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Kitaro is one of Japan's most prolific musicians. Since his debut in 1976, he has released over 50 albums.
BTW, Matsuri means "festival" in Japanese, some of the beats (particularly the large Taiko drum portion) are reminiscent of traditional Japanese festival music.
Another Japanese master of sythesizer is Isao Tomita (generally just referred to as simply "Tomita"). He did a great album featuring some Claude DeBussy songs that is excellent):
Kitaro was influenced early on by the German synth band Tangerine Dream.
Another similar band in a more rock vein then Kitaro, is the UK band Camel, whom my wife and I saw perform on the evening of our marriage:
I was glad to see someone bring up Dead Can Dance as well, as I used to listen to them alot:
I went through a period of listening almost exclusively to progressive rock, which had less of a New Age feel, but if you like Kitaro and the other music above, it might be worth a listen to for you - here are some of the bands I liked most...Genesis (Peter Gabriel era), King Crimson, Yes, and ELP (Emerson, Lake and Palmer). Closely related, although more rock-oriented were Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull, and Todd Rundgren's Utopia.
If you want to trip on some truly hypnotic music, (melodic, haunting, and melancholic) then check out Mike Oldfield's epic "Tubular Bells", presented here in three parts:
ADG
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