Artist Feature #4:
Sep. 4, 2026
Masakatsu Takagi
I’m having trouble writing this without falling asleep.
The collection of works is so cool. It’s hard not to see Masakatsu Takagi as like some higher being.
Picture a skinny, feminine-featured Japanese man, with medium-long volumous hair. He might be interpreted as timid on the surface, as a result of his quiet, domestic, minimalist lifestyle. He exists in a quiet, secluded studio deep in the mountains of Japan and for this series he sets up an array of microphones facing open windows. Once the recording begins, he sits at this lush piano and plays improvised, meditative music. “No overdubbing, no writing, no editing, no fixing…just as it is". Each song is almost like a captured memory. The nature in the background is always changing, behaving differently on each recording like mood, naturally fluctuating day by day.
Usually it’s just piano and outdoor noise, but sometimes he hums and ooh’s along, shakily but sweetly. Other times there’s some weird animal out there that I spend a good amount of the time failing to identify.
Musically, the improv is soundscape-y and peaceful. Imagine a soundtrack for a bright open meadowed field, w/ birds and little rivers and flowers and all that. I wish I could just lay on some comfy couch in that room, passing in and out of sleep, listening. I picture a feather that, if u were to hold it, would be the weight of a brick, but it falls through the air slowly and weightlessly. In less confusing words than that failed analogy, the music has so much heavy emotional depth, but somehow also feels weightlessly content. It has a sleep-inducing effect, like you took a melatonin.
Because it’s so transparent, it really takes you to that environment. Everything is natural, no mixing. Ngl, it took me a minute to get to a place where the nature noises weren’t overwhelming. But, it settles in. I will sleep to this tonight. Or maybe next time I get on a flight, I will play the compilation.
If you’re like me, you’ve heard some of that tiring “meditation” music behind some yoga or meditation recording. If you were to get technical and draw similarities, there would definitely be plenty between this and that. But Takagi’s emotion, or at least his capabilities in properly expressing it, are other worldly. This shit is real zen, not like Amazon Prime music Zen.
We are blessed with a couple hundred of works under this project title, with more always being released. I have yet to find one that I could subject to judgement, because each one is just a passive excerpt of nature. Nothing is ever forced or planned. While I love all music too much for this to be the only thing I listen to, if there wasn’t anything else I think I’d be content. I could listen to this for the rest of my life.
Thanks @ixosyd for pmo:)
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