Watering a Flower

In 1984, artist and designer Ikko Tanaka was establishing the brand for MUJI; the simplistic home goods and clothing store that emerged from Japan in 1980. As part of this branding exercise, he hired Haruomi Hosono (best known for his groundbreaking work as a member of Yellow Magic Orchestra) to compose in-store music. The results are contained in a very rare cassette entitled Watering a Flower that includes two of the three commissions.

Fortunately for us, the Internet bears all kinds of fruit when it comes to discovering rarities. So, steer yourself over here and hear all of the compositions, including a 30-minute piece entitled "Muji Original BGM."

The two tracks that were included on the cassette are hard to imagine playing in a store when listening from 2017 but it's refreshing to hear the results of such a collaboration.