Ambient/Drone charts

Review: Prepare for some serious relaxation and blissful mood setting. First, though, formalities. Takashi Kokurbo, for those who don't know, is an experiment Japanese musician specialising in what he has termed environmental ambient. And by that we mean music that is inspired by and looks to invoke the natural world, its beauty and fragility, the softness of what's there if you listen hard enough beyond the human realm. Meanwhile, Andrew Esperti is an Italian-Swiss trombonist of global repute. Taking recordings of 'nature noises' from around the world, and aligning these with some seriously easy going and subtle brass tones, the result sees all those troubles, whatever they were, float away into the distance while your bed morphs into a blanket of clouds. Meditative atmospherics with incredibly potent effects.

Review: For the latest release in their ongoing "Esplande Series" focusing on the work of Japanese ambient minimalists, Swiss reissue specialists WRWTFWW have decided to deliver a new edition of Motohiko Hamase's rather good - but very hard to find - 1988 release "Notes of Forestry". It remains a remarkable work, sitting somewhere between the fluid and heavenly electronics of new age ambient, the cyclical minimalist movements of Steve Reich, free-jazz and the kind of free-wheeling, loose-limbed works most often associated with experimental percussionists. Hamase is a bass player by trade, and its' his fast-fingered fretless bass playing that catches the ear throughout (though it by no means dominates the sound space).

Review: Conceptually derived from the work of Japanese minimalist composer Satoshi Ashikawa, Dublin-based composer Gareth Quinn Redmond has created an album of environmental music which he hopes will engage, enrich and reflect the listener's surroundings. This is a companion album to Ashikawa's 1982 LP Still Way, which was originally released as part of the wave notation series which also included Hiroshi Yoshimura's seminal Music For Nine Postcards. The album takes Ashikawa's meditative sound designs to more dramatic and lyrical landscapes, gracefully instilling his personal touch into the master's melodic patterns to present six pieces which blend and reflect the modern listener's ever changing environment.

Review: Having previously reissued Mkwaju Ensemble's inspired 1981 debut "Ki-Motion", WRWTFWW now turns its attention to their equally impressive follow-up from the same year, "Mkwaju". Beginning with a breezy chunk of Marimba-driven four-to-the-floor bliss, the album sees the Japanese trio - whose members included legendary percussionist and ambient artist Midori Takada - shuffle between hypnotic, Steve Reich-influenced minimalism ("Shak Shak"), melodious fusions of new age electronica and modern American classical ("Tira-Rin"), and glacial ambient soundscapes ("Pulse In The Mind"). Best of all, though, is "Flash-Back", a dense and intoxicating percussion workout that stretches out over 13 mind-bending minutes.

Review: In 1984 Japanese pianist Satsuki Shibano composed and compiled a series of reinterpretations of compositions by the French composer Erik Satie - in turn known for his minimalist and avant-garde works, the 'Gymnopedie' the most ubiquitous among them. Shibano's takes on an incredible quantity of Satie's works, from 'La Balancoire' to 'Voix D'interieur', are about as pure as piano compositions can get, starkly carving out their nearly Platonic form.. This reissue via WRWTFWW also features the original artwork by Shinro Ohtake.

Review: Although experimental in nature - most of his music is made from crackling, ultra-atmospheric tape loops - Gareth Quinn Redmond's music is breathlessly beautiful and universally beguiling. He's already proved that on his previous LPs - not least 2019's Satoshi Ashikawa-inspired 'Laistigh Den Ghleo' - but once again confirms it on 'Ar Ais Aris'. He describes the eight-track set as "daydreaming environmental music full of accidental miracles and soothing backdrops", and that's an apt description. Ghostly melodies and enveloping chords, sometimes manipulated for extra wooziness, emerge from dense forests of tape hiss and static, creating becalmed ambient soundscapes that tend towards the poignant and picturesque. There aren't many copies around, so we'd recommend pre-ordering to secure a copy.

Review: Earlier in the year, Midori Takada released his first new solo album in 23 years - a breathlessly brilliant Afro-ambient extravaganza recorded "in a live setting" and utilising instruments held in the MEG Museum in Geneva. Recorded in 2918 and similarly produced with assistance from the museum, You Who Are Leaving sees the long-serving Japanese percussionist combine his own spiritual compositions with vintage recordings of chants by a Buddhist choir, led by Reverend Syuukoh Ikaw. For the most part, it's a sparse, haunting and intoxicating affair, with sustained chants being combined with all manner of percussion instruments (bells, cymbals, chimes, glass bowls) and plenty of studio effects to create mesmerising soundscapes. It's very good all told - so much so that it will likely one day be considered a new age ambient masterpiece.