HAT – Tokyo - Frankfurt - New York

A collection of similar pieces by sound sculptors HARUOMI HOSONO, TETSU INOUE & ATOM HEART which is basically a one-idea album. Having said which, it's a rather enjoyable listening experience - full of whizzing, whirling, popping, cracking noises set within low chill-zone BPMs. While you'd never mistake their sound for that of AUTECHRE or PANASONIC, they certainly fit into more or less the same mould - angular rhythm full of event changes, all leading you through a landscape of the strange & unusual. There's a definite Jazz feel to this, although it's firmly placed in the field of modern electronic music. The rhythms are all fairly unique, rich in tonal variety, layered to a complexity which never becomes muddy or congested - always lean and almost skeletal. This is the music of a PHILIP K. DICK futureworld - taking the roots of the past and projecting them into a possible, computer-controlled future. It dwells somewhere between GIBSON's cyberspace and Lounge Jazz Funk for a future age. In a hundred years time, someone's going to find this CD in some archive and declare it the music of the future. I'm not sure these people should build a career based on this style of music - it's an appealing sound, and possibly infinitely variable. However, I'm sure the novelty might not stretch beyond two or three volumes at most. Buy it - complete the 90's rhythmic triumvirate.

Originally reviewed for Soft Watch.