I recently came across an article which suggested that many – perhaps most – people who are listening to music these days are doing so via video game soundtracks rather than albums, singles, streaming radio or even movies and TV. Music like Hoshin’s dark ambient Path of Dissolutions lends itself especially well to visual representations like this, each song an evolving, emotional saga.

There’s a certain photographic technique I’m sure you’re familiar with, in which ordinary objects are pictured at disorienting magnification and resolution, showing us the otherwise blurry and hidden life of everyday objects. This trick of magnification is applied to sound, as in “Drop Out” and “The All Is Aflame.” “Souvenir From The Sacred” is most emblematic of Hoshin’s “lighter” technique: the soft, fragile tones just float over rain and ambient effects, crawling almost imperceptibly toward an ending. Other songs are characterized by being almost immobile, like cast iron trawling the bottom of the seas in “Drop Out The Fruitless.”

 

Published first in 5 Magazine Issue 138, featuring Dave Pezzner, Jeff Derringer, a tribute to Earl Smith of Acid House pioneers Phuture, mixes and interviews from Boorane, Jay Hill, Tim Zawada & more. Become a member of 5 Magazine for First & Full Access to Real House Music.