There’s just something about summer that brings out a different side of me. Whether it’s the heat, the scenery, or simply me aligning with this season’s circadian rhythm, I want others to experience a certain joy I get out of summer. And when it comes to sharing music or making mixes that hit in this particular season, like for my latest LYL Radio Digging Deep show, these summery mixes are the ones I hone my focus most on, making sure not one moment loses its cue.
As I, surprisingly, get closer to sharing my 100th mix on the blog, I keep thinking about all my previous summer mixes. Last year’s Yokohama Scenery, 2024’s Late Summer, 2023’s Verão Em Calcutá and Beautiful Sunday, all of them and more — all have a throughline, if you look as closely as I am doing now. It’s the rumination on certain still life. It’s honing in on the idea of “paradise music”.
Paradise has been defined as “a place or state of bliss, felicity, or delight”. For some, paradise seems unattainable in life, only staring up at it in the heavens, after death. For others, paradise is found only somewhere on earth, tucked in between the sandy ground and a waterfront. For others, it’s tucked in anywhere there’s good company and good music. For all, this defined space seems so loosely defined to the point of being undefined, that paradise should be wherever and whatever we make it.
It’s why today I chose to take it to the backyards, courtyards, and beachfronts of the country I share so much music of. For an hour, I’d like to take your mind elsewhere, I’d like to place you between the Japanese aunty sneaking herself another peach-flavored Chu-Hi and her young niece and nephews taking turns rolling up another takoyaki ball, while sneaking in another bite of noodles from the nagashi somen machine.
For an hour, I’d like you to imagine yourself striking up a conversation with the young mother making small talk with her grandmother, pressing yet another onigiri into her hands, destination: others, as she waits for her friend to finish prepping the teppan for yakisoba. As the smell of sweet barbecue fills the air, that is the portrait this mix is thinking of.
It’s this still life, a bit of paradise, that I’ve been fortunate to partake in, that I hope to transmit to you through this music that’s not too far off from what you’d hear playing in my more defined “somewhere”. In the space between anyone’s eyes and ears, the heat map reveals: this is anyone’s paradise loft.
Your Own Little Paradise (君だけの小さな楽園)
Tracklist:
Kensho Abe (安部兼章) & Yukihiro Fukutomi (福富幸宏) – A.K.Deux
Manabu Nagayama (永山学) & Soichi Terada (寺田創一) – Low Tension
Ice (アイス) – Kiss Your Lips
Pas De Chat (パディシャ) – あの声が聴こえてくる夜
DJ Hasebe (長谷部大助) – After The Party
Meyou (ミュウ) – Ki-Ra-I (キ・ラ・イ)
Anri (杏里) – Oasis
Taiyou To Ciscomoon (太陽とシスコムーン) – 月と太陽 (More Cool Remix)
DJ Hasebe (長谷部大助) – Adore
Masayoshi Takanaka (高中正義) – Another Summer Day (Lo-Fi Summer Mix)
Miki Nakatani (中谷美紀) – Sorriso Escuro
Clara Moreno – I Want You Here
The Voice Of Japan (ヴォイス・オブ・ジャパン) – 太陽のあかし
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