about the cassette

Earthwork was created by Tokyo-based composer and sound assembler Yama Yuki as an exploration of the possibilities of “kankō ongaku” in the present day. The work both responds to and inherits the lineage of the concept first proposed by Haruomi Hosono in 1985.

Yama Yuki unrolls the unfinished map of “kankō ongaku,” dissolves the boundaries of self, and leaps into an ever-shifting stream of sensations—inviting the listener on a journey to a place that is nowhere in particular. The album opens with “Planetary Drone,” cloaked in a veil of exotic ambience, and quietly weaves a delicate, vividly colored sonic landscape, with soft tones melting into the surrounding space.

Passing through the gently pulsing sounds of “Natureza Nova,” as if pausing for breath amidst the sway of flora from a new world, the listener encounters polyrhythms that shimmer like the bioluminescence of some endearing and strange lifeforms. As time progresses, memories and emotions accumulate in layered strata, resonating with the cycles of the earth. In the final track, “Earth Phase,” these sounds seem to take root quietly within the listener’s inner world.

Fragments of sound, like the echoes of a foreign land intertwined with subtle humor and spaciousness, gently resound deep in the ear—quietly drawing out what lies beyond the unfinished map of “kankō ongaku.”