Album Review: Hidetake Takayama – Asterism

by FunkDruid

Every now and then you found yourself coming upon an album that you just enjoy right from the get go, and to me Asterism is that album to a tee. A week or two ago, my roommate Luke came up to me and said that I “HAVE to listen to this song.”  The song he pulled up was track 5, Welcome to You & Me (ft. Sam Ock). Now, Luke is a audiophile and quite possibly the biggest music snob I have ever met, so I usually trust what he has to say about music. After he established that this was a new jazz-hop (a style of hip-hop primarily using jazz samples or samples in a way that end up fitting some definition of jazz) I let the song flood over me and before we were even half way done I had already purchased the album. This album is the second of Hidetake Takayama’s and if his first is anywhere as good as the second then he can expect a purchase from me soon. The album as a whole has no dead spots or songs I didn’t like in some way. Hidetake’s work can easily be compared to the likes of any of the other prominent Japanese jazz-hoppers like Nujabes, Nomak or Uyama Hiroto, being quite the solid hip-hop artist in his own right. Included is the song that I had first listened to that set this all in motion, so you should listen to it and buy the album for yourself.