Inoyama Land Commissions: 1977-2000

Description

Makoto Inoue and Yasushi Yamashitas Inoyama Land project spans nearly four decades, still active to this day. A portmanteau of their family names, the Land of Inoyama hovers between imagined mythical space and concrete reality, extending beyond physical releases into installations, site-specific sound design and theatre scores. After their famed Haruomi Hosono-produced 1983 release Danzindan-Pojidon, the duo became involved in the budding environmental music business that was taking shape in Tokyo during the development boom of the asset bubble working directly with figures like Hiroshi Yoshimura (with whom they developed sound design for the International Stadium in Yokohama) and Takashi Sekiguchi (Bamboo from Asia). This collection expands upon their sound heard on Kanky Ongaku: Japanese Ambient, Environmental & New Age Music 1980-1990 (LITA 167) to illuminate material that is even lesser known outside of Japan some of it presented publicly for the first time.

Working initially with Munetaka Tanakas Sound Process Design (an acoustic consulting company formed by Tanaka with Satoshi Ashikawa, before Ashikawas tragic death in 1983), their commissioned work mirrors the sound world first fleshed out on Danzindan: chiming synthesizers, pastoral hues, childhood memory all pulsing with a distant, emotional resonance. This material culled from limited CD issues of the material on Tanakas Crescent label, Kazunao Nagatas Transonic Records and self-released CDRs presents a window into this process, illustrating how Inoue and Yamashitas idiosyncratic musical identity gelled perfectly with all of the disparate environments of their commissions. Included is music written for the Kankaku (Sense) Museum in Miyagi, an exhibit on slime molds at the National Museum of Nature and Science in Ueno park, the 1977 stage performance Collecting Net (which also included music that would later become Danzindan-Pojidon) and their score for a Tokyo re-staging of New York avant-theatre pioneer Richard Foremans post-modern stage piece Egyptology. Inoyama Land | Bandcamp