Three albums that may serve as easily accessible first steps:
Jean-Pierre Rampal & Lily Laskine - Japanese Melodies for Flute and Harp, Denon 35C37-7127
This is some rather epic shit, if somewhat on the fever dream side. Basically, they took a bunch of famous traditionals (cf. the Yo-Yo Ma record "japanese melodies" on Cbsm), put them in a sack with a flute and a harp and proceeded to bust shit up quite severely by hitting the sack with iron paddles. Then they shook the sack over an LP press. It's a good release, but every now and then you can hear 1700-France gripping at your throat.

Kazue Sawai - Japon. Splendeur de Koto, Playasound PS 65131
A very nice glance at koto music. You may know Kazue Sawai from her work with Zorn and Cage; an outstanding solo player. Although excellently performed, a bit flat overall - there's always a big sign "NAIVE!" hanging above this one.

Kikusui Kofu - Japanese Masterpieces for the Shakuhachi, Lyrichord - LLST 7176
This one is a gem, because it isn't quite so much watered down, yet requiring near zero acquaintance with traditional japanese and chinese music to be enjoyed.

These below are two places with many albums, just hit your preferred onlineshop with the titles and try for a prelisten. Especially komuso is worth a look because they also try and explain some of the most basic terms from the different schools and their repertoires.
ttp://www.hogaku.it/discografia/
ttp://www.komuso.com/

on a side note:

>The Wikipedia page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_of_Japan) gives surprisingly few (and most of them useless) starting points.

haha.