it's compelling and inspiring to hear so many songs together from an enclave of artists all charged by the same motives and inspirations.
