chihei hatakeyama: forgotten hill

Tokyo ambient maestro Chihei Hatakeyama's Forgotten Hill is a record about the melting of time. He creates an impressionist meditation on his journey through the Asuka region of Japan; an area known for its burial mounds, epic Buddhist monuments, and quietly poetic landscapes. From Chihei Hatakeyama: "A few years ago I went on a trip to the Asuka region. This album, Forgotten Hill, draws all of its inspiration from this trip. The experiences I had on this journey were used as compositional guides to compile the sonic impressions I experienced during this time. The Asuka region was once land that hosted the capital of Japan from the Sixth to Seventh centuries. Today, it is an unpopular rice-drenched rural area, and although there are few tourists compared to Kyoto and the northern part of Nara, the region still draws people as there it features various burial mounds, known as 'Kofun'. One of these old burial mounds is called the 'Ishibutai Kofun', which loosely translates as Stone Stage. When I was a child, I learned about the existence of this old burial mound through Tezuka Osamu's Manga and since that time, I always wanted to visit there . . . It was the spring when I visited there, and yet I was the only person in sight. I have no idea what kind of stories are trapped within this tomb, all those things seen and heard by the rock. When I stood in front of it, I was captured by the feeling that I wanted to get on the stone stage, to be consumed by the burial mound. As I went inside the stone chamber I felt a strong sense of pressure. While getting down the stairs leading to the dark stone chamber, this pressure grew stronger, it was a very particular and strange sensation . . .The interior of the stone chamber was like an alien landscape. I couldn't help but think about the Monolith from Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey . . . With this record, I aimed to create music, like a labyrinth, based on these days spent in the Asuka region. This is a record about time, about losing direction in time and wondering where it is exactly the past, the present and the future might meet, and under what circumstances this might happen."