artist: Tetsu Inoue country of origin: Japan style(s): Ambient, environmental, minimalism essential releases: 2350 Broadway [with Pete Namlook] (1993, Fax/Ambient World) Shades Of Orion [with Pete Namlook] (1994, Fax) Ambient Otaku (1994, Fax/Ambient World) World Receiver (1996, Instinct) The 2350 Broadway Collection [with Pete Namlook] (2002, MP3.com CD)

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 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) and Ambient Otaku combine muted bleeps and beats with beds of subtle vocal textures, lovely airy atmospheres and synth melodies that gently spin in and out of your consciousness. If there's such a thing as softcore techno, 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 CD also recorded with Namlook, is probably the best album if you're looking to check out Tetsu Inoue for the first time. The first in a popular series with fans, it's regarded as a Fax classic and hails from the early 90's, a time when many of Fax Record's definitive albums were released. The first disc is rather too short on tones and melody but the second disc, consisting of the 70 minute epic "Hands Of Light" which is a masterful excercise in deep spacemusic. It's glacial pace varies only marginally between beatless and gently pulsed and it's a deceptively simple mix of electronic drones, wind effects and melodies. That said, a better value puchase is The 2350 Broadway Collection, a disc released by MP3.Com containing all three albums in the series.

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 On Land (1982) reinterpreted with field recordings sourced from all around the globe.

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