why we love this

A beautiful album that shines in its simplicity, yet has a lot of depth.

about the record

Peaceful, percussive and idyllic. Three words that perfectly describe Jomon-sho. A seminal composition that is truly instrumental in the proliferation of the Japanese ambient and environmental movement and the whole New Age scene that developed in Japan throughout the 80s.

The album features a wide range of entirely acoustic instruments and field recordings and was made for stage performance by Sankai Juku Butoh Group at Theatre de la Ville, Paris. But the story of this album can’t be understood without knowing who Yas-Kaz is, an artist who rose to musical prominence composing for the dance troupe led by one of the founders of Butoh, Tatsumi Hijikata.

His composition is not focused on any specific genre or style of music either. Especially in his work for dance theatre, he often delivers bare abstract sound or resonance which might not be recognized as “musical” from the Western perspective.

As part of his constant search for new sounds and ideas, he moved to Bali, Indonesia, in the 70s introducing the gamelan Balinese sounds and culture to Ryuichi Sakamoto (collaborated in the album “Esperanto”) and Midori Takada, Shoji Yamashiro (leader of Geino Yamashiro-gumi who later created the soundtrack for “Akira”), among others.

In so doing, Yas-Kaz influenced some of Japan’s most prolific and innovative artists in the experimental and ambient scene. However, his music has still not been heard by the vast majority of the public, being unseen for quite some time until now.