Go East

Aki Kuroda - CONTI/NUIT/É IV (1979)

Shout out to my shuffle today for serving up an impromptu theme. All today's selections hail from Japan, starting off with a bit from Soichi Terada's fittingly titled retrospective Sounds From The Far East. I always get indecisive about whether to say Terada's tunes are inspired by video games or the reverse, a lot of his stuff has an 'arcadey' feel for want of a better term and he is responsible for the Ape Escape soundtrack on PS1 so I feel it it could go either way. Anyway, a rare non-Drum & Bass offering from him this time, a relatively slow house type number that shows off a little of what I mentioned above.



Second, another part from Cornelius' soundtracks from Ghost In The Shell: Arise. There's some gorgeously smooth pieces sprinkled throughout, (the intro to this one is absolutely fantastic for one) and a whole lot more with vocal accompaniment to boot. Appearing on Heart Grenade is Sean Lennon of all folks, wouldn't say he'd be my first choice, then again I haven't heard any of his stuff prior to this. Despite my initial concern he actually compliments the track fairly well in all honesty, wonder if he'll show up in any more electronic things in future.



And finally something a little more cliché, I've posted this one before and I am still unashamedly in love with it. The introduction is pure distilled late 90's trance, which granted I do have a nostalgic soft spot for, but if it's not your bag it only shows up at the intro and outro. The rest of the 9:10 run-time is a crash course in the techno sound of the era courtesy of Mijk Van Dijk, both longer and smoother sound wise than it's For Boys counterpart on the same EP, out of the two this one is still my favourite.



-Claude Van Foxbat