Kitaro
Everything we have written about Kitaro: the listening guide, then each record in release order.
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Kitaro: where to start
The man who took the Berlin sequence, gave it a melody, and sold it to Asia. Five records, in order, and why the famous one is the right place to begin.
Astral Voyage: Kitaro's First Solo Album, 1978
Kitaro's first solo album, recorded on eight tracks in Tokyo in 1978. Released as 天界, subtitled Astral Trip. It became Astral Voyage in 1985.
Oasis
In 1979 the sales copy on this record named its cover painter before its musician. Kitaro's third album, made alone in a Kamakura workroom.
Silk Road
In the spring of 1980 a documentary composer insisted his music go out in stereo. That demand made the record, and it made Kitaro.
Silver Cloud
In 1983 the obi counted four years from Oasis. Recorded in a Nagano workroom, sixteen instruments, one name: Kitaro at the peak of his Japanese years.
Kojiki
In 1990 Kitaro, who had played sixteen instruments alone on Silver Cloud, brought a string section into George Lucas's studio. Seven pieces on the Kojiki, the eighth-century book of Japan's myths.
Thinking of You
Kitaro has been up for a Grammy 16 times and won once, with this album. A quiet 1999 record on Domo, with a photo of a piano in the snow on the cover and Andean flutes inside.
NHK's Silk Road and Kitaro
Permission asked for on a bullet train, 450,000 feet of film shot by three crews, and a New Year special that turned out to be an audition. NHK's 1980 Silk Road series and Kitaro's music.