Forrest Fang – Peru
From Forrest Fang – Migration
Released on Ominous Thud, 1986, US

We never spoke about American ambient on Okonkole Y Trompa, yet. Well it’s time to do it ! Forrest Fang is a Chinese American composer who emerges from the « American Cassette Culture » movement (a movement supported by the fanzine and label Eurock which promoted experimental electronic music from musicians such as Steve Roach, K. Leimer or Marc Barreca, who could release their music much more easily thanks to the development of audio cassettes. To learn more about this movement we recommend the amazing and very well documented « American Cassette Culture – Recordings 1971 – 1983 » boxset, released on Vinyl On Demand).

In this beautiful album from 1986, we can still feel the influence of these electronic pioneers as well as the one of the composers from the American Minimalism (Philip Glass, Steve Reich, La Monte Young, Terry Riley, etc.), but Forrest Fang also distinguishes himself by incorporating elements from Eastern music to its ambient compositions, and Peru illustrates this perfectly, with its esoteric string riffs.

Forrest Fang is still active and he keeps on exploring this side of ambient music, working, for instance, with Robert Rich.