Yoshimi - Tokyo Restricted Area Album Review

After the massive wave of memes regarding the micro-genre "Vaporwave", all serious musicians even slightly associated with the tag either changed direction or dropped off the face of the earth completely. A couple years later, Dream Catalogue was born. Dream Catalogue is an internet record label devoted to electronic music following in the footsteps of Vaporwave, without all the ~aesthetic~ ****marble statues**** ~$sad boyz$~ you get the idea. Dream Catalogue instead pushes emotional dark and dreamy electronic music with a heavy cyberpunk vibe. While many of the artists in the genre are English-speakers using Japanese language and locations as a ripped-off aesthetic, there are some legitimate Japanese musicians associated with the style. Enter: Yoshimi.

Yoshimi Hishida, professionally known as Yoshimi, is an electronic musician born in Tokyo and known for his various film scores. "Tokyo Restricted Area" is his latest album, released on Dream Catalogue. It's largely instrumental ambient music with some minor vocals used for atmosphere. This is a very atmospheric album in general. It's simultaneously beautiful and traumatic, dreamy and haunting. Yoshida describes it as an album about the more esoteric aspects of Tokyo which many people may be unaware of.

Musically, "Tokyo Restricted Area" is a mix of dark ambient electronics and traditional strings and percussion. For example, the track "Refoulment" is heavy on the steely plucked strings but also glitchy beats and ambient pads. The music is both antique and futurist in a really unique way.. The people are Dream Catalogue have taken to calling this style "Hardvapour" and I don't disagree. Yoshimi himself calls it "Japanese Hell Trap" which is even better. "I Had So Many Names" has some pounding percussion ominously warning of something bigger to come. It's incredibly sinister. There's some satanic vocals on there too, distorted chanting reminiscent of SUNN O))). It's really terrifying in a way, just adding to the nightmarish atmosphere of the whole album.

We usually review pop music on this site. This is the polar opposite of pop music. "Tokyo Restricted Area" is not for everybody; in fact, it's barely for anybody at all. If you're looking for some background noise, check this out. If you're into horror movie scores, check this out. If you're of the small group who really enjoys dark ambient music then this album is right up your alley. It's experimental and atmospheric and super super ominous. If there were a movie to accompany this, I'd watch the hell out of it.

-Justin

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