The Kyoto Connection – Four Seasons In Kyoto on Isle of Jura

The Kyoto Connection delivers a new Bass / Club, “Four Seasons In Kyoto”, now available on Isle of Jura. Released on 2025-04-11. Download now.

Watch the Official Music Video on YouTube …

Behind the Bass / Club : Release Notes

During the late 2010s, music lovers around the world began obsessively listening to increasingly esoteric albums on Youtube. More often than not, theyd leave the browser on autoplay. This was how Facundo Arena, the composer and producer behind The Kyoto Connection, discovered the technonaturalistic pleasures of Kankyō Ongaku (environmental music), a distinctly Japanese interpretation of European, British and American minimalist composition and ambient music. It was a kind of algorithmic magic, he says. Upload by upload, the utopian music of Hiroshi Yoshimura and his 80s Japanese contemporaries transported Facundo back to his childhood. When he was five, his father placed him in karate lessons and began watching martial arts movies with him. From those early experiences, Facundo became fascinated Japanese history, tradition, and culture, particularly that of Kyoto – the cultural capital of Japan. Kankyō Ongaku reminded him of hearing the sounds of Japanese folkloric instruments as a young boy, and suddenly, the way the influence of Japan had manifested in his music made sense. I had the sensation that for many years, Id been doing something similar to the style, he explains. Inspired, Facundo used an iPad and an old Akai cassette deck to record Postcards, his homage to Japanese minimalism and Kankyō Ongaku. By this stage, he was twelve years deep with The Kyoto Connection, the musical project he launched in 2005 in his hometown of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Over that late 2000s and 2010s, Facundo, later on joined by collaborators Rodrigo Trado (drums), Jesica Rubino (vocals, now his wife) and Marian Benitez (violin), released numerous D.I.Y albums. Project by project, they followed the threads between 80s synth-pop, ambient, new age, house, techno and acoustic composition. Postcards introduced The Kyoto Connection to listeners around the world and brought Facundo into our orbit. During Argentinas covid lockdown, Facundo received a set of soundscapes recorded in Kyoto by the Japanese musician and sound designer Masafumi Komatsu. Over several insular months, he decorated them with synthesisers, samples and subtle rhythms, creating The Kyoto Connections next album, The Flower, The Bird and the Mountain to be released via Isle Of Jura offshoot Temples Of Jura. Ostensibly made up of twelve distinct tracks, listening to The Flower, The Bird and the Mountain feels more akin to spending calm, meditative time in twelve specific environments. Although the foundations they rest on are recordings made in geographic locations around Kyoto, Facundo has yet to visit Japan. As a result, the landscapes he paints sit somewhere between fiction and fact, richly pictorial sonic imagination juxtaposed with echoes of reality. Regardless, as his bubbling melodies and glistening synthesisers glide against Masafumi Komatsus recordings, Facundo guides us into a blissful zone of tranquillity well worth spending time within. Pressed on heavyweight 180 Gram Vinyl with sleeve design by Bradley Pinkerton.

Download The Kyoto Connection ‘Four Seasons In Kyoto’ in MP3, FLAC, and AIFF Formats

Tracklist & Tempos

1. The Kyoto Connection – Ihojin Original Mix, Download MP3

   Ambient / Experimental | 100 BPM – A Minor | 02:50

2. The Kyoto Connection – A Drop of Dew Original Mix, Download MP3

   Ambient / Experimental | 140 BPM – D Minor | 03:24

3. The Kyoto Connection – Four Seasons in Kyoto Original Mix, Download MP3

   Ambient / Experimental | 75 BPM – A Minor | 05:43

4. The Kyoto Connection – Mindscape Original Mix, Download MP3

   Ambient / Experimental | 103 BPM – F Major | 02:42

5. The Kyoto Connection – The Shore Original Mix, Download MP3

   Ambient / Experimental | 106 BPM – Gb Major | 02:57

6. The Kyoto Connection – Playground Original Mix, Download MP3

   Ambient / Experimental | 136 BPM – A Major | 03:06

7. The Kyoto Connection – Yurei Original Mix, Download MP3

   Ambient / Experimental | 164 BPM – F Major | 03:42

8. The Kyoto Connection – Kyoto Sound Logo Original Mix, Download MP3

   Ambient / Experimental | 75 BPM – A Minor | 02:17

9. The Kyoto Connection – Dedication Original Mix, Download MP3

   Ambient / Experimental | 121 BPM – C Major | 02:44

10. The Kyoto Connection – Mindscape II Original Mix, Download MP3

    Ambient / Experimental | 100 BPM – A Minor | 04:06

11. The Kyoto Connection – Seiko Original Mix, Download MP3

    Ambient / Experimental | 70 BPM – C Major | 03:46

12. The Kyoto Connection – Solitude Original Mix, Download MP3

    Ambient / Experimental | 65 BPM – F Major | 02:34

13. The Kyoto Connection – Ryokan Original Mix, Download MP3

    Ambient / Experimental | 120 BPM – D Major | 03:37

14. The Kyoto Connection – Love Letter Original Mix, Download MP3

    Ambient / Experimental | 99 BPM – C Major | 01:53

15. The Kyoto Connection – Amanohara Original Mix, Download MP3

    Ambient / Experimental | 145 BPM – D Major | 02:00