artist: Tetsu Inoue country of origin: Japan style(s): Ambient, environmental, minimalism essential releases: 2350 Broadway [with Pete Namlook] (1993, Fax Records) Shades Of Orion [with Pete Namlook] (1994, Fax Records) Ambient Otaku (1994, Fax Records) Organic Cloud (1995, Fax Records) 2350 Broadway 3 [with Pete Namlook] (1995, Fax Records) World Receiver (1996, Instinct) Inland (2007, Fax Records)

Of the many artists who have recorded on German ambient label Fax Records, it's perhaps the music of Tetsu Inoue that most closely resembles classic Brian Eno. That's in the best possible sense, of course. Eno's pure, fragile, minimal sound and looped motifs are simply a departure point from which Inoue has created some fine ambient albums that stand proud on their own terms.  

Shades Of Orion (a collaboration with Fax boss Pete Namlook) Ambient Otaku and Organic Cloud are all from his peak years with Fax. Passages of muted bleeps and beats ride on beds of subtle vocal textures, lovely airy chords and synth melodies that gently spin in and out of your consciousness. Alternately beatless and gently rhythmic, if there's such a thing as softcore techno then this is it. Environmental sounds are also woven into the tapestry in a most subtle way, some processed and treated to the point where their source is rendered almost unrecognisable.

2350 Broadway, a double album also recorded with Namlook, is the first in a popular series. The first disc is rather too short on tones and melody but the second disc, consisting of the 70-minute epic "Hands Of Light" is a masterful exercise in deep spacemusic. It's glacial pace varies only marginally between beatless and gently pulsed and its mix of electronic drones, wind effects and melodies is deceptively simple. 2350 Broadway 3 is also a fine work and more tonal then the first volume. Its unforgettable opening track "Morning Spirit" is an awe-inspiring piece of sunrise ambience, beginning tentatively before slowly expanding and blooming into a warm, enveloping embrace.

World Receiver takes Inoue's muse to an even higher level of sophistication. Here the lines between music and sound collage have been completely dissolved and the work reveals extraordinary detail with each listen. Musical notes become environment; environment (urban and natural) becomes music. The techniques used sound like a refinement of those on Eno's album On Land (1982), reinterpreted with field recordings sourced from all around the globe.

The years following World Receiver find Inoue's albums moving ever deeper into abstraction and experimentalism, often at the expense of accessibility. Inland is an exception, however, marking his return to the Fax label and containing his warmest and most tonal music since the mid-90's.

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