CHIHEI HATAKEYAMA – ghostly garden
(CD, own)
Everytime I listened to
“ghostly garden” these past weeks and tried to come up with things to
say and comment on for the review, my mind went blank. At first I was
frustrated, but then I realized, that is the best thing one could ever say
about an ambient record so ephemeral and transcendentive as this one. A true
compliment to say that the luminous character of the soundscapes on here
takes my mind away from any kind of rational thought within minutes. So I
took this roundabout to a meta-level on my own perceptions to find an
introduction to the review. Because I know from experience, as soon as I
have found an open door into the record, the rest of the review comes quite
easily.
Given that the music on
“ghostly garden” is nothing but echoing, slow motion waves of ambient
sounds going back and forth, the magic they radiate is hard to describe.
Only from time to time do field recording sources and noises invade they
otherwise soft but monolithic scapes of sound. But even within these rather
noisy and dynamic pieces, such as “slight trail”, there is an intricate
knowledge of sounds fusing together and of the sage magic that is hidden
deep inside sounds. And even on this track, Hatakeyama takes back on the
noise quite early and softly re-models the arrangement to his usual grounds.
Those softly shining seas of sound that seem to stand still forever and
constantly moving at the same time. On “Stone wall islands” some sounds
wail and careen like a very much softened Birchville Cat Motel, if that description helps
out anybody.
Although so hard to grasp,
ambient music in this form –and especially not in that form which soon
deteriorated into trip hop or, even worse, chill out music – always
fascinated me. From Cordell
Klier back over half a decade ago to Akos Garai not
so figurative trip through the mountains close to Budapest, from the noisy
side of ambient like Machinefabriek to the completely ephemeral sighs
of Glim, from the
almost classical pieces of Fjordne
to the introvertedness of Yui
Onodera, there is something in the slow breathing growth of
musical ambiences that fascinates me. And I can’t really say what it is.
Some synesthaethic magic that draws me into these landscapes and makes them
form colours in my mind and thoughts in my sub/conscious. If it is good, I
can feel it. What did Thomas from Aquin say about time: “When I am alone,
I know exactly what it is. When somebody asks me, I have no idea how to
explain it.”
Chihei Hatakeyama has made
quite a name for himself in exactly the field described above with various
releases and good reviews all around from Kranky and Hibernate to Pitchfork
and Brainwashed. Together with Tomoyoshi Date he operates Opitope, who I
haven’t heard anything from in quite some time, it seems to me, but that
is usually completely my fault. By looking somewhere completely different I
usually think that nothing is happening, where I am not looking to. But
thinking is a mistake usually, when you could have your mind at ease and
reset your metabolism. There is a small but very special stack of CDs in a
certain corner here, where I keep those CDs able to soothe souls frightened
by the dark, which has some of those mentioned above, but also the last CD
by The Green Kingdom
(also out on own records), and this is where I will keep this one also.
