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Artist
Takashi Kokubo
12+ albums
ambientnew agejapanesekankyo ongakutokyo
about
Takashi Kokubo: Creating ambient music out of art and the environment | The Japan Times Russell Thomas Takashi Kokubo didn’t know it back in 1985, but he was about to be at the forefront of one of Japan’s most coveted musical exports: kankyō ongaku (environmental music), an offshoot of ambient music that summons worlds and fills spaces with synthesized, and sometimes natural, sounds. “When I created ‘Digital Soundology #1 Volk von Bauhaus,’ I didn’t even know what ambient or kankyō ongaku was,” Kokubo tells The Japan Times via email. “Later, I discovered what I made was indeed kankyō ongaku. Maybe it just wasn’t a big scene in Japan at that time.” For sound designer and composer Kokubo, his music was simply a reaction to what he felt at the time was “too much.” Contemporary ’80s genres like pop and rock were too message-focused; even precisely composed forms, such as a Beethoven sonata, were something he didn’t want to listen to. “I was fed up in the early ’80s with that sort of ‘I want to convey this’ message,” he says. Now, 35 years after its original release, “Volk von Bauhaus” is seeing a vinyl rerelease courtesy of Madrid-based record label Glossy Mistakes — but it’s not the first time Kokubo’s music has been rediscovered by audiences outside of Japan. Back in 2018, his 1987 work “Get At The Wave,” an “image album” originally created for a high-end Sanyo air-conditioning unit, was reissued as “A Dream Sails Out to Sea (Get at the Wave)” by Lag Records. Ambient musi
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