Japan Sound Portrait are pleased to announce the project’s first physical release – a bamboo USB card containing an hour of lossless audio as collected by the project to date. These have been combined into a continuous mix by the project’s founders, Nick Luscombe, from BBC Radio 3’s Late Junction, and Neil Cantwell, co-director of the film KanZeOn.

Japan Sound Portrait is a crowd-sourced sonic exploration that invites people from across Japan to submit sounds that they cherish, which are then used to build a variety of aural representations of the country – from a sound map phone application to virtual reality experiences.

The audio included on this release ranges from the drips of a cave that hosts a legendary serpent to a sonic story travelling across Tokyo on the Yamanote line. Tracks from Japanese artists such as TA2MI and shinekosei feature alongside remixes of the KanZeOn soundtrack by woob and amoeba.av. The mix is completed by an aural journey around the more rural region of Ibaraki, leaving the listener intrigued and refreshed.

You can buy a USB card here.