Somewhere in the wash of shimmering guitar chords and distant drum beats, two voices echo, burbling up from some underground cave. This is the sound of Hartfield.
Formed in 2000 by the Takateru Kagawa, male half of the band, Hartfield took a few years to perfect its atmospheric shoegaze sound. They made several appearances on various compilations, perhaps most tellingly Seven Winters, a compilation of like minded artists, apparently released on a label called Curse of My Bloody Valentine. They shared some pretty good company, including Luminous Orange and Coaltar of the Deepers.
It took them three tears to release their first mini-album L.I.B.R.A. Their first full-length release quickly followed. At the time they were performing with a full band, including a drummer and bassist. Somewhere along they way they parted with their rhythm section are today are listed as a duo. To be fair, Takateru and Yukari, the female half, really are the stars. They share not only lead vocal duties, but dueling guitars as well. Not that you're likely to be able to separate their guitar tone from one another. It's tough to overstate the staggering amount of delay, reverb and distortion that blankets everything on their recordings. It's the audio equivalent of a gale-force blizzard and tsunami battling it out over a barren landcape.
That's not to say that their songs are all gloom and doom. In fact, despite the chaos, they are rather bright, with a rosy glow around the edges. At times they are even downright upbeat and poppy, a bit like some of Supercar's early, fuzzed out tracks. (See "She Knows" below.)
The band has toured both in Korea and the US. Their album True Color, True Lie was released in three different versions for Japan, Korea and the US, proving their sound translated very well across cultures. They are apparently in the process of recording their next album (since 2005,) so let's hope we hear more from this impressive duo very very soon!
"Reason"
Official Site
MySpace
Members
Takateru Kagawa - Vocals, Guitar
Yukari Tanaka - Vocals, Guitar
Releases
L.I.B.R.A. 2003
True Color, True Lie 2004
"She Knows"
"Today Forever"
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