Geinoh Yamashirogumi – Ecophony Rinne

Geinoh Yamashirogumi (the Yamashiro Performing Arts Group) are primarily known for their score for 1988’s iconic anime milestone Akira. Formed in 1974 by the, erm, agricultural scientist Tsutomu Ōhashi a.k.a. Shōji Yamashiro, the collective originally drew on gamelan music and, over time, featured literally hundreds of performers across its different releases between 1976 and 1988. While it has never been officially dissolved, renewed interest in ambient and transcultural music from 1980s Japan has put it on the map again. 輪廻交響楽 = Ecophony Rinne was an important technological and creative stepping stone towards the Symphonic Suite Akira and has been out of print since its release in 1986.

Even more than Japanese peers like Midori Takada, Geinoh Yamashirogumi drew heavily on different folk traditions and used them as source material for a musical approach that corresponded with Jon Hassell’s theories of Fourth World music. Since MIDI technology was unable to faithfully recreate the rhythmic complexity of gamelan music – a core influence since the inception of the collective – Ōhashi and his peers tried to emulate the sounds of traditional instruments by electronic means while combining them with a plethora of different field recordings and samples from different corners of the world. What dominates Ecophony Rinne, however, is the collective’s imaginative use and juxtaposition of different vocal traditions.

In many ways, Ecophony Rinne feels like a distillation of a particular strain in both Western and Japanese music during the 1980s, the most elaborate and perhaps colossal execution of a plan to transcend both time and space through music. More than a mere precursor to Symphonic Suite Akira, it is one of the positively strangest, most alluring albums of all time.