First up in the next new series of SPEKK is an album by Tokyo duo Opitope. Opitope is a duo by ambient
master Chihei Hatakeyama and Tomoyoshi Date (from Illuha) and their 1st album Hau is still one of the best
sellers in the SPEKK catalog. Physis is their 2nd album following their session recording album A Colony of
Kuala Mute Geeks which was taken with their fellow musicians, and 7 years after the glorious Hau album.
Physis was entitled with the meaning of invisible generating power within the nature, and they have
created 4 long stories (the concept of Opitope compositions are to produce tracks with imaginative stories)
with poetic names. Comparing to the Hau songs, you can easily find development in their production skills
including recording, editing and mixing. And most remarkable is their songwriting. If you hear these 4 pieces
on a headphone, not only you will be astonished by the detailed sounds, but they will also give you different
impressions each time .. and the rest is up to you to perceive and construct your own story.
Lastly, this album was mainly produced after that terrible earthquake in Northeast Japan (2011), and whereas
the story of Hau was a journal of travelling from the south to north, Physis is a story of the destructed
earth with just ruins and no signs of human beings, but gradually recovering from itfs soil into the usual green
paradise. Simply breathtaking.