Fumio Miyashita

Fumio Miyashita, sometimes credited simply as Fumio, stood out as an exceptionally productive though seldom recognized new age musician based in Japan. Devotees of Japanese psychedelia most often associate him with his foundational role in Far Out and Far East Family Band, two trailblazing progressive and space rock groups active throughout the mid-1970s. Paralleling Kitaro, Far East Family Band’s most prominent participant, Miyashita shifted toward solo electronic work and soundtrack composition once the band dissolved around 1977. In time his output centered on pieces intended for healing, meditation, therapy, and sleep, resulting in more than one hundred albums that performed strongly inside his home country.

Born in Nagano, Japan in 1949, Miyashita spent his adolescence playing rhythm guitar inside a rock & roll ensemble named the Glories. He subsequently took up the biwa, an acoustic lute-style instrument, and grew increasingly drawn to traditional Japanese music. After taking part in a Tokyo mounting of the provocative rock musical Hair, Miyashita joined Osamu Kitajima for a gentle acoustic folk album that stood apart from prevailing tastes of the era. He next assembled Far Out, whose lone full-length release—issued under the titles Far Out or Nihonjin—comprised two extended tracks that recalled Pink Floyd while incorporating Japanese folk elements. In 1975 Miyashita established Far East Family Band, steering the earlier group’s sound toward broader cosmic horizons. Klaus Schulze mixed several of their albums and acquainted both Kitaro and Miyashita with the creative possibilities of synthesizers.

Miyashita trained in acupuncture in Los Angeles during the late 1970s, later returning to Japan to pursue music therapy. Throughout the 1980s he supplied scores for numerous anime films, many of which reflected a space theme. His 1984 album Journey to Space appeared in the United States on Relativity, though nearly all his other material stayed available only in Japan. Starting in 1985 he issued healing albums on his own Biwa Records label and kept crafting tranquil, meditative music that fused soft electronic textures with traditional instruments such as bamboo flutes. The 1990s brought tours across the United States with Dean and Dudley Evenson plus releases on their Soundings of the Planet imprint. Miyashita maintained a steady pace of activity until his death from respiratory failure in 2003. In 2017 the American indie label Drag City released Live on the Boffomundo Show, a collection of electronic performances taped for a Los Angeles cable access program in the late 1970s and early 1980s.