Tip! *Limited 2023 Repress - 2x 180g, orig stoughton tip on Sleeve, Black Vinyl, 45rpm Cut Edition (Emil Berliner) - Last 500 with Original Stoughton Tip On Sleeve - sticker* Midori Takada's sublime debut album Through The Looking Glass is widely regarded the holy grail of ‘80s Japanese ambient & minimalist music. Originally issued in 1983, the composer and percussionist’s Midori Takada’s first LP Through The Looking Glass, has long remained one of the most coveted and sought after artifacts of  the fertile soil surrounding the 1980’s Japanese experimental avant-garde. A near perfect work. A window into the unquestionable singularity of its era and geography. For many record collectors, this is the great holy grail - a nagging frustration, the unobtainable gem - it’s reemergence, the long awaited day. 

For Japanese experimental avant-garde musicians, the 1980’s was a high water mark - a movement without loyalty, sidestepping association and signifiers - sculpting a spectrum of sound previously unheard and entirely new. Through The Looking Glass sits solidly within this tradition - a layered hybrid of hybrids - Minimalism drawing on the diverse musical traditions of the globe - equally  ambient, New Age, and Pop. It is an effort in sonic joy - light and airy, while never loosing sight of the profound depths of creative rigor. It presents an alternate history in the narrative to the history of Minimalist music - both real and hypothetical - the paths and possibilities of rhythm and ambience that Steve Reich and Philip Glass never explored. Through The Looking Glass is unquestionably one of the most engrossing albums of its day - profoundly beautiful and hypnotic to the core - a shimmering gesture in multicultural cross genre utopianism, filling a unacknowledged void with uncharted realms of sound.

The fully licensed reissue is available as a single 33rpm LP and a limited 45rpm DLP, both cut directly from the original studio reels (AAA), at Emil Berliner (formerly the in-house recording department of renowned classical record label Deutsche Grammophon) for the 45rpm DLP, and at the equally famous Frankfurter SST Studio for the LP.