by David Wilikofsky
There’s little information about Hisato Higuchi available; even his own website provides scant biographical details. Born in Nagoya but currently living in Tokyo, Higuchi has been quietly recording and releasing music, much of it via his own label Ghost Disc, for nearly two decades. His earliest work (documented on the aptly named 2012 PSF release Early Work) was largely conventional, blues inflected singer-songwriter material, but over the years he’s stretched song structures to their breaking points by infusing them with everything from squalls of noise to narcotic ambiance. キ、Que、消えん？Ki, Que, Kien? , originally released in 2020 but recently reissued by WV Sorcerer Productions, falls into the latter category. It’s a beautiful set of seven tracks that blur the lines between ambient music and traditional songcraft.
Each track onキ、Que、消えん？Ki, Que, Kien? seems immediately identifiable as a song: gently plucked guitar melodies accompany Higuchi’s tranquil, unhurried vocals. But as the album progresses it gets harder and harder to justify that label. A song typically has structure, perhaps a narrative arc or chorus to latch onto, but there’s little to cling to here. Each track glacially drifts by, meditating on each sighed word and reverb-laden note until it fades into oblivion. After the record casts its spell on you for twenty seven minutes, you’d be hard pressed to point to any specific moment that stands out; its power lies in its cumulative impact, the warm yet fragile twilight world it conjures up and allows you to briefly inhabit. It’s music that exudes a contagious sense of calm, a feeling that lingers well after its last notes ring out.