Fact #128967

I’ve reviewed works here by German pianist Volker Bertelsmann, aka Hauschka, partly because it’s hard to pin down where else he fits in Hi Fi News, but mainly because I love what he does. Essentially a keyboard-based composer, best-known for soundtracks, but this is a 'live' album, two twenty-minute improvisations, recorded in a remote Japanese museum on the Island of Kyushu. Drifting with a curiously energetic languidity between ambient, classical and EDM, they’re both superbly elegant contemplative pieces for when you feel the need to chill. Available only as vinyl or download, the sound, captured via 12 mics clipped to his piano, is sublimely immersive.
(Review by Johnny Black, Hi Fi News, 2015)