There’ an abundance of wispy pastel-hued piano twinklings out there and the Japanese seem to contribute more than their fair share, but they’re fortunately better at it than most.
Ryuichi Sakamoto is this music’ grandpappy, and his dreamy/lazy compositions/improvisations are clearly an inspiration to Osaka’ Hideyuki Hashimoto.
The fourteen tracks are mostly short vignettes of between 1 and 3 minutes, unresolved wistful mood pieces, moderate to slow in tempo and evocative of the watery autumnal imagery on the six-paneled digipack. “A Petal’ features short gasps which create a gentle lurching motion, momentarily jarring one from the unceasing pleasantness of the preceding half hour. The final “Grounding’ breaks the mould at 12 minutes, centring on a repeated bass chord, almost irritating in its stasis but thrilling after such languor, around which tiny melodic runs sparkle dully like a Dave Grusin soundtrack. While somewhat numbing at length, Earth is filled with pleasing little bonbons, best enjoyed in small doses.
Joshua Meggitt
