[English Translation]
Chihei Hatakeyama’s Sacrifice for Pleasure
Written by Shinya Matsuyama
Stirring up a worldwide movement of drone music from Japan!
As music created by computers or samplers started to gain ground and became more common since the late 90s, so did sounds become more diversified consequently, and amongst such circumstances, drone music, put simply the non-beat sounds based on sustained heavy tones, is the one field firing up lately. Chihei Hatakeyama is the one budding artist aggressively driving forward the global movement of this genre from Japan.
Hatakeyama, born 1978, originally started out as a guitarist in a rock band, mainly playing heavy metal music, but once he entered university and got himself a computer, sequencer and sampler, he became involved in creating music himself. Unsatisfied with simply creating digi-rock tunes with them at the time, one day he decided to ‘take the beats out’, which suddenly changed the music into something really exciting. This turned out to be the command of what direction of music he should really be pursuing. In the meantime, he was deeply inspired by the experimental electroacoustic works by Japanese noise / experimental music artist, Yoshihide Otomo, or free improvisationist, Toshimaru Nakamura, and began intensely and extensively fishing around contemporary or ambient music works by the pioneers such as John Cage, La Monte Young or Brian Eno, which only served as a great booster for him to explore the new territory.
In 2006, Hatakeyama released his solo debut album Minima Moralia from Chicago’s Kranky, the well-reputed avant-garde music label. This masterpiece that employs the guitar, violin or the vibraphone, gradually gained worldwide attention with ‘Chihei Hatakeyama’ becoming a globally known new name spreading along with the reputation. Since then, he has built up his listing with numerous releases from independent labels home and abroad, such as Rural Colours, hibernate and Under the Spire of the UK, Australian Room40, and Norwegean Soundscaping, as well as Japanese labels, Home Normal, Whereabouts or Airplane etc., alongside actively performing at his live tours overseas. He has also launched his own ambient music label White Paddy Mountain, and has been releasing works of ambient artists, ASUNA and Shelling, as well as releasing his own solo piece, Alone by the Sea. “The history of ambient music is still at its primary stage, and I think it will develop much more in the future” says Hatakeyama of which the comment sounds as if he is inciting his own self to fulfill his mission.
Hatakeyama currently has several projects on his hands, the electronic acoustic duo Opitope, formed with electronic musician Tomoyoshi Date, as well as duo Luis Nanook, formed with the whispering singer songwriter and vocalist, Tsutomu Satachi, Added to this, he is also aspired to broaden his field into a pop project where he can unveil his singing talents. It is not very difficult to imagine his pop songs to be skillfully complemented with multi-layered sound loops or harmonic overtones and sound reverberation.
