I’d like to share something about one of my favorite things in life, Japanese electronic music. It sounds like the niche it is, but maybe I can at least win one soul this way. People who know me, and ever asked me what that noise was in my living room, you know what I’m talking about.

Like everything from Japan, it has a very unique flavor to it, I haven’t heard it much from any other part of the world (the Scandinavians get close sometimes though). I want to give you some names to check out, and you can see what you do with it.

First off, a very versatile guy called Susumu Yokota. He created over thirty albums already, touching everything in between classical and techno. Some of my favorite albums are Symbol, Sakura and Mother. Here’s a song called Baroque, you will notice that this genre of music goes hand in hand with beautiful video art.

Okay, so next up is Aus (Yasuhiko Fukuzono), this guy is also one of my favorite artists, and very productive as well. A glitchy ambient sound is typical for him. All of his albums are equally interesting, but if I had to pick one, it would be Antwarps. Here’s a song from the album Lang though, sadly, I was not able to find any music video’s.

Okay next I want to mention a guy called Motohiro Nakashima, his music is incredibly ambient and relaxing. The video for the song Stanly Park is also very nice, I was not allowed to embed the video, so here is a link. If you like it, you should check out his album I dreamt constellations sang.

Takagi Masakatsu is not only a musician, but also a very successful visual artist. I heard him say in an interview he switches focus, one year he makes music, the next one he makes video’s, animation and paintings. His music is certainly not for everyone, I will embed the song ‘girls’, because I love it so much, but expect more experimental stuff when you start digging deeper in his discography.

Finally (I could go on forever), I picked Aoki Takamasa. Aoki has a very unique sound, sometimes very danceable. There is a techno flavor to his work, it’s not a coincidence he is living in Berlin at the moment I guess. A notable cooperation is the one with Tujiko Noriko, together they recorded the album called 28. This video for Mirabeau is another good example of the unique style of visuals that comes from this genre.

I listen to these artists a lot when I don’t want to be distracted too much, when I work at home for instance. I’ve always been fascinated by this genre and all the (graphic) design it brings with it, you can see a lot of similarities within the different websites from these artists for example.

Other artists in this category are Takashi Wada, Ryoji Ikeda, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Akira Kosemura, Sawako and many more. If you’re interested, look for the hard to pronounce names on my last.fm page, or ask me.