FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION

Ancient Seeds
by Aco Takenaka for Best New Age, Ambient, or Chant Album

Photo by Jo Moriyama

Ancient Seeds is an album of ancient songs, chants, and mantras from around the world—Japan, Native America, Africa, India, and Tibet—reimagined for our time. Like ancient seeds discovered in ruins after lying dormant for thousands of years, then awakened by water, these melodies awaken through the human voice, reuniting heart, body, and spirit with cosmic wisdom.

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Feature Track
Ame Kuni

"Ame Kuni" is the quiet awakening of Ancient Seeds. Rooted in Shinto, Buddhism, and nature’s rhythms, Aco creates immersive soundscapes for deep presence and transformation.

  • “The album has one of the most original concepts I have ever come across, as ancient chants from Yoruba and other African traditions, Native American, Tibetan, Indian, and Japanese songs are all arranged in a contemporary musical soundscape, and caters for everyone’s palate, on its forward thinking journey.”

    Steve Sheppard, One World Music Radio

  • “A beautiful pop hymn to the African goddess Oxum — sung and chanted clearly by Aco, through which the listener truly feels the blessing of a goddess.”

    Carman Moore, composer, professor, and former Village Voice music critic

  • "If you are searching for something entirely different from the new age genre, then Oxum, the latest track from Aco Takenaka, will satisfy that need. Although she is singing in another language and you may not understand her, the vocals are mesmerizing and soothing as can be."

    Keith "Muzikman" Hannaleck, NAMR Founder

  • “Takenaka’s latest song “ Oxum” is a breath of sonic fresh air...There is sweetness and soul in her vocal performance. The wonderful arrangement and production enhances her voice and the song.  I am looking forward to hearing Aco’s next releases. ”

    Peter Bliss, New York Songwriters Circle

  • "Aco’s vocal range is superb for these tracks and their meaning. Her sense of rhythm and tempo feels connected to esoteric things. The inflection of her vocals during these tracks sounds like a combination of Japanese and American Indian; it’s exciting."

    Keith “MuzikMan” Hannaleck, NAMR Founder

  • "There are artists who sing, and then there are artists who seem to breathe entire worlds into being with every note. Tokyo-based singer and songwriter Aco Takenaka belongs firmly to the latter... Beyond music, Aco's creativity flows freely into other art forms. Her collaborations span musicians, dancers, filmmakers and even researchers from the Shinto Research Institute, reflecting her multidisciplinary spirit.

    Jay Pillai, Founding Editor of Lazie Indie Magazine

  • "Ancient Seeds is a testament to the power of musical convergence, an exploration of global traditions, seamlessly woven together to create a new, deeply resonant tapestry, an experience to be felt, a reminder that in our turbulent world, the most profound truths can be found in the ancient, sacred sounds that live within us all.”

    Robin James, Music Journalist

  • “Ancient Seeds is an almost mystical work by the artist based in Tokyo, the Japanese capital, Aco Takenaka, a composer who moves like a fish in water in a territory that is mainly nourished by the traditional music of the Asian archipelago and also by New Age sounds, a perfectly balanced mix that gives her sound creations an intentional aspect of medical music."

    Jordi Demésenllà, Radio Host for Demésenllà / Panelist for Transglobal World Music Chart

About Artist

Rooted in the spiritual traditions of Japan, Aco Takenaka began with her own ancestral sound and followed it outward, listening for ancient voices that resonate across cultures. A sound artist and sacred vocalist, she bridges primordial wisdom with contemporary ambient production.

Renowned for her expressive “seven-colored” voice, Aco weaves ancient vocal techniques, sacred vowels, and organic textures into a sonic waterfall.

In Ancient Seeds, she honors each culture, weaving their deeper, shared resonance—the “original sound” within us all—into one album.

Album Credit

  • Aco Takenaka & Toshiyuki O’mori

  • All text is Public Domain

  • Aco Takenaka (composed on tracks 1, 7, 9, 10)

    Toshiyuki O’mori (composed on tracks 8, 11)

    Other tracks: Public Domain

  • Bernie Grundman @ BGMastering

  • Arrangement & Programming: Toshiyuki O’mori

    Vocal, Chorus: Aco Takenaka

    Native American Flute: Hiroki Okano (tracks 2, 3)

    Percussions / Marimba / Djembe / Taiko / Shaker / Rattle: Tamao Fujii

    Sho (笙): Ko Ishikawa (tracks 1, 11)

    Bodhrán / Talking Drum: Joss Jaffe (tracks 1, 4, 9)

    Bansuri (バンスリ): Taro Terahara (track 9)

    Tabla: Joss Jaffe (track 9)

  • Kenichiro Ueda

"With gratitude, I welcome you into the resonance." — Aco