Série Réflexion 1 cover

Série Réflexion 1

Released

Few albums of Japanese minimalism/kankyō ongaku are as mysterious as this 1984 album from Oscilation Circuit. A quartet helmed by Ken-Ichiro Isoda, Série Réflexion 1 was not the first entry in a series but rather a debut and farewell, a ripple in a still pond. It’s thankfully reissued after almost 40 years. The group sounds indebted to the New York School of minimalism of Reich-Glass, especially on the epic “Circling Air,” but it’s when the group looses those bonds for something unbound by process and gravity that the magic happens. The introspective “Nocturne” finds a space between environmental ambient and new age spiritual jazz. “Homme” is an indelible drift of chimes and piano, as weightless as goose down ascending heavenward.

Andy Beta

Recommended by

Suggestions
Coral cover

Coral

Olof Dreijer
Field Work cover

Field Work

Ryuichi Sakamoto, Thomas Dolby
Resonance cover

Resonance

Yumiko Morioka
花に水 cover

花に水

Haruomi Hosono
Selene Museum Moon Forest cover

Selene Museum Moon Forest

Kensuke Mitome, Gota Wakabayashi
Strömen cover

Strömen

Miki Yui
Mercuric Dance cover

Mercuric Dance

Haruomi Hosono
Intaglio cover

Intaglio

Motohiko Hamase
ArtsFest cover

ArtsFest

Lemon Quartet