Album Review: Chihei Hatakeyama + Federico Durand - Magical Imaginary Child

It’s at this point that I would like to acknowledge that, despite my real lack of interest in music as a whole in 2015, I am feeling very #blessed that we are living in a time when there is great ambient, experimental, and droning music being created.

2015 has been a pretty good year for those genres—you’ve got a marquee name to the scene like William Basinski, you’ve got a solid release from Alex Cobb, an odds and ends collage from the Tape Loop Orchestra—with the promise of a new full length before the end of the year—and then you have marvelous pieces like A Chance Happening, or the masterful How Could You Believe Me When I Said That I Loved You When I’ve Been A Liar All My Life by Celer.

Inserting itself right into that “masterful” camp is a new collaborative effort from the gawd himself, Federico Durand, and experimental artist Chihei Hatakeyama.

Magical Imaginary Child is a four piece collection comprised of the kind of transcendental ambient magic that make you want to listen to it on a loop, forever; specifically the opening track, “Maria,” which is 12 minutes of sheer auditory bliss.

“Maria” drifts in slowly, in broken and glitchy fragments that work together to build an enveloping warmth that overtakes you; it evokes those perfect feelings of bittersweet nostalgia and reflective melancholy—something that only the finest ambient work can do, and do so effortlessly like this. For 12 minutes, it’s a practically flawless soundtrack, and it’s the kind of thing you can use as an example when someone asks you about ambient or experimental music: simply, just play them this, and let it take them over as it has done to you.

Similar in its warmth is the glistening, shimmery “Nami”—one of the two tracks available to preview on the Bandcamp page for White Paddy Mountain, the label that released Magical Imaginary Child. It moves like the director’s cut of a film about molasses rolling up a hill; it’s pensive and somber, yet inviting to the listener, as the cascades of e-bowed guitar sounds come rolling towards you.

The album itself is said, per the press materials, that it was inspired by a small Buddha statute at Hatakeyama’s home, and that it was recorded last year during Federico Durand’s tour of Japan. Knowing that it was put together in Hatakeyama’s home, with only two people working on it using electric guitar and tape manipulations, lends to the intimacy and near whisper-level secrecy of some of the pieces, like the glacial flowing of “Cordelia.”  For over 15 minutes, Durand’s erratic tape looping seems to both fold itself in perfectly and work against Hatakeyama’s gorgeous guitar work, creating a weird, swirling sensation.

The album’s final piece, “Tove,” is not it’s strongest, but by no means is it bad. It relies heavily on the glitchy rhythms coming from Durand to power it a long, while the e-bowed guitars provide a gentle auditory wash in the background that creates what could be seen as a resolve for the album.

The great thing about these collaborative efforts between two artists—one, presumably, you already were aware of—is that it introduces you to a new name to investigate. Hatakeyama has a lengthy canon of work, and these pieces with Durand provide just a small window into his work, as well as how he works.

Magical Imaginary Child is essential ambient listening—specifically the opening piece “Maria.” Like all good music in this genre, it pulls you into its world and allows you to make it a part of your own.

Magical Imaginary Child is out now via White Paddy Mountain