There’s Always Order in Chaos - Hakushi Hasegawa’s “Mahogakko”
Right next to Squarepusher and The Smile’s most recent releases, Hakushi Hasegawa’s newest album, Mahogakko, was one of the records I was easily the most hyped for this year. Discovering their work through the 2017 EP “Somoku Hodo” back in high school, I was immediately drawn to their style of unrelentingly frantic and complex jazz fusion mixed with catchy glitch pop. Fast forward years after constantly blasting their music, and I can confidently say that their 2019 record “Air ni ni” deserves to be talked about in the same breath as albums like Miles Davis’s Bitches Brew and Chick Corea’s Light as a Feather, taking the ideas they had before and stretching them out to monumental proportions that sounds like what would happen if a robot tried creating a jazz pop album by smashing together different electronic artists into some unruly creation, which I still don't think sums up their sound well. Regardless, that album cemented them as one of my favourite modern jazz musicians, and someone that I would keep my eye on in the future.
Hearing that they were signed to Brainfeeder in 2023 and listening to the singles for “Mahogakko”, I was left completely blind about what the new album was going to sound like. Given everything that Hakushi released up to that point, from the electronic heavy sounds of “Somoku Hodo” to the more sentimental jazz piano covers on “Bones of Dreams Attacked!” released in 2020, it seemed like their new release was going to be a culmination of everything they’ve done before, which was definitely confirmed the more singles were released. As the album is close to releasing, the question remains whether all of this diverse sound would fare well as a full album. Like every other Hakushi Hasegawa project, not only is the answer an astounding yes, but I always end up feeling silly that I ever considered otherwise after listening.
Regarding diversity in sound, one thing I love about this album is despite how far reaching the styles and genres explored in this album are, nothing ever feels out of place for them. The opening track, “Departed”, immediately demonstrates this with Hakushi blending their signature chaotic glitchy jazz pop sound with breakcore. The opening track sets up the tone of the album incredibly well, with the song feeling both fun and whimsical while being dense and chaotic. While this sound is repeated throughout the album, the fun is trying to guess what style or ideas they’ll tinker with next. Songs like the avant-garde hip-hop track “Gone” featuring rapper Kid Fresino, the drum-heavy and oddly hypnotic “Mouth Flash” released back last year, and the sound-collage styled piano arrangement on “Repeal (Tekkai)”, demonstrate the talent that Hakushi has in balancing their familiar sound with new ground, which has always been a recognizable staple for the best artists signed on Brainfeeder.
This isn’t to say that there aren’t any of Hakushi’s staple jazz-pop songs on Mahogakko though. There’s the excellent piano driven song “The Blossom and the Thunder”, which gets more obfuscated and glitched out as the song progresses. It would be remiss of me not to mention the phenomenal “KYOFUNOHOSHI” either, which completely flips the script by using the jazz instrumentation usually found in their songs in lieu of electronics, creating a track that is incredibly fun and upbeat but is incredibly avant-garde and complex in execution, which is not only a common trait in this album, but one that is constantly shoved in your face in the best way possible.
It might seem strange to say for a musician that focuses on making dense and layered compositions, but some of my favourite tracks from Hakushi are their emotional and slower songs. Hakushi’s lyricism tends to be incredibly cryptic and poetic, almost bordering on nonsensical at points. The main reason for this is that their voice is manipulated and used as another instrument adding onto their already complex compositions, providing an element of melody to the chaos. It’s not just about what they say, rather it’s how they say it. When they strip away the chaotic instrumentation, they are able to show off another side of their talent, which is how beautiful their voice and ballads are. The second half of “Air ni ni” has plenty of these songs, but “Itsukushii”, “Hibi”, and “Neutral” stand out to me for how beautifully Hakushi’s prevails among their eccentric production, with “Neutral” completely stripping away everything except for their piano. Bones of Dreams Attacked pushes this even further with them exploring the emotional side of their music in tracks such as “1000 & 0” and the absolutely beautiful “Sea Change”, which unfortunately has nothing to do with Beck.
The reason I say all this is because despite how much I’ve praised the heavier electronic songs in Mahogakko, my favourite songs lie in the last half of the album, where Hakushi applies the same diversity in sound to their slower and more sentimental songs. “Forbidden Thing (Kimmotsu)” signals the major stylistic change within this album, which strips away all the instrumentation aside from a hypnotic piano that’s reminiscent of classic minimalism. A common element found throughout the album is a sense of balance with the music, and how incredibly focused and musically tight everything is despite how dense their music is. In the latter half of the song, a metronome can be heard as it’s gradually introduced. Not only does this reinforce the balance the song has in an almost comically direct way, but it also adds a tender and nostalgic side of the song, harkening back memories of my childhood learning how to play the piano for the first time. The very last track of the album, “Outside (Soto)”, goes even farther by making what sounds like a classic pop ballad, with autotuned vocals and drums. Instead of going the 100 gecs route of exaggerating the inherent cheesiness of that proposition, Hakushi plays the concept completely straight, not only through their surprisingly straightforward lyricism about wanting to escape their own mental isolation and be who they are with no restraint, but also how they gradually build the song to a dramatic crescendo that ends up reminding me of why the best ballads in history are so beautiful. The best ballads are the ones that have heart and soul behind them, and a genuine purpose and something to say, which this album has consistently shown time and time again to have spades of, especially considering how much has changed in Hakushi’s career up to this point.
Considering everything I said, my favourite song on the album is one that combines both the chaotic and tender aspects of Hakushi’s music and perfectly captures the sound and energy the album brings. “Boy’s Texture” serves as an outlier from the rest of the songs on the album, completely focusing on blending elements of folk and electronica. The song slowly introduces elements that have been explored in the album this far, with the sound collage of the children’s voices serving well as a contrast for the strings. Later on, the song dips back into the pounding drums, returns back to the solo guitar, and then combines all of the previous instruments in one emotional and chaotic release. On paper, this song sounds like it would be way too fragmented and complex to be emotional, but the beauty about this song and the album as a whole is how masterful the balance of all these elements are, retaining the avant-garde sound that’s defined Hakushi while bringing out the best in all the instruments used, whether it’s used melodically or just to create noise. The contrast in tone from the rest of the songs and the child-like sound perfectly encapsulates how despite the heavy and chaotic sound that this album is defined by, there’s a genuine sense of love and pure-heartedness behind everything, as if Hakushi is expressing their inner child through their music in this album, and that’s incredibly touching. The album’s name does translate to “Magic School”, after all.
The album does include some brief intermissions, particularly in the second half of the record, and while I generally feel like intermissions tend to kill the flow when I’m listening to album, I like how the brief tracks help build the tone of the album, each strange but also fun and interesting in its own way. I missed how some of the tracks took their time and were longer, but given how this album is considerably more dense than Hakushi’s previous works, this is barely a complaint. Given everything, this album is everything I could’ve ever asked for as a follow up after four years of waiting. Hakushi said themselves that they couldn’t have seen themselves making this album without the help of Brainfeeder and I couldn’t agree more. I can completely see this album being my favourite release this year, and I’m beyond excited to see where Hakushi goes from here. It’s important to mention that as of now, Hakushi is the first Japanese artist to be signed to Brainfeeder, which is massive for underground experimental electronic music both in America and Japan, in addition to Hakushi being openly non-binary. It makes me happy to know we’re heading in a direction in underground music where representation matters and is empowered by labels, and it brings joy to know I’m living in a time where I’m able to see and listen to this change happening. It’s albums like Mahogakko that makes me truly believe that we are indeed living in the best generation of music.
In that sense, you could say that Hakushi Hasegawa is the Chappell Roan of experimental electronic music, but that’s really the only way that comparison makes sense. Maybe it might help motivate someone to explore what’s out there, in the same way it helped my high school self discover how much I love wanting to discover more.
RIYL : PC Music, Jane Remover, Kikuo, Sweet Trip and pretty much any artist that I mentioned in the review.