2. Through The Looking Glass (1983)

Like many oddball artists who, despite releasing music WAY before the internet, have started to gain a fan base online, there is an album or song that can be shared, and immediately enjoyed that drives the interest for the artist. The opening track for TTLG, “Mr. Henri Rousseau’s Dream”, is that and so much more for Midori.

Based on the paintings of post-impressionist artist Henri Rousseau, who was known for his odd, almost childlike renderings of jungle scenes, despite having never visited a jungle himself. The track is an incredible twelve-minute journey that, like the paintings, draws a vibrant, almost uncanny musical scene. Strange flute-like sounds are used to imitate the sounds of birds, and wooden claps float in and out of the mix, like the gentle chirping of insects, and the croaking of frogs. Chimes imitate strains of light poking through the dense foliage overhead, which is itself painted by the droning tone of god-knows-what which surrounds the entire track, like a jungle heat.

It’s an incredible example of Brian Eno’s original goal for ambient music, “to accommodate many levels of listening attention without enforcing one in particular; it must be as ignorable as it is interesting”. There’s an incredible level of depth and musicality to the track that rewards patient, focused listening, but it can also be left in the background to apply a tone to whatever it is you’re doing, allowing you to travel to this jungle world, or to simply have it play outside your window.

While “Mr. Henri Rousseau’s Dream” is definitely the looming masterwork of the album, all 4 tracks are really quite incredible. “Crossing” is a very Steve Reich inspired piece of minimalism that feels almost primal, and evil. This is followed by “Trompe-l’oeil” a more sinister interpretation of Mr Henri’s jungle-y ambient, feeling more like a dire, lost in the jungle type situation.

Then the finale, “Catastrophe”, where you can imagine coming into the clearing in the forest, staring into a native ritual filled with drums and unnatural energy, as wave after wave of interlocked drums pummel you It journey’s through progressively stranger and stranger sounds, like some sort of musical interpretation of Kubrick’s 2001, as we it heads to the limit of sanity.

A truly singular and mesmerizing album. A genuine bona-fide classic of ambient, new age, tribal ambient, and minimalism, one that was in desperate need of reissue, so hats off to WRWTFWW Records and Palto Flats.