Great news, yet again, has been provided to us by our dear friends at Wewantsounds! From their Bandcamp site:
“Wewantsounds is delighted to announce the first international reissue of Ayako Shinozaki’s hard to find LP “Music Now For Harp” released in 1974 by Nippon Columbia. The LP was released on the label’s cult “Master Sonic” series and features Shinozaki’s harp soundscape on works by renowned composer Toru Takemitsu and Katsuhiro Tsubono. The highlight of the album is the spaced-out, ethereal 25-min ambient epic ‘Heterodyne’ featuring cult musician Takehisa Kosugi (Taj Mahal Travellers, Group Ongaku) on electric violin and sound waves. The album has been newly remastered by Nippon Columbia and is reissued here with its original artwork designed by legendary Japanese graphic designer Kohei Sugiura. It includes a 2 page insert with new liner notes by Alan Cummings.
Japanese harpist Ayako Shinozaki was born in Japan in 1946 into a musical family. Her father was a renowned violonist and teacher and she started playing the violin under his wing before switching to harp. She first studied in Japan, then at Julliard in New York and, upon her return in Japan in the early 1970s, she launched her yearly “Harp No Koten” recital (the first or which took place in 1972) with the idea of pushing the boundaries of the instrument and delves into the more experimental side of the spectrum following the recent steps that had been made by Dorothy Ashby and Alice Coltrane to get the instrument out of the classical music ghetto.”
