Shinjuku Thief
The Witch Hammer
[Dorobo]
Ho-ho-ho. It's that time again for another one of my experimental, ambient
reviews. This time I did a thorough research prior to writing, so I will mix
the information I dug up about the subject with my own impressions. Shinjuku
Thief comes to us all the way from Australia, but this doesn't really mean
much because its soul dwells entirely in Europe. The main man Darrin
Verhagen, along with a number of guest musicians, created an hour long, 14
track collection of brooding, morose soundscapes to accompany your sorcery
role playing and gothic rituals. Admittedly, such description is an
oversimplification because there is a weighty baggage of intellectual
mumbo-jumbo running behind the concept of "The Witch Hammer" and of Shinjuku
Thief as a whole. First of all, the project's name is taken from Japanese
director Nagisa Oshima's film "Diary of a Shinjuku Thief." Second, "The
Witch Hammer" is a first installment in the so-called "Witch Trilogy" - a
series of orchestral works inspired by medieval witchcraft and witch hunts in
Europe in the 1500's. Furthermore, besides the whole witch fascination, this
work also serves as a homage to the 1920's German expressionist films.
Verhagen, who experimented with many variations of industrial, techno, and
ambient music, is no stranger to such artsy undercurrents. Thief's second
album "Scribbler," for example, was conceived as a soundtrack for the stage
performance of Franz Kafka's "The Trial." "The Witch Hammer," in turn, also
possesses a strong cinematic quality, which reminds me of WHEN. But unlike
WHEN's sporadic and abstract soundtracks, Shinjuku Thief is more focused,
refined and musical. "The Witch Hammer" is an assortment of neo-classical
orchestral arrangements, textured darkwave soundscapes, gothic atmospherics,
and industrial distortion. While listening to this, words like 'epic,'
'mysterious,' 'haunting,' 'nightmarish' but also 'dreamy,' 'alluring' and
even 'romantic' come to mind. These layered soundscapes delicately ebb and
flow and weave an imperceptible web of trance around a listener, occasionally
imploding it with bombastic orchestral outbursts. This is the kind of music
that will stimulate your psyche and imagination and take your mind on an
otherworldly journey through the times and places long lost and forgotten.
If you happen to be a fan of the musical esoterica coming from labels like
Cold Meat Industry and many others in that field, or if you are just looking
for some classy mood music for your late night insomnia, then this is well
worth investigating.
© 2002 boris