Chee Shimizu - Obscure Sound (a music book)

also, nearly half a million views?

i guess someone needs to put that song out as a single

oh wait i read a p good and v thread-relevant article about that phenomenon:

https://thevinylfactory.com/features/youtube-algorithm-vinyl-reissues/

that rare silk track is spectacular

it definitely has a very strange atmosphere to it

this thread is making my morning much, much better than it would otherwise have been

I've been listening to this stuff but my YouTube recommendations are still shit. This music seems completely different to anything popular on youtube or are there any other interesting trends?

The book appears to be available used for about $70 (not including s&h, which for all I know could be about as much) at kupiku.com, a site I've read good things about which apparently specializes in making Japanese stuff available overseas.

mostly the youtube phenomenon tells me how common, and totally random, it is to manipulate play counts. i don't feel the phenomenon is a million miles removed from the phenomenon observed a couple months ago of massive quantities of children's fetish porn youtube videos.

i'm not sure how well that rare silk song would sell if it were released as a single, in other words. there are all sorts of marginal cults but only on youtube does it get amplified to half a million page views, mainly through algorithmic chicanery. if the right algorithm felt like it the lewis sisters could have half a million pageviews (and i'd like if they would, if only because their "voices, strings, and percussion" record of tchaikovsky adaptations looks super interesting and should have a reish).

thank you for the discogs link, NickB! great find. no idea where to start, just going by appealing chapter headings and artwork for now...

and also for the interesting vinylfactory article - i have indeed been recommended (and clicked on) most of those Japanese ambient records by the mysteries of youtube's algorithms

there's a newish FACT article on Japanese ambient including Green and Through the Looking Glass too:
http://www.factmag.com/2018/01/14/japanese-ambient-hiroshi-yoshimora-midori-takada/

Came across this mix series run by the Red Light Radio/Records guys in Amsterdam, which I feel will appeal to my fellow posters on this thread.

I've listened to the Lovefingers and Young Marco mixes and recommend them. Each tracklist is also nicely annotated with nice track-by-track notes (which I find a nice touch), often from the person responsible for the mix itself.

http://redlightradio.net/liner-notes

excellent - thank you both! :)

Also, someone heroically created a Spotify playlist of the albums that are available.

https://open.spotify.com/user/1169389625/playlist/3AcBhC6K0hfXUhV2696v7X?si=Cvl6hPiPT_CiOOZyFIy90Q

oooh nice find!

now we're talking! thanks for that.

I discovered Harald Grosskopf's album 'Oceanheart' last night on Spotify from that playlist (it was recently reissued, it appears - I will prob grab a copy) while walking home in the rain. Lovely mood music - beautiful, lush synth work (Berlin-school) by a drummer, so it has some of the groove that I'd wish was in some Klaus Schulze et al's work.

I only knew of his other album, Synthesist, which is also worth checking out if you're into this stuff.

This Spotify playlist is great - had it on shuffle all day and really enjoyed it.

342 tracks though - presumably indicating that the bulk of the LPs in the book aren't up there?

The Grosskopf tracks are gorgeous.

yeah, I'm loving this. the Per Tjernberg record is amazing.

have had this shuffle for a few hours and have constantly been going omfg what the heck is this? luis paniagua has popped up a few times and sounded p sweet, will have to look in to that one

xxxp Synthesist is indeed great. I would recommend in a similar vein Michael Shrieve's "Transfer Station Blue".

Ooh, will check out that Shrieve album. I like that record he did with Steve Roach in the 80s.

the Per Tjernberg record is amazing.

a track off that popped up on my ipod earlier, really good odd electronic fusion stuff. also been enjoying rainer bruninghaus, orquesta de las nubes and glen velez

Second the recommendation for Transfer Station Blue as well! I'll check the Tjernberg today. At least from the Spotify list there seems to be q

Second the recommendation for Transfer Station Blue as well! I'll check the Tjernberg today.

At least from the Spotify list there seems to be quite a bit of Spanish stuff on the list, which seems like an interesting niche to dig further in (I know v little about Spain's music scene, apart from a couple of Balearic artists and some of the early 80s post punk scene from Madrid).

Oops ignore the earlier post, looks like I was a bit trigger happy with the 'submit' button :(

"grape iris" is so good

Heh.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dy-fdpqJwk

Hey, if anyone sees the reissue of Yasuaki Shimizu's 'Subliminal' on sale in Europe at a good price, please let me know!

it's this thing btw:

https://www.discogs.com/Yasuaki-Shimizu-ReSubliminal/release/11738359

I've just spent the last few hours compiling everything in the book (at least according to those Discogs lists) into a bunch of Apple Music playlists. There's 1771 songs on here, compared to the 350-ish on the Spotify one - I don't know if Apple's got rarer stuff, or if the compiler of the Spotify one just got bored (I wouldn't blame them).

I was really surprised how many albums were up there. Loads weren't, but I reckon about 50% are?

Here's the master playlist, which has everything on it:

https://itunes.apple.com/gb/playlist/obscure-sound-complete/pl.u-AkAmEgGc77pal2

I've also broken it out as twelve separate playlists for the categorised chapters, which might be a bit more useful/manageable. Rather than paste twelve URLs here, you can add each of the playlists from my Apple Music profile page here:

https://itunes.apple.com/profile/mattnida

Let me know if you spot any mistakes or anything I've missed.

whoa! very impressive, can't do Apple Music unfortch but perhaps some kind soul can cross-reference

Thanks for your work in putting these playlists together. really enjoying listening to them.

My pleasure. Yes, it's quite fun to have these on shuffle I find, a lot of interesting chance discoveries.

wow - i'm not on apple music atm but that's solid work!

thank you! listening to Cosmic at work.

Awesome, thank you for taking the time to do this! Incidentally, I was thinking of reviving this thread yesterday - I just ordered the Grape Iris D-Day off Discogs a few days ago. Funny timing.

Will dive into the Apple playlists!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_lub0vIMuc

I've been looking for a physical copy of Eve's Canto Aberto MPB album hearing this track in a Hunee mix about a year ago. It's in Obscure Music, too. No luck. It's not even listed on Discogs, no reissues either. Lovely song though.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=124&v=nzQ0CTwshHU

Oops, maybe now it'll embed https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzQ0CTwshHU

it seems likes the great apple music playlists that Bamboohouses was kind enough to create are down. did anyone get a chance to download or mirror them? was still enjoying shuffling through them. wish i would have created my own local copy before they disappeared!

I never even knew that Dome put out other people's records, but I'm sure I must have known that at one point.

― MaresNest, Friday, 28 July 2017 09:40 (one year ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Just that, the A.C. Marias 7" and also the highly recommended Desmond Simmons "Alone On Penguin Island" album.

― stirmonster, Friday, 28 July 2017 10:08 (one year ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

There's also the album by Michael O'Shea, who I believe they discovered busking. Never seen a vinyl copy though.

https://img.discogs.com/Tn-tKHfm4tJFMr942-GbM9uUJ9w=/fit-in/200x200/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-167429-1272017742.jpeg.jpg

Please update this incredible thread regularly kthxbye.

it seems likes the great apple music playlists that Bamboohouses was kind enough to create are down. did anyone get a chance to download or mirror them? was still enjoying shuffling through them. wish i would have created my own local copy before they disappeared!

― dsb, Saturday, 13 October 2018 16:20 (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I'm so sorry about that. I was on a free Apple Music trial through my phone provider that I chose not to continue, but I didn't think it would nuke all those playlists with immediate effect and that I'd at least get some warning or be able to back them up. I'm sorry for any problems this has caused anyone.

If it's any consolation, this person - https://open.spotify.com/user/gh_cl?si=htvNwcoUTSuucOpyz_GiSQ - has done the same thing on Spotify, alongside many other great playlists. I'm convinced that if I ever met gh_cl we'd be really good mates, our tastes are astonishingly similar.

There's also the album by Michael O'Shea, who I believe they discovered busking. Never seen a vinyl copy though

Indeed! I'm not sure how I missed that one out as The Michael O'Shea (which is incredible) is one of my most listened to records. It is being reissued shortly, apparently.

In other news, i have heard that Obscure Sound 2 is coming soon.

Nice, that's good news! Curious to see what it'll be like/if there'll be any changes in its approach. I still regularly dip into the lists (posted on Discogs) for new discoveries and will look up random things from his instagram account from time to time. The latest one which I'll bump here is this Saada Bonaire album:

https://www.discogs.com/Sa%C3%A2da-Bonaire-Sa%C3%A2da-Bonaire/release/5106716

Fingers crossed he may take it as an opportunity to do another printing of the first one.

this looks U&K: https://lightintheattic.net/releases/4088-kankyo-ongaku-japanese-ambient-environmental-new-age-music-1980-1990

holy shit that packaging is irresistible to me

yeah that looks great

it is v pretty