Midori Takada

Marimba, gong, ocarina, reed organ, bells and glass Coca-Cola bottles all ring out on Through The Looking Glass, recorded in three days in 1983 with Takada playing every part. Its slowly shifting, hypnotic patterns helped earn her a reputation as an ambient pioneer.

Trained in Tokyo, she was a percussionist with Berlin's RIAS symphony orchestra in the mid-1970s when the Western classical tradition began to frustrate her, so she returned to Japan to study African drumming, Indonesian gamelan and the early minimalism of Steve Reich and Terry Riley, channelling these influences into the Mkwaju Ensemble.

The album found few buyers at first, but online sharing made it a collector's favourite in the late 2010s, and after its 2017 reissue she toured widely across Europe, the United States, Australia and beyond. She has also scored the documentary The Toxic Pigs of Fukushima and collaborated with Lafawndah and saxophonist Kang Tae Hwan.