Rhucle & morimoto naoki - Reminiscence (Seil)

"It’s a safe, beautifully crafted space where barely touched piano glides over palliative electronics and the distant sounds of Japanese life dissolve into the reflections of natural waterways."

A few brief thoughts…

Rhucle and morimoto naoki have both been regulars on the blog over the years, and the fact that this LP is released on the ever reliable ambient purveyors, Seil Records out of Frankfurt, made this release jump out at me even more.

Rhucle (left) and morimoto naoki

There’s been a lot of talk in recent years about the death of record labels and the rise of independent artists, thoughts on which deserve longer consideration than I have today. I’d just like to briefly mention though, that as a curator I’d be lost without them. If you find a good label consistently releasing music and artists that you resonate with then hang on to their coat tails/newsletter/social media accounts with all your might, they’ll become an invaluable filter for reliable music discovery in today’s music deluge.

Unfortunately the streaming services don’t allow you to follow labels (although funnily Spotify used to have a search command which displayed all of a label’s catalogue before they control freaked out), but both Bandcamp and Soundcloud do, with Bandcamp being my platform of choice - honestly it’s my favourite place to go digital digging. So if you’re ambient obsessed or maybe just curious and don’t know where to start, then it’s worth opening up a fan account with Bandcamp and clicking follow on a few labels - you can progress to artists and other fans once you’ve got the hang of the site if you wish. If you want to get off to a solid start then check out 12K - the label that inspired my interest in the genre, Home Normal (full disclosure, Ian Hawgood the head honcho masters most of the TSMM catalogue), Whitelabrecs and Seil. Between them you’ll be on the receiving end of 40+ great ambient albums a year, some of which you won’t find anywhere else on the web. You could even go old school and buy a release or two! OK back to today’s release.

The Japanese have some serious ambient history, although it didn’t become widely apparent until the internet broke down the geographical and language barriers shielding it from the West. Luckily for me, as with today’s tip, a lot of the offerings lean towards the minimal, delicate, electroacoustic and precision sound design end of the ambient spectrum, which is largely where my interests lie.

So if you need a relaxing sound bath or just some potentially ignorable background music, then tune into this most soothing and soporific of LPs, the artistic synergy is real. It’s a safe, beautifully crafted space where barely touched piano glides over palliative electronics and the distant sounds of Japanese life dissolve into the reflections of natural waterways. And relax…

Further Listening:

For a longer sound bath and a great ambient artist discovery tool, tune in and chill out to the Slow Ambient Playlist.