CD REVIEW: "Hypernatural #2":
VITAL 289 Sep. 2001

Again a new label, and again from Cologne. I don't know if Softlmusic is devoted to one kind of musical programm (kinda hard to tell after one release, and a second coming soon), but the package looks distinct: folded pieces of stencilled paper by my beloved Extrapool print shop. Yoshio Machida released his first Hypernatural in 1999 and I must say I sadly missed that. Here, on the second Hypernnatural he gives us eight pieces of music, all of which around three to six minutes. "With his work, Yoshio Machida has been investigating the relativity and the continuity between phenomena in the area of the unconsciousness and the consciouness". The overal theme is "transparant existence". Machida uses field recordings in combination with a gong, miao bamboo flute, wind, chimes, glasses, mouth harp, piano and SP 808. It seems to me that sometimes the sounds are sampled and presented to us in looped form, but I should hasten to add that it still sounds natural. Bird calls in addition with unidentifiable sounds (a pig maybe) picture the rain forest for us in a piece called 'Malaria'. Not every track is great. 'Afterimage' plays around with ambient sound, but dwells too much around computerized effects. More or less the same goes for 'Daydream', which I found drowning in effects. But with a score of six good tracks out of eight, I think it's not bad at all.
by Frans de Ward