Christian Nagasaki

The World Heritage "Hidden Christian Sites in the Nagasaki Region" preserve the memory of the Christians who observed their faith during 250 years of religious prohibition. Many of these sites are in the Nagasaki area, where the Virgin Mary was particularly venerated. The secrecy of their faith is evident in objects of worship, including a seashell bearing a human-like image and statues of a Buddhist deity. Both were proxies for images of Mary. These Christians held onto their faith despite the threat of oppression and death, believing that Mary was life. We look at what the prayers of these people can tell us today.

Without doubt, the recordings of Tangerine Dream have made the greatest impact on the widest variety of instrumental music during the 1980s and '90s, ranging from the most atmospheric new age and space music to the harshest abrasions of electronic dance. Founded in 1967 by Edgar Froese in Berlin, the group has progressed through a full three dozen lineups (Froese being the only continuous member with staying power) and four distinct stages of development: the experimentalist minimalism of the late '60s and early '70s; stark sequencer trance during the mid- to late '70s, the group's most influential period; an organic form of instrumental music on their frequent film and studio work during the 1980s; and, finally, a more propulsive dance style, which showed Tangerine Dream with a sound quite similar to their electronic inheritors in the field of dance music.