Ambient music is a funny thing. With its simplicity and gossamer lightness, it’s composed as much to fade into the background as to engage with. British musician and producer Brian Eno, who coined the term “ambient music,” said, โ(It) must be able to accommodate many levels of listening attention without enforcing one in particular; it must be as ignorable as it is interesting.โ
Eno’s concept of ambient music has been incredibly influential, sowing the seeds for new age, chill out, and all manner of experimental electronic music. It also had a profound effect on a number of musicians in Japan in the 1980s.
Working loosely under the banner of ็ฐๅข้ณๆฅฝ (kankyo ongaku), or environmental music, these musicians sought to create a new kind of music thatโwhile undoubtedly inspired by ambientโwas meant less to disappear into the environment around the listener than to become the listener’s environment. Much like Erik Satie’s concept of furniture music, another strong influence on the kankyo ongaku group, their music was composed to occupy the space in which it was played.
Indeed, many of the works were created for physical spaces. Yoshimura Hiroshi composed music for train stations, fashion shows, and museums. Kokubo Takashi even created an album to accompany an air conditioning unitโmuch as the unit’s manufactured air fills the space in which it is installed, so does Kokubo’s music. Even when the songs contain recordings of nature, as many do, they suggest not vast expanses of virgin forest but tidy, manicured gardens, neatly designed.
The music itself recalls physical spaces. Yoshimura’s music, particularly on his album Green, suggests structures and buildings. Although almost entirely electronic, the sounds used in his minimal compositions sound like glass, metal, and wood. They are the aural equivalent of architecture. In fact, Yoshimura was a part-time lecturer at a university of architecture.
Never popular, not even at the time, kankyo ongaku has nevertheless seen something of a reappraisal in recent years, thanks to a number of high-quality re-releases and the tireless and thankless work of the YouTube algorithm, which also helped to bring city pop to a wider (non-Japanese) audience. Click on enough ambient albums and you’re likely to see some of this music pop up in your suggestions. This modern interest in kankyo ongaku comes strangely just in time. Although the original composers could never have intended their music to be used in such a way, it is perhaps the perfect music for our pandemic times. Kankyo ongaku has the power to transform any environment into one of peace and tranquillity.
With this in mind, we would like to recommend some of the key works in the kankyo ongaku canon. Most are available readily online, either on YouTube or as re-releases.
Yoshimura Hiroshi – Green (1986)
What better way to start a list of environmental music than with an album called Green? The crowning achievement of sound designer and composer Yoshimura (and of the genre itself), Green recalls both the mid-80s work of Brian Eno as well as New York minimalists like Philip Glass. Cold and digital yet simultaneously warm and inviting, with its cycling sequences and striking sound design, Green sounds like nothing else in the ambient universe.
Also recommended: Soundscape 1 Surround (1986)
Kokubo Takashi – Get At The Wave (1987)
Recently released under the title “A Dream Sails Out To Sea (Get At The Wave),” Kokubo Takashi’s 1987 album was commissioned to accompany a high-end Sanyo air conditioning unit and meant to transform the environment around the listener into one like a tropical beach. Where Green sounds like light glancing off dust motes in an atrium, Get At The Wave is light and melodic, with more naturalistic (yet still electronic) sounds. Kokubo composed for anime and did sound design for industrial applications. Both influences can be felt in his music.
Also recommended: Digital Soundology #1 Volk Von Bauhaus (1985)
Miyashita Fumio – White Morning (1989)
Miyashita Fumio was a founding member of Far East Family Band, a synthesizer-based prog band that also featured future environmental music artist Ito Akira and new age legend Kitaro. Miyashita went on to develop what he called “healing music” and released a very large number of cassette-only albums in Japan up until his death in 2003. White Morning is one of the best of these healing albums. With its two side-long works, it’s perfect for putting on when you need to quiet the chattering in your mind.
Also recommended: Wave Sounds Of The Universe (1983)
Hosono Haruomi – Watering A Flower (1984)
Perhaps the best-known musician on this list, Hosono Haruomi was a founding member of Yellow Magic Orchestra and a towering figure in Japanese popular music. In 1984, he was asked to create in-store music for the then-new retailer, ็กๅฐ่ฏๅ a.k.a. Muji. He created three songs. Muji accepted one, two were released on a limited-run cassette, and somewhere along the way, the third was tacked on to a YouTube video compiling them all. In typical Hosono fashion, this is anything but your usual in-store BGM. Humorous, childlike, and surreal, one can only imagine what Muji’s shoppers must have thought upon hearing this music piped over the store loudspeakers.
Also recommended: Paradise View (1985)
Ashikawa Satoshi – Still Way (Wave Notation 2) (1982)
Ashikawa Satoshi wanted to create music “intended to be listened to in a casual manner, as a musical landscape or a sound objectโฆ not something that would stimulate listeners but music that should drift like smoke and become part of the environment.” With Still Way, it’s safe to say that he succeeded. While most of the music in this list is defiantly electronic, Ashikawa worked in a more classical style, with vibraphone, harp, and piano replacing synthesizers. The effect is the same though: a delicate, meditative calm that recalls early works by minimalist Harold Budd. Sadly, Ashikawa died young and Still Way was his only album.
For those wishing to hear more kankyo ongaku, I recommend Kankyล Ongaku: Japanese Ambient, Environmental & New Age Music 1980-1990, a compilation from Light In The Attic Records. All of the artists mentioned in this piece are included as well as many more.
