Sometimes, the difference between post-rock cool and new age drivel is vanishingly small: at times, it truly seems to come down to how hip the album cover graphics are. The Western debut of Japanese composer/multi-instrumentalist
Shuta Hasunuma isn't quite to that level, but it's close. The sparse placidity of the acoustic guitar, piano, and hand percussion at the forefront of these 12 songs would fit nicely on a vintage ECM or Windham Hill album from the '80s, but all the action is taking place around the edges.
Hasunuma, who has a degree in environmental science, takes field recordings from rural locations outside his native Tokyo and manipulates them into a buzzy, glitchy backdrop for his mellow tunes, as if the performers and listeners are slowly being surrounded by robot bees. The resulting effect creates a pleasant tension that would be entirely absent without the electronic trickery; on their own, songs like "Eurikago Afternoon" and "Morning Fanfare" would be as pillowy and twee as their titles. Think of
Shuta Hasunuma as a 21st century reimagination of a similarly field recording-based instrumental album,
Virginia Astley's post-punk chamber music LP From Gardens Where We Feel Secure. ~ Stewart Mason