About

A TAV Essential Listening Album.

Palto Flats & WRWTFWW Records are proud to announce the highly-anticipated reissue of Japanese percussionist Midori Takada‘s sought after and timeless ambient / minimal album “Through The Looking Glass”, originally released in 1983 by RCA Japan.

Considered a Holy Grail of Japanese music by many, “Through The Looking Glass” is Midori Takada’s first solo endeavor, a captivating four-song suite capturing her deep quests into traditional African and Asian percussive language and exploring contemplative ambient sounds with an admirably precise use of marimba. The result is alternatively ethereal and vibrant, always precise and mesmerizing, and makes for an atmospheric masterpiece and an unparalleled sonic and spiritual experience. 

The fully licensed reissue is available both in its original form as a single 33rpm LP and a limited 45rpm 2×12″ (this version is exclusive to WRWTFWW,) both cut directly from the original studio reels (AAA), at Emil Berliner (formerly the in-house recording department of renowned classical record label Deutsche Grammophon) for the 45rpm DLP, and at the equally famous Frankfurter SST Studio for the LP. It is also available in CD format for the first time. All versions come with liner notes, with extended quotes from Ms. Takada. – Press Release 

“In a perfect world, Japanese composer Midori Takada and her works for percussion would be as revered and renowned as that of Steve Reich. Much like that world-renowned American composer, Takada drew influence from a study of African drumming and Asian music, and surmised how these sensibilities dovetailed with that of minimalism, serving as means to break with the Western classical tradition (she originally was a percussionist in the Berlin RIAS Symphonie Orchestra at the Berlin Philharmonic). But with only a handful of works to her name and all of it long out of print—be it with her groundbreaking percussion trio Mkwaju Ensemble, the group Ton-Klami or the three solo albums she released across nearly two decades—her music has been impossible to hear since the early 1990s.” – Pitchfork

Item description: