Kazumasa Hashimoto Gllia

Although this album came out way back last year, I've taken a while to get round to writing anything about it. Not really relevant, rather something of an apology, but perhaps also a sign of the way this album can lurk around, seemingly unnoticed, before calling for your attention sometime later.

Like a couple of other releases I've reviewed lately, this is a slight departure for the artist in question. Hashimoto is well known as a composer and pianist, having toured successfully in his native Japan and in East Asia but his renown stems mostly from his association with the so-called "naïve music" movement, with which his earlier albums, Yupi and Epitaph, have been linked. Hashimoto's work was included on Ekkehard Ehler's Childish Music compilation.

Gllia though is by no means a "naïve" or "childish" work. Hashimoto mixes keyboard instruments such as piano, glockenspiel and marimba, and strings and woodwind, with melancholic vocals and poetry reading, alongside the electronic sounds that scratch and whirr in the background. Song structures are surprisingly populist, with few digressions or attacks of weirdness. It's subtle throughout, but never insubstantial or inconsequential, and there are moments of beauty throughout.

Perhaps the best adjective for this music is homely, or even cosy. Gllia fits round the listener like a bedwarm duvet or a fleece that you only wear around the house. Perhaps that's why it's taken so long to review: this is an album that can easily mould itself to the moments of comfort and security one can enjoy. A rarity then: background music that can improve the foreground.