Acronymic globetrotter trio HAT are the combined efforts of, in order, Japan's Haruomi Hosono, Germany's Uwe Schmidt (a.k.a. Atom Heart), and New York's Tetsu Inoue. The group's on-again/off-again collaborations have to date produced two CD-only releases, each bringing together elements of ambient, techno, electro, jazz, pop, lounge, and exotica. Occasionally demanding and always entertaining, both albums number among all three artists' finest recent releases, each successfully fusing Hosono's mastery of offbeat pop with Schmidt's bizarre rhythmic frameworks and Inoue's elegant, alluring digital acousmatics. The group's self-titled debut was released on Schmidt's Rather Interesting label in 1995. A visionary and effortless electronic fusion with a heavily improvisational feel, the CD was reissued by Hosono's Tokyo-based Daisyworld imprint in 1996, and the success of the disc in Japan led to a follow-up, DSP Holiday, recorded and released in 1998. DSP Holiday showed a deeper concern for accessibility-probably driven as much by the popularity of the first disc in Japan as by each artists growing interest in porting abstract digital sound experiments into a pop framework-although that's hardly a criticism; the disc is at least its predecessor's equal. ~ Sean Cooper