harikuyamaku :: AMBIENTAL -Music For Oriental Hotel Okinawa Resort & Spa- (ato.archives)

Blending classic synth melodies with gentle environmental sounds from Okinawa’s mountain forests, harikuyamaku‘s AMBIENTAL -Music For Oriental Hotel Okinawa Resort & Spa- creates an upbeat yet unhurried atmosphere designed to quietly energize the background of a hotel lounge.

Rain cycles through mountain synthscapes

 

With a wide melodic classic synthesizer vocabulary, employing different kinds of beeps and cycles, repeating patterns and amazing colors, the feeling is not too busy, while always upbeat and energizing, with keyboards, chime sounds, electronic fare, suitable for an active daytime, plus there is a compelling bass appearing at times. At the spa, nothing is sleepy but it’s not race day either.

This is an album that is based on two sound pieces originally commissioned by Oriental Hotel Okinawa Resort & Spa. Imagine that you are in a lounge area near the hotel entrance, there is an installation by YouRuMaru featuring mirrors and light. The music—composed to accompany the artwork—is designed to play gently in the background for about twenty minutes each during the bright hours of the day and the darker hours of the night. Unlike most hotels in Okinawa that boast ocean views, this one is situated deep in the mountains, so harikuyamaku incorporated many environmental sounds recorded in the forests of Mt. Yonaha on Okinawa Island and Mt. Ōtake on Ishigaki Island.

Our listening experience begins with a nice bubbly romp, “awaking” (6:35), which might be an extended wake-up ring tone, with gradually increasing perky arpeggiating tones in repeating cycles going around and around again, in a considerate manner, calling the dreamer back into the shared common physical world. You should find your jacket and hat, the sound of rain has an irregular pattern, sometimes there are steady clusters of drops hitting, sometimes there are empty beats. The second track begins an extended theme, “water drops” (7:17), there is a steady tempo but those irregular empty beats create a rough pattern that is somehow both familiar and strange. It seems that now the rain is coming down a little bit harder so that it sounds like tapping a collection of tuned glass objects at times. Eventually the rain lets up, slowly almost stops, then it just goes on some more.

The atmosphere changes while the theme of precipitation continues, now the sounds of a mountain field, “yambaru rain” (6:09) which might refer to the wilderness area north of Nago City in Okinawa. The rain drops fall in the random pattern, gathering clusters, continuing the rain tempo (with those holes at times in the beat) forming a busy and lively listen, with odd electronic effects, harp notes and microtones, there is an abundance of tiny surprises. I catch a nice fluttery groove popping and bubbling along, a light brisk peppy summer rain, as we flow along through the end of the track.

Forest echoes beneath gentle arpeggios ::

Slowing things down, “midnight flow” (3:46), has an awesome bass, maybe the ring of a prayer bowl, lingering, simple and pleasing. I think that the instruments talk in strange ways. The feeling is sparse and dark, not scary, just hidden. It seems that this also explores a slower version of the rain tempo, more spacy and all that floating about, a marimba and the bass tones bobbling along, maybe there are strange electronic frogs in the mists somewhere, nothing to get hung up about. The birds are here, “kazumi” (8:31) feels centered and growing, like a sunrise. Think about beauty, harmony and peace, ringing rainbows repeating in cascading cycles, that lovely bass and the sounds of nature with technology. For a moment I might hear the ocean but just a hint, now the marimba and piano have an interlocking thing going on, picking up speed a bit as the birds become more distinct. Deliciously, a woodwind takes over weaving a melody that repeats, flowing piano flavors curl amidst the birdsong and soon we have a nice full melodic passage to finish and drift into one last sustained note.

“fly into…” (6:20) starts by weaving in circles, the birds and sequencers start off slow and simple, breathing woodwinds, the keyboards provide a nice flow, the stand-up bass makes it all real, strong and solid when all the elements become synchronized. To me this soon develops an easy back and forth old sea-chanty type feeling, imaginary spirits probably singing about those old legends of the ancients, with a slightly drunken swaying tempo, and less of the raindrop percussion theme. Somehow a harpsichord joins in with a swan, a flute and the arpeggiator drifting slowly along to fade into the last bubbles. The album’s closing track is a space jam with the raindrops, “mihane” (6:53) might translate from Korean as “I am sorry.” The feeling is unhurried, untroubled and uncomplicated, with the percussive drips and clusters of drops forming irregular patterns, not symmetrical or always predictable, the action jumps right in and runs steadily all the way.

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AMBIENTAL -Music For Oriental Hotel Okinawa Resort & Spa- is available on ato.archives. [Bandcamp]