Série Réflexion 1 cover

Série Réflexion 1

Released

Few albums of Japanese minimalism/kankyō ongaku are as mysterious as this 1984 album from Oscilation Circuit. A quartet helmed by Ken-Ichiro Isoda, Série Réflexion 1 was not the first entry in a series but rather a debut and farewell, a ripple in a still pond. It’s thankfully reissued after almost 40 years. The group sounds indebted to the New York School of minimalism of Reich-Glass, especially on the epic “Circling Air,” but it’s when the group looses those bonds for something unbound by process and gravity that the magic happens. The introspective “Nocturne” finds a space between environmental ambient and new age spiritual jazz. “Homme” is an indelible drift of chimes and piano, as weightless as goose down ascending heavenward.

Andy Beta

Recommended by

Suggestions
Quiet Logic cover

Quiet Logic

Haruomi Hosono, Jonah Sharp, Mixmaster Morris
Chico Mello / Helinho Brandão cover

Chico Mello / Helinho Brandão

Chico Mello, Helinho Brandão
Vigil cover

Vigil

Martin Ng, Oren Ambarchi
Paradise View cover

Paradise View

Haruomi Hosono
Hydroplane cover

Hydroplane

Hydroplane
Crush cover

Crush

Floating Points
Kammarn cover

Kammarn

Golden Ivy