I was a big fan of Hoshina Anniversary’s 2020 ESP Institute long-player, Jomon, and I’m a big fan of this new one on Impatience too. Hisyochi is another characteristic mix of techno and traditional Japanese music. Where cinematic atmospherics, beatless, and moody with chimes, create a kind of temple air – spoken word samples laying out the merits of meditation – but temper that with nods to classic scores, such as Roy Budd`s Get Carter / Hallucinations. 

Rhythms start out shuffling, quietly clonking. Steam escaping from the music’s armour-plating, as abstract synths throw fizzing fusion shapes. Flickering frequencies moving to metallic percussion, and bit-mapped bubbling, swimming, navigating Drexciya-n depths. Sustained chords covered in complex, layered counterpoint. Tones tumbling through crazy, but mostly melodic computerized collisions. These potty patterns perhaps some kind of Ai free-forming, while the more conventional keys are firmly rooted in jazz. Roman, for example, is an increasingly “avant” electro-samba. 

There are echoes of the ground-breaking early `90s electronica, captured on Buzz`s seminal Virtualsex set, especially on the album’s more accessible, danceable even, moments, such as Mizuasoba, and the closing title track. Both forge a futuristic funk from squelching TB-303 bass-lines, and squeeze in playful shamisen and koto picking. The former coming on like James Mason meets Dan Curtin, while the latter mixes arcs of what could be distorted guitar shredding with heavenly kinda choral harmonies. 

Hoshina Anniversary’s Hisyochi is out now, on New York`s Impatience.