Chihei Hatakeyama - Mirage - Download (2017)

Labels: Room40
Review by: MH

Someone else should probably be reviewing this. Someone with a bit more knowledge of ambient soundscapes and maybe some points of reference. However, it has fallen into my digital “lap” and so I’m throwing together some words on it. The guy making this comes from Tokyo and has been doing this for a good while having started off playing in metal bands. It’s all very sparse, hazy and atmospheric, and themed around sound and architecture. It all reminds me of Good Weather For An Airstrike who I’ve reviewed in the past. Five tracks in, a strings instrument appears, as do distant voices and recordings. Also, there are cool track titles like “Distant Steam Train Whistle” and “Phantom Cats In Cathedral”. It’s been keeping me company while reading Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s autobiography recently. Did you know that he used to steal bikes (once stealing his coach’s bike from the ground without realising who the owner was) and that Mido once launched a pair of scissors at him during a spat at Ajax?