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