Tokyo’s chillout veteran / champion Kiyotaka Fukagawa, aka Calm, closes 2023 with a digital, CD, and vinyl reissue of his 1999 sophomore set, Moonage Electric Ensemble. This comes at the end of a year marked by a winning run of remixes. In contrast to those reworks – which showcased a TB-303 charged sunset / sunrise sound – this reissue is basically jazz. It’s an album full of live instrumentation, bolstered by Calm’s club / party-ready programming and production, where solos are really given space to soar.  

The record opens with Don Gamble’s poetry, which features throughout the LP. Here, he asks “Where was the first blessed place you were held?”, and further poses the question, why did you ever leave that safe haven? On Light Years, trap drums tap, rattle, out a downtempo funk, while the arrangement moves from harp-like patterns of pizzicato plucking to Spanish guitar picking. Noon At The Moon has Mitsuru Ogata’s flute float in and out of some seriously swinging syncopation. Tight tumbling rolls, and a blur of ringing, singing cymbals, that manage to pack the punch of a breakbeat. Nobuyuki Nakajima’s piano playing is simply stunning. The Other Side Of The Moon begins as a chunky, tabla’d chug. The turntables of DJ Afro teasing with snatches of synth swells and keys. The introduction of a contrabass line then transforms the tune into something altogether more soulful. 

The vibe is very much post-Soul II Soul, post-acid jazz, and in places it doffs its chapeau to Japanese jazz dance pioneers UFO. Tsukiyo is a mellower moment. Yuichiro Kato’s saxophone and the trumpet of Tomoya Yamaguchi’s share this track’s spotlight, which recalls a DJ Sergio White Isle favourite, Buckshot LeFonque’s I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings. Just like that New Orleans-based outfit, Calm’s crew also incorporate influences from hip hop and modern street soul. On Authentic Love Song, Gamble’s “rap” takes centre stage. His spoken words brilliantly describing a smitten-at-first-sight summer scene, before the tempo, and Kato’s sax, tearway, and take flight over a racing Latin rhythm.

The reissue comes with a bonus 12 of brand new, beatless, dubs. These, perhaps, more in keeping with what folks might currently expect of Calm. Light Years becomes a bucolic bath of cascading chimes, colliding in each other’s echo. Noon At The Moon resurfaces as a romantic swoon. A soft focus score, where waves of reverb wash Nakajima’s ripples. Reduced, The Other Side Of The Moon, reveals its Love Supreme-like bass-line. Tsukiyo is a sublime, 6-minute saxophone serenade. Oasis, a musical mirage of birdsong, fluttering flute arabesques, and a fragile, falsetto aria. 

Calm’s Moonage Electric Ensemble is out now, care of Music Conception & Hell Yeah.