Music From Memory celebrated a decade doing business by releasing a compilation, succinctly titled 10, toward the end of December. This was just as many in the west were getting ready for Christmas, and those of us in Japan prepared to shut down for around a week after New Years Eve. With everything else going on in the world, there’s a chance that folks may have missed it. The album gathers, and perfectly sequences exclusive tracks, from a range of artists on the label’s roster.  People who’ve helped the imprint evolve from solely a reissue outlet. This change is highlighted by cracking contributions by younger acts such as Androo, Dazion, Dea, and Fools. Now recognised and respected names, that Music From Memory played a significant part in establishing. Balearic-born guitarist, Joan Bibiloni, Joel Graham, and Michal Turtle, though, were there right at the start, while truly talented aural auteurs like Gigi Masin, Jonny Nash, and Suso Saiz, have gone on to become regulars, and firm friends. 

The music moves from chilled out jazz – Joan’s elegant acoustic picking, The Zenmenn’s sax and slide-guitar led, softly swinging Amazonian fusion – to ambient – Jonny’s hypnotic looped minimalism and haunting choirboy harmonies, and Kuniyuki’s Forest Dust, a sparse, nocturnal noir, wrought from what might be a lonely reed. Sometimes mixing, mutating the two. Mei Honeycomb’s Squeaky Eye Syndrome, for example, surrounds free jazz skronk with atmospheric electronics, and sounds like Lester Bowie in orbit.  

The overall mood could be described as mellow. Terekke’s Just Ducking Around is all warm synth swells and relaxing ripples. On Continental Drift, Tombolo’s tumbling drums summon images of sunrise on an African plain. There’s Ocean Moon’s peaceful percussion, and Gigi’s densely textured sonic design, source instruments, such as trumpet and zither, only glimpses in Panama Girl’s ringing resonance. Michal’s Borrowed Times is a marvellous muted movement for marimba, tribal hand drums, and chimes. Only RAMZi’s Baci flirts with the dance floor, stuttering out a broken electro rhythm. Her machines mimicking a hip hop human beatbox. 

Everything is, predictably, of an extraordinary high quality, but if forced to pick a standout then Yu Su and J. Wilson’s Mitti Attar would be it. Skilfully sculpted from busy, backwards spinning sequences, Wilson’s wonderful guitar work creates counterpoint like Steve Reich jamming with Manuel Gottsching, rather than Pat Metheny. Raising not a wall, but a river, a fresh water stream of sound. 

The tracks run to 20 in total, and it’s fitting that they finish with an epic from the New York-based composer, Vito Ricci, from whose privately-pressed 1985 album the label took its name. Da Hamptons is a 24 / 25 minute immersive, installation-like piece. A constantly changing collage of field recordings, drones, and manhandled 6-string microtones, that conjures the idyll of the upmarket Long Island resort. Where rustling winds, rushing water, and birdsong compete with the propellor blade buzz of light aircraft cruising overhead. Unsurprisingly, 10 is an unbeatable collection, a terrific, and fitting, testament to Music From Memory’s considerable achievements. Something made all the more poignant with co-founder Jamie Tiller’s tragic passing. 

Music From Memory’s 10 is out now.

Like a lot of people, I’ve travelled some distance with this incredible, and important, imprint, and am preparing a much more personal piece.