Chalybeate is a term for iron-rich waters. The album was constructed from field recordings collected in the onsen town of Ikaho. These sources then subsequently treated to grainy, granular, trickling micro-manipulations. aus, with assistance from The Humble Bee, has attempted, sonically, successfully, not to paint the village landscape, but rather to capture its breathing. 

Across the 8 tracks all sorts of sounds drift in and out of your consciousness. Gentle keys and chimes sing slow deconstructed music box melodies. Fast flowing water dissolves into a breeze blowing. Fluttering frequencies make like the wind rustling through leaves. 

There are footsteps in geta, wooden sandals, and the click and clock of Zen garden water features. Their patient movement governed by nature and gravity. Shamisen strings mix with tape noise that passes for traditional whistles. Within the layers of interwoven tones you’ll also find symphonic drones. Low sustained notes that mimic muted brass. 

Rainsticks are shaken, and the cool calm is sometimes broken by bursts of busy, bubbling bleeps. More mountain stream, though, than jacuzzi. Waves and surf summon wide, bright, clear horizons, while synths do a new age thing. 

The Mulberry and The Stone is a glacial, glitched shimmering, peppered with gamelan gongs. Soothing and subtly up lifting. A rush of H2O. We Flow Ever Downwards, Until We Blossom is built from reverb-ed ringing. Temple tingsha and bigger bells caught in cavernous, subterranean echo.

A direct descent of Japan’s celebrated `80s kankyo ongaku, and picking up the baton from pioneers such as Takashi Kokubo, the music here, certainly recreates its desired setting. That of a hot spring, somewhere rural, in the open air. So you could be sat in a bath in Brixton and convince yourself that you were in Karuizawa, the water at 42, and snow all around you. Savouring a moment of quiet meditation. Soaked in insect and birdsong, the tracks are not tunes, compositions, but atmospheric, serendipitous improvisations designed to create a deliberately beatific BGM. It’s not deep, it doesn’t demand your listening, but instead bids you clear your head and relax. 

aus & The Humble Bee’s Chalybeate can be ordered directly from Flau Recordings, where you can also find more detail on its recording.