Music that inspired 1980s Japanese environmental music composer Yukata Hirose

Yutaka Hirose is a Japanese composer who was a key figure in that country's ambient/environmental music scene of the 1980s that in recent years has been rediscovered by crate-diggers around the world. Hirose's "NOVA" (1986) is a classic of the genre, a soundscape that Misawa Home Corporation commissioned as a "soundtrack" for the prefabricated houses. While original LPs have sold for hundreds of dollars, WRWTFWW Records have recently reissued the record as an expanded double LP and double CD. (For a further exploration of Japanese environmental music of the 1980s, Light in the Attic Records' "Kanky Ongaku: Japanese Ambient, Environmental & New Age Music 1980-1990" is a perfect portal.)

To celebrate the NOVA reissue, The Vinyl Factory asked Hirose to create a mix of music he was listening to and inspired by in the 1980s Listen above. It's a beautiful, sometimes-jarring, and totally compelling journey through avant-garde sounds of the time. Here's the tracklist:

1. Jan Steele All Day2. David Toop Do The Bathosphere3. Gavin Bryars 1, 2, 1-2-3-44. Joan La Barbara Poems 43, 44, 455. Meredith Monk Waltz6. Karlheinz Stockhausen Stimmung7. John Cage Seven Haiku8. Throbbing Gristle Almost A Kiss9. Robert Ashley Yellow Man With Heart With Wings10. The Flying Lizards The Window11. Henry Cow Little Red Riding Hood Hit The Road12. Faust Faust13. CAN Future Days14. Tangerine DreamRubycon15. Michael Nyman Decay Music16.