Midori Takada's "lost" 1999 solo album has been remixed by Takada herself and cut to vinyl for the very first time. If you've only come across "Through the Looking Glass", this one shines further light on her story, bolstering her usual percussion with a side-long team-up with Chinese erhu player Jiang Jian Hua.

When "Tree of Life" was released back in 1999, Midori Takada was a few years away from her YouTube algorithm-powered renaissance. The album was released on CD just for the Japanese market, and it's taken this long to reach the rest of the world. To make sure we get to hear it in its full detail, Takada herself has made a new audiophile mix, and remastered the album completely at half speed. We have to admit it sounds dazzlingly clean and clear - the first side is peak Takada, and shouldn't surprise anyone who discovered her via her bewilderingly popular debut "Through the Looking Glass". Playing marimba, drums, and bells, Takada constructs environmental structures that link disparate cultures via tonality and rhythm. But it's the second side that has us completely giddy. Here Takada brings in virtuoso musician Jiang Jian Hua, a Chinese master of the erhu, the two-stringed bowed instrument that's commonly known as the Chinese violin. If you've spent any time watching Chinese historical movies or TV shows, it's a sound you'll be extremely familiar with. This material is incredibly unique, fusing Takada's percussive knowhow with Chinese traditional playing that bends to her open-minded approach. The blend of ideas and cultures is so simple and so complex simultaneously, always considered and always deeply moving. Sometimes the music hews closer to Chinese music, like on 'Modoki 1', and at others it drifts into Takada's marimba-heavy territory, with Hua following closely, mimicking Takada's staccato notes with quick, bowed flurries.