Delightful and illuminating dive into Japanese ambient, environmental and new age music
Of the 20-plus names gathered on the superbly packaged Kankyō Ongaku, it’s likely that only Yellow Magic Orchestra and their members Haruomi Hosono and Ryuichi Sakamoto are familiar to most non-Japanese listeners. Initially, it seems a big ask to hope buyers will fork out for compilation tracking potentially uncharted musical territory but the full title stresses that what’s heard isn’t so perplexing.