**Glass-mastered CD housed in a 140 x 140 x 6mm customised greyboard CD case, obi, 12pp booklet, gold-foil letterpress, offset printed, full colour on premium matt paper** In the final month of 2024, Meitei arrived in Beppu, a city long steeped in vapor, myth, and mineral memory. Invited to create onsen (hot spring) ambient music commemorating Beppu’s 100th anniversary, he immersed himself in the city’s geothermal psychogeography, where sound rises from the ground and time clings to mist. Known for his Lost Japan (Shitsu-nihon) works, which channel forgotten eras into flickering auditory relics, Meitei took residence in the warehouse of Yamada Bessou, a century-old inn perched by the bay. Over two weeks, Meitei listened intently to steam, to stone, to the atmosphere itself. The resulting work, “Sen'nyū”, traces the inner spirit of onsen culture with quiet inevitability, shaped by his synesthetic sensibility and deep attunement to place.
Equipped with a microphone, Meitei wandered Beppu's sacred sites: Takegawara Onsen, Bouzu Jigoku, Hebin-yu, and the private baths of Yamada Bessou. There, he captured the breath of the springs, bubbling mud, hissing vents, wind against bamboo, and the murmurs of daily visitors. These field recordings became the sonic bedrock of “Sen'nyū”, an act of deep listening that attempts to render even the rising mist and shifting heat into sound.
Unfolding as a single, continuous piece, “Sen'nyū” drifts like fog through sulfur and stone. It traverses the veiled madness of Bouzu Jigoku, the spectral resonance of Yamada Bessou's inner bath, and the hushed voices of Takegawara Onsen. It is a gesture of quiet reverence, for water's patience, the land's memory, and the hands that have bathed here for generations.
Where Meitei's earlier works conveyed his personal impression of a fading Japan, “Sen'nyū” is grounded in tactile presence, music not imagined but encountered. Here, his practice moves closer to the spirit of kankyō ongaku, environmental music born from place, shaped by it, and inseparable from it.
“Sen'nyū” marks Meitei's first full-length work centered entirely on onsen and opens a new chapter of his Lost Japan project under the expanded title “失日本百景” (One Hundred Lost Views of Japan), a series exploring extant sites of longing still quietly breathing within contemporary life. The album is accompanied by Meitei's first photo book, a visual document of his recording journey in Beppu. A new layer is added to the world he has, until now, built only through sound.
“Sen'nyū” continues Meitei's devotion to Japan as subject, while opening new terrain: both ritual and remembrance, an immersion into the mineral soul of Beppu. Mastered by Stephan Mathieu and released through Kitchen. Label, it's a stunning addition to one of contemporary ambient music's most compelling catalogues. Available on 180g vinyl, CD, and as a limited edition photo book, it is absolutely essential for anyone drawn to the intersection of place, memory, and sound.
