chihei hatakeyama / july

Chihei Hatakeyama was born in 1978, and lives in the outskirts of Tokyo. He has performed for years under his given name and also as one half of the electroacoustic duo Opitope, along with Tomoyoshi Date. Hatakeyama got involved in playing music through strumming a guitar in a few rock-oriented bands in his teenage years. Subsequently a laptop computer superseded his bands as his main platform. Hatakeyama polychromes memory-evoking soundscapes with various recorded materials of acoustic instruments such as guitars, vibraphone, and piano; mostly played by hand and processed time and time again via laptop. His first album Minima Moralia was commissioned for release by the Chicago-based label kranky in early 2006. Opitope actively organizes a continuous live performance event named Kuala Mute Geek in Tokyo (Kuala means “a crossing point of streams“ in Malay). The event is powered by hand-made vacuum tube amplifiers and speakers in up to eight channel settings. Electroacoustic and improvisational ar