Masahiro Takahashi - In Another (Telephone Explosion) [Jazz]

*** This blog post first appeared in TSMM's May 22nd Newsletter, where you can get all the tips (and more) first ***

We all need a bit of easy listening sometimes, obviously not that AI slop that is currently polluting the music industry, or the music-by-numbers elevator music that has steadily evolved over the decades, but, you know, an album that’s a little woozy, genuinely carefree, smooth but possibly a little parallel-dimensional, and maybe even a bit out-there on occasion. Perhaps something that gives you that feeling you had when you walked home from the pub on a summer’s night after a couple of impromptu, unexpectedly fun after-work beers in a pub garden. Remember that night? When you spotted someone across the tables, who smiled back and gave you their number? If it’s that sort of easy listening you crave, then it’s time to say hello to Japanese-born musician and producer Masahiro Takahashi.

For his latest album, he’s ditched the whimsical, new-age meets cosmic exotica that made me fall in love with his music, and called in a host of Toronto’s likely lads - including the TSMM-approved Nick Storring and Joseph Shabason, to help make all his more traditional-leaning arrangement and jazz infused chamber pop dreams come true. OK, so it’s a touch schmaltzy at times, but in a perfectly acceptable, if a bit like your mum and dad’s music kinda way, and the imbued waywardness and wobblyness more than make up for any easy-listening guilt; and let’s face it, we all need a soundtrack to our wistful trips down memory lane.

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Playlist Companion

Find Takahasi in the Slow Jazz Playlist: