It has been a long time.
Let’s start out with some old-school Japanese Ambient music. I’ll keep adding to this diary entry as time permits.
Okay, let’s add a little more:
And here’s something a bit fresher from Gallery Six (I’ve shared some of his work with fellow Norwegian ambient artist Augustus Bro):
I’ve had an interest in ambient music for many more years than I want to admit any more. I got turned on to Brian Eno’s work thanks to his production of David Bowie’s Low/Heroes/Lodger trilogy back when I was a teen. Eno had all these cool names for the instruments he’d play (like cricket menace). I had to figure out what he was up to. From there I would discover Another Green World and that would lead me to Music for Airports, and then to any of a number of artists he’d associate with. And ambient seems to withstand the test of time. It may not be a revolutionary form of music, but it continues to evolve. Personally I enjoy the genre because of its ability to evoke any of a number of generally calm mood states, although some of it can be quite edgy (think of some of the work of Aphex Twin).
The work of Japanese artists who pioneered this genre in the 1980s was featured in this article, just in case you want to know more.
Today’s drink to go with the green Japanese theme is Frozen Midori Sour
The bartender is taking requests.
Somehow never had that one. Have had sake before, served hot. Was at a party many years ago during what Californians call “winter” so sake served hot made sense.
Finally got some breathing room to add to the rest of the diary. This is merely a taste of what Japanese ambient has to offer. It is a somewhat different flavor, but for those who love ambient music still quite familiar. Next week, I think I want to devote much of the soundtrack to the action flick Atomic Blonde, which is a wonderful adaptation to the graphic novel The Coldest City. Right now I am reading through its prequel, The Coldest Winter, also set in East Berlin, but in the early 1980s, as opposed to right around the time the wall came down. Regardless of my ideological leanings, I was pretty ambivalent about the USSR and what it had become. I had been pretty hopeful about Gorbachev and was hoping that liberal democracy would get a fighting chance in the Soviet bloc. We know what happened in much of the former USSR and its satellite nations. Some are sliding back into authoritarianism as I write this (e.g., Hungary). Fundamentally, Russia never gave liberal democracy a try (although plenty of advocates among what we think of as civil society have tried). But for a brief moment, there was hope. Aside from the tankies, I doubt many miss the Stasi.
Looking forward to that diary. I’m pretty sure the soundtrack is the best part of the movie, even though I had hopes for Charlize Theron kicking ass.
Also, LOL, tankies. Only people who hang around the real Far Left in this country know who those fools are.