The history of experimental musicians from Europe and North America adopting Japanese aesthetics is… patchy. It got especially dodgy in the 1990s when every other electronica dork started flinging random kanji characters on their sleeves, writing soundtracks for imaginary Akira bike races and the like. And there are so, so many ambient producers who reference Zen gardens, minimalist interior design and bamboo flutes, you can’t go into a health spa without knocking over a pile of their CDs.
Thankfully Catskills Mountains-raised, LA resident soundscaper Emily A. Sprague is a little bit more substantial than this. Well, perhaps “substantial” isn’t the word for her distinctly mist-like structures, but her engagement with…