I have sympathy for the two reviewers on the Amazon.Com site who complained about the price of this 4-track CD Single, but they haven't really reviewed the music - just the fact that the CD is short. I have tried to update the information by suggesting the format is a CD Single which may be more accurate but does not detract from their argument that it's a lot of money for less than 20 minutes of music.
Other information (and English translation) which I can provide (taken from another source, so apologies if that source provides incorrect information) is the track listing...
1. Kamigami No Uta (The Poem of Gods) 2. Prayer (You In the Wind) 3. Titania No Mori (A Walk in the Forest) 4. Prelude - Unmei No Kakera (God With Fire)
Some versions have an instrumental version of the title track as a fifth track.
Anyway, to the music, which I came across after going onto YouTube, listening to ERI SUGAI - a fantastic Japanese singer/composer - and being directed to the music of Himekami. Being musically inquisitive, I did so and was hooked immediately.
The title track is brilliant New Age music, instrumentals and vocals, with a mixture of Western music with a large slice of Eastern influences, with a Japanese vocal. The other tracks are a mixture of keyboard based instrumentals and vocals, but the underlying trend is their beauty. "Prayer" is a gorgeous piece of music and is my favourite of the four tracks, with keyboards overlaid with drumbeats and interspersed with soaring vocals - magical. "Titania ..." sounds more like a crossover Eastern classical piece, with also sounds to me like throat singing - another great piece which moves along at a nice pace. The final track "Prelude..." is slower, more dramatic and sounds as if it would fit in an old Japanese Sumarai movie soundtrack. Very nice indeed.
If you like other New Age music, you are sure to like this and may want to go onto buy other, more lengthy, sets by this artist, real name Yoshiaki Hoshi, who sadly died in 2004 of a heart attack at the comparatively young age of 58.
Be prepared to have to locate a Japanese speaker who can translate the Japanese print, as this is for the Japanese market and, I guess, is why we Westerners have to pay higher prices to obtain their music.
So, although I have some sympathy for the other reviewers, my five stars are not only to balance out their minimal and, in my opinion, misleading rating, but also because I love the music - and have taken my own advice by investing in a couple of full-length albums, which I can't wait to receive and review. Watch this space, but enjoy this little slice of Himekami in the meantime.
I should never order anything I can't read about! I have some of the original Himekami cassette albums released in the US, and really enjoy them - Moonwater, Snow Goddess and Voyage to Zipangu. On Moonwater, Mahoroba is a favorite - a beautiful song. Anyway, I took a chance with this, and lost! Surely the shortest CD I ever had, and the music, with choir backgrounds, is so different to what I was used to with Himekami, that it was quite a shock. I won't do that again.
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