Audiopile Review: H TO O is the Tokyo based environmental ambient project of H. Takahashi and Kohei Oyamada, creating lush pastoral ambiance that seamlessly blends organic sounds with rich synthesized swirls. Keen eyed readers of our newsletter may recognize H. Takahashi from his standout 2023 release Flow or more recently as a member of “new age pop group” Unknown Me and their standout Bitokagaku on Not Not Fun, a highlight of ours from a weeks back. Summoning the smooth perfection of Soichi Terada and mixing it with the depth and space of Hiroshi Yoshimura, what started as a solo work by Takahashi became an honest testament to the joy of collaboration, dense and beautiful without sacrificing vision for aesthetics. Conjuring the open-world exploration of Cool Maritime or Anthony Child’s Electronic Recordings from the Maui Jungle across a six song cycle of birth, voyage, transformation, and regeneration. Another incredible release from the ever-widening world of Takahashi.

Facta & K-LONE’s Wisdom Teeth imprint continues its busy schedule of 10 year celebrations with the debut LP by H TO O: a new collaborative project by Japanese ambient artists H. Takahashi and Kohei Oyamada.

Already an established name on the Japanese ambient circuit, Takahashi is well known for founding the much-loved Kankyō Records label and store in Tokyo’s Sangenjaya district, and for releasing a string of acclaimed solo LPs on revered record labels like Where To Now? and Dauw. Having been introduced to Oyamada through a mutual friend, the pair began recording together in 2019 as part of the live electronics group Atoris. Cycle marks their first release as a duo, and signals an exciting new direction for their creative work together.

Set across six distinct movements, the LP maps the different stages of the cosmic cycle through a series of dynamic ambient set pieces: from the exponential expansion of the universe in its infancy – here invoked by the bright, chiming album opener ‘Inflation’ – through to it’s inevitable collapse and rebirth, captured by the record’s driving, ominous closer, ‘Ever’.

The record started life in Takahashi’s hands, initially intended as a solo follow-up to his acclaimed 2018 LP, Escapism. He shared his early sketches with Oyamada, who began to play with the arrangements, taking the work in an experimental new direction. Naturally the project evolved into a cooperative effort, and its final form is the result of an honest and fluid back-and-forth between the two artists.

The collaboration marks a considerable shift in energy to the artists’ previous works – most of all in its foregrounded use of rhythm. Where Escapism was built from a series of gently lilting, dream-like vignettes, each movement of Cycle has a clear sense of forward momentum and purpose. Each composition builds from a set of sparse, meandering elements into something more dense, cinematic and, at points, discordant. Although this is at heart an ambient record, there is a club-informed feeling of forward motion running through the record, placing it in a similar sonic world to the beatless-but-rhythmic ambient techno of artists like Barker, Lorenzo Senni and Sunareht. Delicate and dramatic in equal measure, Cycle is a vital and exciting debut dedicated to the building of worlds – and to their eventual and inevitable dissolution.