Chihei Hatakeyama - Minima Moralia (2006)

Chihei Hatakeyama is a Japanese artist that has dedicated most of his work to create ambient, post ambient, and electronic music. Minima Moralia is his debut album, a post ambient conceptual work where each track is composed with the idea of representing a situation, or a different scene, therefore the names of the songs, such as "Bonfire on the field", often resulting in slow paced, very relaxed melodies. It's good to keep in mind the names of the tracks while listening to them, because most songs match the scenery proposed by the title.

In my opinion, this album is very different from other ambients works because of two factors. First, the instrumentation utilized by the artist is more vast and complex than most classical composers of the genre (Hatakeyama plays piano, guitar, vibraphones and synths on a laptop, and features some beautiful violin arrangements). Secondly, the carefull mix of different styles like dronning chords, with the mellow melodies characteristic of the genre, throwing in some bits of old fashioned noise static, creating dynamic songs that guide the listener through a calm and imaginary soundscape of vibrating sounds. Totally worth to give it a listen, and certainly this essential of the ambient genre.

Chihei Hatakeyama - Minima Moralia  Tracklist:

1. Bonfire On The Field - 8:13 

2. Swaying Curtain In The Window - 8:25

3. Starlight Reflecting On The Surface Of The River - 7:00

4. Towards A Tranquil Marsh (Violin – Masahiro Kobayashi) - 4:46

5. Granular Haze - 7:21 

6. Inside Of The Pocket (Violin – Masahiro Kobayashi) - 4:31 

7. Beside A Well - 11.30

DOWNLOAD HERE

Japanese Music - Mouse on the Keys (2009)

A while ago I read an article writen by Andreas Fredrik Larsen call "Strategies of authentication in Japanese experimental music". In that article he describe two kind of artist: the first one is the kind of artist that elebarote his music trying to authenticate it from its roots; his music is the result of a tree with a really strong root and the music created from it is a branch in that big tree. Any folk music can be seen with that point of view, but jazz is a really good example.

But something awesome happended with japanese experimental music: when they opened their frontiers during the Meiji era, they start absorbing all the cultures brought by the europeans. All that music was for them just information: no emotional, traditional or any kind of root could be traced, but they started using it for their own creations. And not only music, also a lot of instruments came from europe. The result is the second tipe of artist described in the article: a musician that can make collide atoms-sounds in a way that the first kind of artist can't, creating surprising stuffs: the roots force the first kind of artist to give the atoms-sounds particle a progesion well defined by the tradition. This kind of creation could be call vertical creation: since the roots are there the growing will start in the direction of the light. The second type of artist dont have a vertical direction. They have created in the oposite way: they never had roots to start creating and the direction of the atom-sounds particles are unpredicble. its not vertical... it does not even have a direction.

With this toughts i will put the album An Anxious Objetc created by Mouse on the Keys. its a japanese jazz album and a good example about what i have been saying: its black music played by japanese people but it does not sound like black jazz at all. you can hear the influence of the oriental tones in their music.
They are three and the three of them are great, but drummers always caught my attention and the one of this band is awesome. He gives intensities and create really good atmospheres for the pianos but he can also hit the drums really hard. The keyboardist are also really good and they create really nice tunes with good melodies. From time to time a sax player and a trumpeter appear in the songs, also great musicians.

and now the fucking album

Mouse on the Keys - An Anxious Object