Yutaka Hirose is a Japanese composer who was a key figure in that country’s ambient/environmental music scene of the 1980s that in recent years has been rediscovered by crate-diggers around the world. Hirose’s “NOVA” (1986) is a classic of the genre, a soundscape that Misawa Home Corporation commissioned as a “soundtrack” for the prefabricated houses. While original LPs have sold for hundreds of dollars, WRWTFWW Records have recently reissued the record as an expanded double LP and double CD. (For a further exploration of Japanese environmental music of the 1980s, Light in the Attic Records’ “Kankyō Ongaku: Japanese Ambient, Environmental & New Age Music 1980-1990” is a perfect portal.)
To celebrate the NOVA reissue, The Vinyl Factory asked Hirose to create a mix of music he was listening to and inspired by in the 1980s Listen above. It’s a beautiful, sometimes-jarring, and totally compelling journey through avant-garde sounds of the time. Here’s the tracklist:
1. Jan Steele – All Day
2. David Toop – Do The Bathosphere
3. Gavin Bryars – 1, 2, 1-2-3-4
4. Joan La Barbara – Poems 43, 44, 45
5. Meredith Monk – Waltz
6. Karlheinz Stockhausen – Stimmung
7. John Cage – Seven Haiku
8. Throbbing Gristle – Almost A Kiss
9. Robert Ashley – Yellow Man With Heart With Wings
10. The Flying Lizards – The Window
11. Henry Cow Little Red Riding Hood Hit The Road
12. Faust – Faust
13. CAN – Future Days
14. Tangerine Dream：Rubycon
15. Michael Nyman – Decay Music
16. David Toop & Max Eastley – City of Night
17. Annette Peacock – Sky-Skating