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[thesunlounge]

Reviews 273: Yutaka Hirose

There’s been an intense focus on Japanese environmental and ambient music over the last few years, with a range of essential reissues coming out from artists such as Hiroshi Yoshimura, Midori Takada, Yasuaki Shimizu, Takashi Kokubo, and Jun Fukamachi, just to name a few. And earlier this year, Light in the Attic collaborated with Visible Cloaks’ Spencer Doran for what might be the definitive survey of the artform: the 3xLP set Kankyō Ongaku: Japanese Ambient, Environmental & New Age Music 1980-1990. But a name that has been conspicuously absent amidst the clamour for environmental music is Yutaka Hirose and more generally, there’s been little attention paid to the Misawa Home Corporation’s Soundscape series, of which both Hirose and Hiroshi Yoshimura participated. As well as any other example, the Soundscape releases perfectly embody the unique relationship between corporations and artists during the kankyō ongaku boom, as Misawa Home commissioned Yoshimura’s Soundscape 1: Surround and 静けさの本 (Static) as well as Hirose’s Soundscape 2: Nova to provide sonic accompaniment for their prefabricated homes. So as often was the case with environmental sound design, we see deeply transcendental music being borne of shallow capitalism…a sort of strange push and pull between art and consumerism where a plastic product is being sold via timeless sonic creations that transport the spirit to worlds of escapist fantasy.

Now, archival specialists WRWTFWW Records have finally added Hirose’s chapter to the larger narrative of kankyō ongaku with an expansive reissue of his masterpiece, bearing the new title Nova + 4 and including over 50 minutes of unreleased magic. The liner notes include an interview with Hirose, where he discusses influences, technical processes, and the mental landscapes he was trying to evoke, all of which help explain the overwhelming purity of the music and its nearly perfect construction. On the original Nova, the lines between natural and synthetic are blurred, as ancient bell tones intermingle with futuristic synthesis for ethereal passages of dream minimalism. Birdsong, running water, crashing waves, and thunderstorms suffuse the mix while string and brass orchestrations smear into drone cloud majesty, choral fantasias emanate from cosmic oceans, and marimbas splash through pearlescent hazes…as if threads of nature have been woven into a meditative display of chiming new age spiritualism. As for the four unreleased tracks, Hirose speaks in the interview of liberation from the restrictive concepts and approaches of Nova and of abandoning drone and minimalism for new method of composition, one that involved developing “sonic scenery” not from overt melodies, but rather from techniques of layering, addition, and subtraction…as if he was “creating a sculpture and confronting the sound” in real time.

Yutaka Hirose - Nova + 4 (WRWTFWW, 2019) In the epic opener “Nova,” heavy liquids drip around the spectrum, with cavernous reverb rippling outwards as spherical droplets hit crystal surfaces. Running water swishes back and forth to create psychosonic modulations…as if we are suddenly transported to a mythical stream, one whose gentle yet strange motions are observed by singing birds. Pianos emerge and are joined by decaying tones sourced from temple bells or sanukaito stones, and the ivories, lithophones, and bells proceed according to a dream logic…their patterns at once alien and beautiful, with resonances overlapping and golden overtones encircling the soul. Melodious orchestrations swell in and their majestic waves of synthesis are sometimes suffused with choral wonderment…like a choir of angels singing spells of new age euphoria. But eventually the symphonic layers recede, leaving resonating metals and vibrating stones to converse with dripping liquids while birds swim in the sky. “Slow Sky” also features birdsong, with trilling calls and owl hoots intertwining. Synths like colorful gases wrap around each other and sustaining woodwinds join a mallet instrument lullaby…their slow motion themes arcing across a shimmering void. Imagine beings of light locked hand in hand and swaying romantically as crystalline electronics and vaporous synthesizers melt down from a cloudburst sky. Towards the end, waves of static are heard…as if we are observing an ocean of white noise from far away…and deep listening reveals blurred trumpet fanfares amidst the interwoven layers of dream ambiance.

Insect buzz is interspersed amongst avian chatter at the start of “In the Afternoon,” with the birdcalls eventually morphing into extra-terrestrial vibrato. Virtual marimbas and gemstone synthesizers create drunken fantasy patterns and sometimes, the synths are trapped within fractal delay cascades…their tones ringing out like malfunctioning handbells. Haunted swells of choral synthesis float beneath grey skies and roaring thunder before it all starts fading away and by the end, everything has reduced to mist and birdsong. Like “Nova,” “Taiko” features dripping water, though this time less controlled…like a discontinuous rain falling within an echo chamber. Plucked bass notes, airy kick drums, and disjointed cymbal skitter unite for a shadow rhythm while ethereal chime melodies swim through subsuming currents of choral wonderment. It’s a slow motion march through a dark dreamworld, with massive chords constructed from an array of voices and supported by ambient brass orchestrations. Peals of thunder ring out and birds sing through darkened cloudforms while chime melodies add a touch of light to an otherwise funereal dirge and as anning colorations and rainbow crystals float through the stereo field, the track takes on an almost Twin Peaks-esque vibe of sonic mysticism, with the music soundtracking evergreen mountains covered in fog and sat above by swollen black clouds crackling with electromagnetic energy…their ominous presence portending some unknowable evil. Yet there is also peace and stillness…clarity and communion…as if every living creature is witnessing the powers of the earth together, united in terror and awe.

“Humming the Sea” creates a hypnotizing drone tapestry from layers of running water and the effect is all-consuming. Childlike melodies wander through the vibrant sonic weavings…their tones constructed from glowing glass, with flowing solos working between decaying chords. Pianos join the mix as everything grows in strength and eventually, time-morphing sequences generate a strange rhythmic pulse that is increasingly washed over by the soothing sounds of the sea. Prog flutes and synthetic orchestrations drift above black hole phaser drones in “Through the Windows” while screaming ghosts suffuse the air. Later, the classical romanticisms and woodwind harmonies decay into nothingness and as rain begins falling, deep space droneclouds merge seamlessly with sheets of thunder. “Epilogue” returns us to the subterranean world of “Nova,” with neon liquids dripping while pitch-shifting and time-stretching beyond recognition. Ominous bass tones swell in, causing the mind to lose orientation in spacetime, and a radiant chimescape generates sensual waves of subsonic warmth before evaporating into silence, which is then filled by angel hazes and dream orchestrations. Ecstasy choirs are sequenced, yet buried deep within the mix….like future visions of 90s chill-out and ambient rave floating within an environmental music masterpiece. Gentle water rushes over rocks as the ever-present dripping sounds are joined by sonar piano pings and there are moments where mermaids break through the deep blue landscape to sing glorious hymns to the sunrise. 

The first of the unreleased tracks is “Old Dream Spell,” which begins with sleigh bells decaying through spectral delay fx. Throbbing bass waves flow in then disperse, clattering swells of percussion are surrounded by white noise, and rainforest shakers morph through a cosmic fog while sirens sing out from islands in space...their fragile songs barely discernible across galactic distances. Starshine jazz melodies are abstracted into celestial shimmer and FM vibraphones splash through aquamarine tide pools while up above, wavering clouds of light swirl slowly before evolving into a symphonic ceremony. And moving towards the end, sea-shell shakers and high-pitched hand drums are caught in echo webs as abstracted Indian string drones are transformed into animalistic cries. In “Light Which Shakes Quickly,” zipping bass drones fly through laser echoes…their tones reversing and transmuting into air. Strands of crystal flow on unsettled sea surfaces and plucked electronics modulate like rubber while e-pianos wander through incandescing bodies of celestial gas. Delay fx catch wooden bass tones and abstracted marimba attack and refract them across the stereo field as angels breath on the back of the neck. Elsewhere, Hirose weaves dream sequences into the mix, sometimes like alien music boxes locked into hypno-cycles, other times shrouded within maddening echo layers wherein drunken polyrhythms enchant the mind. And in between these dark sequential patterns, reversing space winds decay into silence, tambourines shake then die away, and prismatic echo fantasias swim through oceanic swells.

“On Day in Summer” sees layered chimes blooming like a field of flowers while amorphous bass drones move underneath. Crowd chatter enters and suffuses the song with a constant hum of human conversation and mystical tones of the earth merge with starlight synthesis to form a paradise world of crystalline purity and youthful innocence, with the sonics evoking currents of light swimming through clear blue waters. Everything floats freely yet is held together by a spiritual connection…some deep textural symbiosis that only Hirose can discern, with layers continually added and subtracted to create psychoactive motions amidst a static field of fantasy ambiance. The final unreleased track is “Shadow of a Water Droplet,” which starts with an alien gamelan ceremonial wherein synthetic gongs initiate dark temple rituals. Flutes wrap around layered metallophones, noir chords hover, piano notes decay, and marimba patterns lock into a minimalist lullaby before receding…all while pan-pipes sing like birds. Overlapping resonances create gentle currents of enchantment and there are moments given over to atonal chime mesmerism and glowing treble intoxication. Hirose once again defly merges the virtual and real, with bell-tress indistinguishable from sequenced synth chimes and marimbas uniting with tropical electronics. At some point, the mix descends into pure silence…as if given over to a momentary pause of reflection. But soon the extra-terrestrial gamelan ritualisms resume, with woodwind breezes blowing over piano chord clusters and feedback swelling like a solar flare.

(images from my personal copy)