“I was playing around with a radio transmitter I’d made when I heard something from outside the house and, fascinated, followed the sound outdoors. Striding off down the path between the rice fields, I paused halfway along the expanse of paddies to listen, and heard a chorus of thousands, tens of thousands of insects, like a wave of electronic sound washing over me. It was this experience that sparked my interest in sound and space, and which inspired me to begin exploring the many different sides of what we call sound.”
Ever since being halted on my tracks by the thunderous and tender “Shinzo No Tobira,” I’ve been a fan of Yasuaki Shimizu. And thankfully, the last few years have seen a great deal of his crucial ’80s work come back into print. News of a previously unissued work, Kiren, was cause for celebration for sure. In returning to albums like Kakashi and Utakata No Hibi, I’m now convinced that Yasuaki Shimizu is a genius on par with the likes of Haruomi Hosono and Ryuichi Sakamoto, high praise indeed. And while the aforementioned albums are wondrous things, I now find myself taken by almost every facet of Shimizu’s discography, all of it well worth investigating. Albums like Latin and his takes on Bach’s Cello Suites are truly astonishing, as are the dozens of productions he did at the same time. It was an honor to get to chat with him and gain some insight into his musical outlook.
40 Years In, Yasuaki Shimizu Finds a New Audience for Bandcamp
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