Chihei Hatakeyama Forgotten Hill

Gorgeous, intimate yet diaphanous ambient/shoegaze from Chihei Hatakeyama, limning a sublime, ancient Japanese atmosphere through steeped electronics and billow touches of guitar to leave you refreshed and light-headed like a good cup of the green stuff. A sterling way to mark his 5th LP in 10 years for Lawrence English’s Room 40. “A few years ago I went on a trip to the Asuka region. This album, ‘Forgotten Hill’, draws all of its inspiration from this trip. The experiences I had on this journey were used as compositional guides to compile the sonic impressions I experienced during this time. The Asuka region was once land that hosted the capital of Japan from the 6th to 7th centuries. Today, it is an unpopular rice-drenched rural area, and although there are few tourists compared to Kyoto and the northern part of Nara, the region still draws people as there it features various burial mounds, known as ’Kofun’. One of these old burial mounds is called the ‘Ishibutai Kofun’, which loosely translates as Stone Stage. When I was a child, I learned about the existence of this old burial mound through Tezuka Osamu’s Manga and since that time, I always wanted to visit there.