TAMON TAKAHASHI — GHOST OF PROW

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⌾ LISTEN TO GHOST OF PROW BY TAMON TAKAHASHI ⌾

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There’s a richness to the soundscape at work in Tamon Takahashi’s ‘Ghost of Prow’. A swaying sweep of guitar floats through like the slow swell of the sea, paired with brass that peals and tapers with a stoic lilt — a sombre contrast to the evocative guitar solo that ends the piece. The vocals in the Hokkaido-based artist’s track are a hefty pairing of voices that add organic texture to proceedings, the bass smooth and crooning beneath it all.

Ultimately, with its pendulum-esque rhythm, and lavish, illuminated textures, the bittersweet charm of ‘Ghost of Prow’ illustrates the doomful passing of time with a world-weary sparkle.

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• 🔔 Listen to more from Tamon Takahashi over on his Spotify.

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ODALIE — LES HYBRES

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A robust pizzicato arpeggio picks its way through the aching air of ‘Les Hybres’, a hybrid track by French musicmaker Odalie. Urgency arrives as ticking modular synth chimes in like a clock ticking too quickly through the seconds, the bow now drawing across the strings and giving an extra richness to the track.

It’s not just this difference in organic sounds though, but the subsequent evolution of the track as the synthesiser grows into a many limbed beast, a creature of plasma that tumbles and twists as the cello strains and scratches below. Human and machine, soft and harsh, ‘Les Hybres’ is the exploration of biomechanical creativity.

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• 🔔 Taken from Derrière l'écran, out now. Listen and buy (if you like) on Bandcamp.

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CRYSTAL — PHANTOM GIZMO

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CRYSTAL’s music always feels a little bit like constructivist art: A red triangle here, a blue square there, a black squiggle or two, all set in arrangements of bold, jagged simplicity. Accordingly, that’s how ‘Phantom Gizmo’ erupts into view, unfolding rapidly with staccato orchestra hits like a transforming robot. A collage of beats like crazy scaffolding waltzes throughout; MIDI bass (composed by Stephen Bruner, aka Thundercat) pops and gallops.

But the Tokyo-based duo (Sunao Maruyama and Ryota Miyake) elevate the track into something more than its vital foundations. Though synth stutters and the heavily vocodered vocals keep some parts lively and minimalist, other sections of ‘Phantom Gizmo’ seem to soar into the sky, the blocky buildings of the bass and beat immersed in pastel fog and indistinct video game visions. Cue virtuoso leads wiggling into through the soft-yet-hard space of the song with all the joy of an artist’s paintbrush.

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• 🔔 'Phantom Gizmo' is tkaen from CRYSTAL's upcoming Reflection Overdrive LP, due out on Tokyo's flau records on 30th April. You can pre-order Reflection Overdrive from flau's Bandcamp (available on colored vinyl and digitally).

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KIWOKUZA — 茶摘み

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A tumble of beats gallops at the heart of ‘茶摘み’ (Chatsumi; “tea picking”) by Tokyo troupe Kiwokuza. This kinetic foundation is perfectly complemented with a collage of synth: ebbing, electric chords, bouncing mid-level pops, rapid-firing trickling synth, soft melodies. The vocals also play a part in the track’s forward motion, wordless syllables keeping syncopated time.

But the vocals, or rather the lyrics, play a deeper part than their role in the rhythm section; as with many of Kiwokuza’s songs, ‘Chatsumi’ is a reworking of a folk song of the same name, bringing the unknown composition squarely into the modern day.

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• 🔔 Listen to more from Kiwokuza on their Spotify account.

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LUCRECIA DALT — COSA

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It may only be 32 seconds in duration, but ‘cosa’ by Berlin-based Colombian producer Lucrecia Dalt is a dense piece of music. The distant hum of a machine growls in the background, something continuously and secretly working — calculating, processing. The ambient fuzz of this hidden room gives Dalt’s micro-song a voyeuristic, or more correctly entendeuristic quality of listening to something obtained from a concealed recording device.

Knowing that the album from which 'cosa' is taken aims to be "a reflection of how we consume as a society today," the rasping sounds and wheezing organicity of it take on a more foreboding air. It's a chilling thought: the wonder, or worry, of exactly what it is you're streaming, liking and sharing.

Biomechanical insectoid clicking and fizzing constitutes a slow beat, synthetic but gruesomely organic; twice, like a dynamic cymbal, a screeching sound whips the air. A start-up sound gleams at the end — as if the tape were turned off at some crucial moment, or the recording device were discovered — and voices disjointedly murmur.

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• 🔔 Lucrecia Dalt's track 'cosa' is taken from the collaborative album PRSNT. Also featuring 32-second tracks by artists such as Ryuichi Sakamoto, Visible Cloaks and more, it's scheduled for release on Barcelona-based label Modern Obscure Music. You can pre-order PRSNT on vinyl (black or white, shown above) or digitally on Bandcamp.

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SQUAREPUSHER — THEME FROM ERNEST BORGNINE

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A frenzy of drums propels ‘Theme From Ernest Borgnine’ along, metallic snares rifle and tumble over themselves, a torrent of hi-hats and cymbals splash as a backdrop. Listening to this storm and surge of percussion is like feeling the weight of a waterfall: unceasing, multifaceted, and in the tumult of both, strangely soothing.

The natural connection to Squarepusher’s track doesn’t stop there. Lead synths chirp in snippets of stave-hopping brightness like the songs of robotic birds; soft, muffled chords provide a heavy haze, the type that fogs the sky on hot days. It’s only in its coda, the final minute and a half of the track, that it feels suddenly synthetic — human, basically.

The ambience falls away, revealing the true harshness of the drums, while acid synths wobble and crack in energetic celebration. Squarepusher symphonises jungle, creates rollicking rave beats garnished with emotive washes of sound, but he also wakes the dreamer from their peaceful slumber.

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• 🔔 'Theme From Ernest Borgnine' is taken from the upcoming remastered re-release of Squarepusher's Feed Me Weird Things — his debut studio album released back in 1996. The remastered edition is due out on 4th June on Warp Records. You can pre-order it on vinyl, CD or just digitally from Bandcamp.

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NO LORE — WITH LITTLE LIGHT

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Poetry in gentle motion. ‘With Little Light’ is just that: ripples of emotive poetry and soft sounds flowing out from a centre of blissful simplicity. Created by Tita Halaman and Jerald Angelo, aka Manila-based sister-brother duo No Lore, the song features vocals from both, a continuous lilting harmony on a backdrop of glassy synth chords and acoustic guitar.

As the instrumental flows on, gleaming and nocturnal, the relatable refrain croons sweetly throughout: “How I wish I’m good at guessing / Oh how I wish I’m always right”; the intertwining of both their voices recalling the vocal duets of The xx, though with warmer instrumentals to accompany them. 'With Little Light' is a tale of emotion, crossing minimalist aesthetics and considered space with the soulful kinetic energy of a live performance.

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• 🔔 You can watch a live version of 'With Litte Light' by No Lore over on their YouTube channel.

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DEREK MURO — ROVE FEAT. DAISY PRESS

⌾ LISTEN TO 'ROVE' FEAT. DAISY PRESS BY DEREK MURO ⌾

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This track by begins as if it were about to erupt into a rave-ready tract of Balearic breakbeats: synth chords wobble and sigh on a backdrop of elastic intent. Instead, it evolves into a cross of Gregorian chant and jazz (like a future revival, perhaps, as if it has already been a thing), the voice of experimental vocalist Daisy Press soaring in an aerial display of virtuosity among phrases of saxophone like scudding clouds.

Sub-bass punctuation and gradual glimmers of light gives Derek Muro’s ‘rove’ yet more cathedralic height and space — and then it breaks off, a rapture interrupted by the everyday, the bubble of dreaming burst. Peals of anguish surface through the found sound chatter, and most pointedly, Muro sprinkles the coda with a ticking clock: though it had seemed halted in its tracks, time has actually not stopped, and never does.

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• 🔔 'rove' is taken from cues, released 9th April on Toucan Sounds. You can purchase it from Bandcamp either digitally or on cassette.

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THEO ALEXANDER — BRIGHT-EYED HUNGER

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Wild and skittering, the melodies weaving into each other in London composer Theo Alexander’s ‘Bright-eyed Hunger’ at first appear nursery rhyme in nature. They skip and dance in a sort of random uniformity, naturalistic but synthetic. Piano glides in, cool and glassy, counteracting the frenzied woodwinds; gradually this set of jovial intricacies becomes a cohesive whole.

Beneath it all, beneath the dappled light on leaves and insects tumbling in the air, an unknown something looms large — the “hunger” to the otherwise “bright-eyed” sentiment of the song — organic and growling, a carnivorous spirit shuddering inside the body of a double bass (played by George Cremaschi). As light and playful as Alexander makes this track seem on the surface, underneath it is positively snarling.

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• 🔔 'Bright-eyed Hunger' is the first track taken from Theo Alexander's upcoming Sunbathing Through A Glass Screen, out 21st May on Canadian label Arts & Crafts. You can pre-order it on limited edition 12" vinyl on Bandcamp now.

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CHRIS OTHER — NEW MORNING

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As if whirring into being, ‘New Morning’ by Brooklyn composer Chris Other certainly feels like a beginning. Hushed room ambience sets the scene, like dust dancing in the air between shards of light lancing in from curtain cracks. Then again, with its greyscale tones and the sheafing sounds throughout, this could be a rainy morning. The piano is tentative, reflecting a gentle awakening of the senses after sleep — the touch of bare feet on floor, a pre-glasses glance around the room.

The title ‘New Morning’ does not necessarily equate to a “good” morning; this morning is new, signifying a starting afresh, putting something something behind its sunrise. The textured mechanics that Chris Other puts into this track does summon that feeling of timeworn memory, a tenderness. Or else it is the biological analogue to hearing an old PC jolting awake — fans cut the still air, processors creak, something beeps, just as a body lurches slowly into life.

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• 🔔 'New Morning' is taken from Chris Other's Til We Feel That Hope Again EP, which is out today (23rd April). You can stream the release or purchase it digitally from Bandcamp.

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KUMI TAKAHARA — TIDE

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In ‘Tide’ Tokyo violinist and composer Kumi Takahara creates a thick soundtrack to a marine sunset. Violins glisten in playful counterpoint, piling in layers that crescendo in a tumult of colour, orchestral and expansive: clouds sprayed across the sky in kinetic whisps, tinted by evening light.

Columns of sound rumble below, a sombre and subterranean like something unthought of weighing on your mind; on the surface, one violin soars into the air, and later another. And as well as the strings, Takahara's voice lilts throughout adding yet more humanity to a piece of music already powerfully human.

Featuring production from aus. (Yasuhiko Fukuzono, founder of flau records), ‘Tide’ is held in place and time with the sound of waves, natural bookends, starting tranquil and ending in a shiver of dusk and leftover emotions — shreds of gleaming unknown sound, the afterglow of the giddy fugue that shines brilliantly at the centre of this composite epic of a song.

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• 🔔 'Tide' is taken from Kumi Takahara's debut album See-Through, recorded between 2016 and 2020 in the bathroom of Takahara's Tokyo apartment. released 24th February on Tokyo-based label flau records. It's available in CD format and/or digitally via Bandcamp.

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KLINGER — HORST

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Taken from Klinger’s Persona project, which sees the composer creating a series of musical portraits, this one looks at Horst — 76-year-old proprietor of Crazy Horst, a once lively pub in Hamburg’s St. Pauli district. Used to closing up shop for just one day a year prior to 2020, the pandemic has hit hard.

Accordingly Klinger’s piano paints a touching vignette, the music weighed down in the middle by heavy notes of slow, stifling despair. But there is a sense of continuity, which lies in a certain bounce to the notes, an almost galloping, heartbeat-esque rhythm, as the piece ends with hope hanging like a haze in the air.

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• 🔔 Check out Klinger’s Persona project here, and watch the video featuring ‘Horst’ himself here.

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MASAYOSHI FUJITA — BIRD AMBIENCE

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The natural world. That’s the overriding force at work in ‘Bird Ambience’ by Berlin-based vibraphonist and composer Masayoshi Fujita. But that — signalled by the track’s robust percussion, tumbling marimba and keen ceramic reverberations — is only half of the story here. For all of its organically glossy and glomping collisions of beater against solid object, there’s a smattering of inorganic glitch, sharp and harsh, zooming around within; an ancient computer of some forgotten century still whirring brokenly amidst vast trees and choking vines. And all around, ghosts — the nebulous vocals of singer Hatis Noit cooing through the canopy.

The sheer space between each knock, each tap, hit and plonk — and the constrasting soft, sheafing ambience of each successive contact — gives Fujita's ‘Bird Ambience’ an empty-yet-full feeling: Navigating the voidsome depths of woods, its trees and the heavy air between the trunks and branches. There’s an essence of kankyō ongaku or “environmental music” here, with textural elements reminiscent of Hiroshi Yoshimura’s ‘Time After Time’. There's less in the way of melody, of rigidity, Fujita's track instead creeping along almost at random, solidly and yet as if it were mist.

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• 🔔 This track is taken from Masayoshi Fujita's upcoming album Bird Ambience, scheduled for release on Erased Tapes on 28th May. You can pre-order it from Bandcamp digitally, as a CD or limited edition 2LP.

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CHIHIRO ONO — HACHIREN

⌾ LISTEN TO HACHIREN BY CHIHIRO ONO ⌾

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A bell rings three times, announcing the apparition of Chihiro Ono’s suite. Ono, a violinist and violist born in Chiba, Japan, but now living in London, based these four short movements chiefly on the music (and life) of pianist and composer Rentaro Taki. She calls it "super Romantico Classical music" not classical nor experimental, and certainly not pop.

Born in 1979, Taki attentended Leipzig Conservatory in 1901 as the third Japanese musician to study in Europe. He was diagnosed with tuberculosis and travelled back to Oita, Japan in 1902, where he died in 1903. He is perhaps most famous for ‘Kojo no Tsuki’ (Ruined Castle by Moonlight) appropriately inspired by the ruins of Oka Castle in Oita, and with lyrics penned by poet Bansui Doi (1871-1952). "His musical life had many Western influences, yet he never lost the strong core of his nation in his heart, which I can relate to," says Ono. "Doi’s words and Rentarou’s music resonate strongly with me."

‘Kojo no Tsuki’ is fairly well known and has been given renditions throughout the years. For one example, it was jazzed up (literally), albeit without its title, by Theolonius Monk as ‘Japanese Folk Song’.

It’s Taki’s song that works its way through Chihiro Ono’s HachiRen, particularly in ‘Kojo’ (Ruined castle), strings crooning smooth in lament, harsh chords scrape into the air, the whisper of the bow falling silent. That whispering, like a dry brush stroke, flecks of sound colour against the void, feel characteristic of the suite as a whole, particularly in final track ‘Ren’ — a poignant, if melancholic, reflection on mujō (無常) or impermanence, and a fitting coda to the all-too-short life of Rentaro Taki himself.

Violin is the main component of the suite, of course, but that doesn’t stop other elements from making an appearance. What sounds like a steam locomotive appears in ‘8 (Hachi)’ — the first movement, signifying Taki’s summertime birth (24th August); strings appear ghostly and agitated, taking inspiration from Niccolò Paganini’s turbulent playing. Japan’s summers are humid and stifling, the air so crammed with the untethered scream of cicadas that it feels the sky could break open, and worthy of the addled sound Ono has portrayed them with.

On the subject of summer and Paganini (sort of: “La Campanella”) are the bells. In Japan, their clear sound is supposed to inspire cooling thoughts during the heat of summer. At the same time, fūrin (most often glass wind chimes) are symbolic of keeping evil at bay. With HachiRen concerned mostly with ghosts — of Taki, of Oka Castle, and even in the analogical “death” of cherry blossom falling to the ground in pale pink whirlwinds (in ‘SakuraFubuki’) — it makes sense that chimes punctuate the suite, marking a delicate boundary between inspiration, memory, intangible things, and the music itself.

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• 🔔 HachiRen is out today (9th April) on London label nonclassical. You can stream and download it from Chihiro Ono's Bandcamp.
• 🔔 Here's a recording of 'Kojo no Tsuki' by tenor singer Yoshie Fujiwara — the first person to record a version of the song. It's from 1925, and definitely has that '20s feel.

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