Possibly, there was no greater surprise or delight in 2017 than Through the Looking Glass, Midori Takada’s debut solo album. An absolute masterpiece, originally released in the far-off year of 1983, it was received with great tenderness and emotion all around the world by people who had been unaware of its existence for 35 years. During this seemingly endless period of time, the album had become a rare jewel, being lost and rediscovered countless times, as well as being greatly sought after by collectors who, one by one, had surrendered to the seductive appeal of a work that was too important to be consigned to just the encyclopedias. Because this music rewrites all that we know about the history of Japanese music, contemporary percussion, minimalism (western, too) and the way that we look at the origin of everything, in which the heart of Africa so clearly beats. Midori Takada revised all of this with the delicacy of a butterfly, composing without any musical notation, following her own intuition, painting sound onto a canvas the size of the world, and of our spirituality. With only a scanty discography and having led her life seeking refuge in compositions for theatre, the time has come for her to take charge of the whole stage and for us to marvel at her visionary percussive art.