About

One of the most innovative and ambitious albums ever made, Genioh Yamashirogumi’s Ecophony Rinne is a sonic masterpiece featuring over 200 musicians that expanded the limits of what music and sound could do.

Before Akira there was Ecophony Rinne. Originally released in 1986, Ecophony Rinne is a four-part symphony of “ecological music” by Geinoh Yamashirogumi that married ancient tradition with technological innovation, and changed the way we listen to music in the process.

Founded by genius polymath Tsutomu Ōhashi aka Shoji Yamashiro, Geinoh Yamashirogumi is a shapeshifting collective of over a hundred members from across disciplines. Rejecting professional musicianship, Ōhashi cultivated an ethos where neuroscientists, psychologists, doctors, journalists, engineers and students could critique society through artistic expression and pursue their research in ethnomusicological performances that spanned global traditions, Eastern spirituality and Western classical form.

Ecophony Rinne represents the pinnacle of this vision - an expansive orchestral suite made with over 200 musicians that channeled Ōhashi’s thinking about mankind’s relationship with nature, and fundamental questions of life, death and rebirth.

Here pipe organ synths made from sampled Tibetan horns sit alongside field recordings from Central African forests, Buddhist mantras circle dummy head microphones, Javanese Jegog percussion ensembles pulse like verdant ecosystems, and the acoustics of temples, caves and landscapes are conveyed in the mix. Weaving together culture, nature and technology, it is a record that vibrates with the polyphony of life on Earth.

But Ecophony Rinne was not only musically innovative. Noticing the difference between vinyl and CD versions of the album where digital reproduction limited the sound, Ōhashi developed a theory of “Hypersonic Effect”, determining that ultra-high frequencies above 20khz can impact human perception even if they are inaudible. At once a physical and a psychological experience, to listen to Ecophony Rinne is to feel music differently.

The rest is history. After its release, Ōhashi was approached by director Katsuhiro Ōtomo to produce the soundtrack for Akira, the work for which Geinoh Yamashirogumi is best known. Emerging from the shadows at last, Ecophony Rinne was its transcendental blueprint, reissued in its most complete hypersonic form on vinyl for the first time.

Rather than describe nature, Ecophony Rinne embodied it. Rather than reflect culture, Ecophony Rinne defined it. Rather than explore technology, Ecophony Rinne changed it. As a work of art, it is more relevant than ever. You won’t have heard anything like it. — (via Label)

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Even so, the seeds of the successive albums are clearly audible here. A softer version of the bang that opens “Kaneda” on Akira opens “Primordial Germination”. Whereas on Akira, it signified death, a world drowning in chaos, on Ecophony Rinne, it signifies birth. In “Primordial Germination”, it is accompanied by a faded in cosmic choir that breathes sound into the void as the bang thunders out. The opening percussive melodies of “Reincarnation” are an earlier variation of the propulsive core of “Kaneda”. The contemplative chanting that binds this record also, while changing shape and tone, connects Akira and Ecophony Gaia together, maintaining the use of diverse choirs to fill massive silences with ethereal sound.

The most interesting element of the record occurs in “Reincarnation” which folds the universe back in on itself, reverting everything back to how it was at the start so the cycle of germination can begin anew. The patterns return to order and implode. Out of the resulting silence, the cosmic choir that opened the record returns, accompanied by rolling percussion that thunders out on the final notes. While this act of reincarnation is implied by the title of both the track and record, this rephrasing of the opening makes the record tighter and simpler than its successors and subsequently even more vital. A concept that could easily be characterized in a chilly and lifeless manner is given enough warmth to fill the emptiness.

Ecophony Rinne is the beginning of a trilogy that ends with Ecophony Gaia. Ecophony Rinne meditates on genesis and the nature of existence, Akira eulogizes the dead amongst the chaos of life and Ecophony Gaia ruminates on what that life amounted to. While Akira mourns and Ecophony Gaia exalts, Ecophony Rinne breathes life into being and thus is as frightening as it is beautiful. This brilliant universal hum is precisely what makes Geinoh Yamashirogumi exceptional among their peers. — (via Sputnik Music)

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- Half-speed mastered at Abbey Road Studios by Miles Showell
- Includes a 12 page 12" x 12" insert

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Label: Time Capsule
Format: Vinyl, LP, Album, Limited Edition, Reissue, Remastered
Released: 2026
Genre: Electronic, Jazz, Rock
Style: Rhythmic Noise, Modern Classical, Prog Rock, Experimental

File under: Japanese Folk / Rock
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