If there’s one thing I know about my sign…it’s that it’s (pardon my language) all bullshit. I know, spoken like a true Gemini. Yet, there are people out there who still believe in astrology and that our anthropomorphization of the heavens, somehow, provides a keen insight into who we all are as a person and what our future holds. So believe me, as a one time astronomy student, when I say: I predict that we all can agree on something but it’s not this. I think we can all agree to appreciate the wonderfully transportive work that Mizue Mino contributed to a Japanese environmental music record label astrology-minded music series (try saying that twice): “Planeteria Sound” and this, his Planetaria Sound［蟹座］focused on one zodiac inspiration, the Cancer symbol.
To understand Mizue Mino’s work one must unravel the record label behind it. “Sound Works” was a sub-label of an independent music publisher dubbed, Nash Music. Nash Music itself was the brainchild of one Osaka-based musician and composer, Yoshinari Nashiki.
It was in the late ‘70s when Yoshinari decided to forsake any established record label and self-produce and self-release a collection of his own music. Going under the band name, Labo Nash, he’d create the Nash Studio label and use it as a launching point to both release his own music (and maintain ownership rights to said music). At a time when you had to have an image in Japan to sell your music, Yoshinari preferred to let the music speak for itself and hide his visage from promotion.
When Yoshinari’s decidedly risky proposition failed to elicit the response he wanted, Yoshinari dissolved his “band” and tried to see how else he could make it in the music business. In the beginning, he turned to creating commercial music for TV, advertising, and the like, as his personal studio was situated closeby to various visual production companies.
At first, he’d try to create organic music that a client could feel happy with. However, more often than not, all the commissioned work he’d make would frequently get nitpicked over and lose its original, purer quality, as those clients would prefer to lean heavier on the “commercial” side of commercial music. Tired of having to shelve good music for commercial music that he’d retain no control over, Yoshinari thought of a new idea: royalty-free library music.
It was in 1983 when Yoshinari, the musician, would begin his Nash Music Library record label. Much like western library music companies, Yoshinari would create a variety of instrumental records and collections that centered on a theme or themes. Simply worrying about capturing a mood would free him to let those broadcasters, radio stations, etc. who bought the record make with it what they would. By the turn of the decade, Yoshinari had enough clout to venture elsewhere and explore the possibilities his cutting-edge BGM service could provide.
Going back into the realm of commercially-available music, Yoshinari evolved that concept further by creating Nash Music Publishing. Under this new entity, Yoshinari could invite like-minded musicians and conceptual artists who wanted to explore using music as some other form of enrichment.
In the beginning, Yoshinari would create an “Image Work Study Group” that researched and proposed images that could harmonize with our natural environment through music meant to recreate certain sounds and space – in effect, it was Yoshinari’s take on environmental music. In 1992, a whole series was born out of this study: “Sympathy With Harmony”. It’s that series that took what he learned from making “library music” to shift the focus inward, to our connection with the environment. As a consumer, you’d simply pick out a CD with the atmospheric environmental scene that struck you, head home and listen to ambient music capturing the moment.
Yoshinari understood that for his idea of modern BGM to evolve he had to make his label a home to other musicians who wanted to explore its opportunities. Somehow, his “Image Works” would evolve into another idea: “Sound Works”.
Under “Sound Works” the focus changed to centering musicality over imagery. Gone would be overt references to known scenery – in would be compositions that could conjure up liminal spaces. Using the brilliant ploy of the zodiac, fellow Nash Studio musicians were invited to contribute complete works that spoke to a specific quality and set of emotions (typically) related to an astrological symbol. This would be the Constellation Series from Planetaria Sound.
So, just imagine – Gemini, Aries, Cancer, Libra, Taurus, etc. – all of the symbols, all of the possibilities that were finite (yet endless). Dubbing it the “Planetaria Sound” this series would allow the musicians, as hinted by the name, to create music that could be spacey and otherworldly, but also deep and spiritual. The popularity of Japanese planetariums also make this a perfect musical product to aim at those consumers used to such experiences.
Differing from the Image Works series, this offshoot was meant to be gifted to another and not merely meant for personal gratification. A “message” space in the back of the CD jacket was left empty just for you to fill in with your feelings/thoughts for another. Just put yourself in that space: Is your birth sign a Cancer? You know what, I have starry-eyed, meditative music that was made just for you and possibly sold at planetariums. And the, sometimes, faceless musicians who contributed to the series get full credit for what they were expressing.
In the case of Kobe-native Mizue Mino, it was Yoshinari taking a chance on a young graduate from Mukogawa Women’s University who was transitioning from being a sometime rocker into exploring computer-based music. Mizue’s exploration of that sound would be to go deep into the cyclical, tantric side of the symbol. Songs like “オーシャン コンタクト (Ocean Contact★)”, although featuring electronic instruments, hovering around vedantic traditions with pianos and resonating instruments/sounds approximate a drone that just puts you in a trance.
Planetaria Sound［蟹座］is just four tracks long, and each long run song a bit of a journey, striking a particular melody that appears truly aired out for maximum replayability. It may have been BGM, but when your background is far off in the heavens, you’re playing to something far more powerful.