MIRAGE by CHIHEI HATAKEYAMA

Lawrence English's Brisbane, Australia based Room 40 returns with an album by Japanese ambient masetro Chihei Hatakeyama. Recorded over a period of five years and during a field trip to Turkey, Hatakeyama became acutely aware of how architecture shapes sound and through doing so: affects the very nature of music's resonance. The earliest examples of sound design stem from the interaction of human voice and various architectural spaces used for worship and ritual. It is these sonic reflections on ritual that are at the root of the album's theme. He developed a series of new processes and transformations that expanded his approach to textural music. Weaving in location recordings from these spaces, the record began to take on a hazy abstract quality; the unfamiliar familiar.