Masaki Batoh

This excellent collection of Masaki Batoh's (founding member of Ghost) "A Ghost From The Darkened Sea" and "Kikaokubeshi" brings together two albums recorded and released in 1995 and 1996, during the final period of conceptualization for Ghost's "Lama Rabi Rabi" album. These two solo records allowed Batoh to explore musics and textures in an entirely free space from the already quite free (and rapidly morphing) Ghost. This is a solo record in a very complete sense: acoustic guitar, marimba, harmonium, voodoo drum, bells, hurdy gurdy, organ, drums, horns, duff, Moog synthesizer and the mysterious 'giri giri pee' are all played by Batoh. In addition, field recordings done by Batoh are in the mix -- birds, seashore, winds on a bluff, industrial noise, metro, mountains, etc. The two works are fundamentally different: A Ghost From The Darkened Sea being an earthy collection of folk-songs; Kikaokubeshi composed almost entirely of a dreamy ambience. Recommended.