Chihei Hatakeyama’s music doesn’t change radically from one release to the next, yet that doesn’t prevent it from making a strong impression each time a new set materializes, whether it be on kranky, Room 40, Hibernate, or Home Normal, to cite a small number of the labels on which his music has appeared. And though it lodges itself comfortably within the ambient-drone soundscaping genre, Hatakeyama’s sound is so distinctive and personalized that it’s always immediately identifiable as his and his alone. This latest collection, recorded in various locations between 2008 and 2012 and the premiere release on the Japan-based Small Fragments label, is as fine a representation of Hatakeyama’s work and style as one might wish to find.

The hour-long Norma features six pieces, two of them fleeting vignettes (“Rigel,” “Betelgeuse”) but two others meditations that unfold with becalmed deliberation for twenty minutes at a time. “Benetnasch” breathes peacefully for twenty-one minutes, its slumber punctuated by whistling washes of glimmering, high-pitched tones and other interruptive sounds, most of them so subtly woven into the mix when they arise they could go unnoticed. The other long-form setting, “Merak,” cultivates an even more placid and ethereal aura in its slow-motion, cloud-like drift. By comparison, “Mizar” is slightly blurrier, as if its suspended guitar flickers and organ-like tones are being diffused through a translucent scrim, while nature-based field recordings figure more prominently in the brief, Nakano-recorded “Rigel” and “Betelgeuse.” Though no instrumentation is listed on the release (aside from a note relating to electric guitar), the Tokyo-based sound artist is known for producing work using electric guitar, vibraphone, piano, and field recordings as sound sources and for using software to shape the material, much as does in this case, into softly glistening streams of serenading splendour.

October 2012

http://www.textura.org/reviews/hatakeyama_norma.htm

Following solo releases on Room40, Kranky, Under The Spire, Hibernate Recordings, Magic Book Records, Home Normal and Own Records, and as one-half of Opitope, with releases on Spekk, the name Chihei Hatakeyama should not be an unknown name. Here he has another new release and its also the inaugural release for a new Japanese label Small Fragments Recordings. Hatakeyama plays electric guitars, vibraphone and piano, and no doubt a bunch of electronics on the side. Here he has six tracks, and unlike his previous release – well, at least the one that I heard, ‘Mirror’ (see Vital Weekly 794), this one seems less conceptually inclined and ‘just’ six pieces in the period 2008 to 2012, put together on one CD, perhaps because they hit together quite well. If all things ‘ambient’, ‘drone’ and ‘atmospheric’ is all of your cup of tea, then you won’t be disappointed here. The beautiful, calmly gliding atmospheric drones work quite well. On a sunday morning, with sun gazing all over the sky,
coffee, a good book, this is perhaps all anyone would want. Sit back, relax, enjoy. That is all great, all fine. Should you want to look at such notions as ‘new’, ‘innovation’ or ‘doing something out of the ordinary’, then this is not the right place to be. There isn’t a single idea in here that we haven’t heard before, neither by Hatakeyama, nor by the likes of his, with releases on the labels mentioned. Now, you could consider that to be a downside. Maybe I do. But not right now, not on this quiet sunday morning and I prefer to leave the bigger picture of ‘new’ music to worry about another day. (FdW)

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Big thanks Vital Weekly!!

At first we release a work of Chihei Hatakeyama.
He releases really splendid Album from kranky, Room40 and Home Normal [high quality label].
He is processing work released on Small fragments now.
Please look forward to August.

I release music of the world in this label.
I am very glad if you cause interest.
I announce the release plan soon.
Please wait a little.