About

— The Analog Vault // Essential Listening —

— 2025 Edition: packaged in a revised cover with OBI and printed inner sleeves —

Though best known as a video game composer in his later career (specifically for the Ape Escape series), Japanese producer Soichi Terada was also a celebrated deep house virtuoso in the 1990s. This excellent compilation from Rush Hour, curated by Hunee, collects some of Terada’s catchiest and most dynamic tracks previously released on Far East Recording, a renowned label founded by Terada and Shinichiro Yokota in 1989.

Warm, plush, and melodious - Sounds from the Far East captures the joyous quintessence of what made his productions dancefloor staples everywhere from New York to Chicago to Detroit. Spanning ten originals from Terada, two from Yokata, and collaborations with Manabu Nagayama, this Far East anthology is rife with playful Nipponese spins on sunny, seductive Western house music. — The Analog Vault

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Originally released in 2015, Sounds from the Far East' features highly sought after material by legendary Japanese house producer Soichi Terada and fellow producers Shinichiro Yokota, Manabu Nagayama.  The two LP set, compiled by Hunee, took Soichi's music deep into the records bags, and more importantly the hearts of DJs and music lovers the world over

Soichi Terada is an adventurous multi-talent and all round beautiful human being. He was born in the 1960s, and as a child he loved to play on his fathers' electric organ. Terada majored in Computer Science and Electric Organ -  after he graduated, he founded Far East Recording in1989, because he couldn't find a label for his compositions at that time.

The sound of Far East Recording was very much inspired by early nineties US deep house. Soichi Terada went out to parties in the late eighties, where he was equally influenced by other forms of house music house and hip-hop. A few years later, Terada took on producing music by using digital sampling. In the early nineties he occasionally DJ-ed with a DAT player and some reel to reel tapes, rather than the conventional setup of of turntables. This way he could mix up his own cuts .

Sounds From The Far East shines a focussed light on Soichi Terada's label output released in the early nineties. Next to Terada's music, Hunee also selected a few tracks by fellow artist Shinichiro Yokota for this compilation, as well as 'Sun Showered', a track based on the classic Paradise Garage gem 'Sunshower' produced by Terada and Nami Shimada in 1991.

Here's the man himself with his reflection on the compilation, 10 years after it's initial release:

"This is a dream I never even dreamed of.

Since releasing my new album Asakusa Light towards the end of the global coronavirus pandemic, I’ve been fortunate enough to keep performing live. When I think about those performances, which blend tracks from the ‘90s and more recent years, they sound like one continuous piece.

When I was first making and performing house music, I never thought I’d still be doing this decades later. That’s thanks in part to the great advice I received from Rush Hour during production, but most of all, to everyone who picked up the record and came out to the shows. I’m eternally grateful. 10 years have now passed since the release of Sounds From The Far East in 2015, and I’m truly happy to release a new edition with updated packaging, while still having the chance to share this music on stage." - Soichi Terada

— (via Label)

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Whether they realise it or not, millions of people know the music of Soichi Terada. After all, the Tokyo producer's childlike melodies have bleeped out of consoles across the world as the soundtrack to the Ape Escape games. Until then, Terada seemed to be playing a game of his own, one that could be called Deep House Simulator. From the early '90s onwards, Terada's Far East Recordings has specialised in Eastern impressions of Western deep house. On Sounds From The Far East, Hunee compiles the best of Terada's tracks for Rush Hour, alongside a few from his compatriot Shinichiro Yokota.

Parts of Sounds From The Far East are like the aural equivalent of Amerikamura, the Osaka district with a model Statue Of Liberty and the stars and stripes strewn in every window. But whereas that neighbourhood retains a sense of Japanese character beneath all the Americana, Terada's take on US house and garage isn't just indistinguishable from its original source—it's just as good as the real deal. With its pounding piano and diva vocal, "CPM" is a house cut Masters At Work would be proud of. "Shake Yours," too, is loaded with New York flavour. Terada's love for that city was reciprocated when Larry Levan remixed "Sun Shower," a track he produced in 1989 for the Japanese singer Nami Shimada. That one appears here as a reworked instrumental with beefed-up disco stabs, crisper drum fills and a faint echo of Madonna's "Vogue." But these guys weren't only looking to the US for inspiration: Yokota rips Gaznevada's Italo classic "I.C Love Affair" for "Shake Yours," and "Purple Haze," "Low Tension" and "Binary Rondo" all have a breezy '80s Balearic vibe.

Some tracks hint at Terada's future career: "Hohai Beats," "Rising Sun Up" and "Voices From Beyond" are as cute and bouncy as a Japanese video game character. You might also say they've got about as many dimensions, at least in emotional terms—although Terada can do chilled, upbeat, jazzy, deep and soulful sounds with equal aplomb, the mood of each track is normally just a variation on "deliriously happy." But that makes them fun to jump between, and Sounds From The Far East will have many house heads grinning for a full hour. — (via Resident Advisor)

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Label: Rush Hour
Format: 2 x Vinyl, LP, Compilation, Reissue, Obi
Reissued: 2025 / Original release: 2015
Genre: Electronic
Style: House, Deep House

File under: TAV Essential Listening
File under: Electronic // Japanese Electronic
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