“Throughout its long, slow journey west, Mariah’s Utakata No Hibi has been an album without context. After a dormant period at home among Japan’s vinyl geek underground, the 1983 record began to spread farther in 2008, when the tastemaking Scottish DJ duo Optimo shared a cut online. That song, “Shinzo no Tobira”, which they first heard in a Tokyo record store, has since earned a cult following worldwide for the ethereal lines it traces between Asian and Middle Eastern tonalities, folklorish Armenian lyrics, and futuristic Japanese synthpop leads. Its soundscapes are like those once dreamt by Brian Eno and Wilson. But for all the love “Shinzo” and its parent album have found in tiny nightclubs and Internet testimonials, surprisingly little has been asked or answered about its origins. It’s almost as though Utakata now reissued by Palto Flats has at last arrived on our shores not simply through a crate digger’s time warp, but from some other world altogether.” –Jakob Dorof, Pitchfork
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