Ten Ten

Speaking of Ten Ten, it's a nice album. If you were interested in improvisational side of Hikashu, you should get this one.



Hikashu - Ten Ten (2007)

Ten Ten
No Hello
Hide-And-Seek
What Is Sakki
Cool Evening
Unexpected...Half Of Watermelon
Lively Story
Golden Egg
A Pomegranate Is Here


All improvisation. A lot of interplay, strange voices, and weird wind-like sounds of thermin. Full of twist, thrill, and humor.

Here's background: In 2006, the Stone, a live venue in NYC, planned to do "the Makigami Koichi week." Makigami accepted the offer. He decided to devote Hikashu a day, and do some recording with the band in the city.

Since keyboard player Shimizu couldn't make it to NYC, and they just wanted to do that way, the band decided to try entirely improvisational approach for the recording. And they made it. It turned out pretty well. They even didn't change the recording order for the release. So the track sequence of the album is the same as the recording proceeded.

I think there're not so many other bands than Hikashu could do the thing like this so splendidly. Of course, it was not easy thing to do. Makigami admitted that it was exceptional, even for Hikashu. And fortunately, they succeeded to capture the crucial moment.

"We couldn't do this anymore" - Makigami Koichi, April 2009

Ten Ten page on DMG

Available via HMV Japan.