VARIOUS ARTISTS — EPHEMERAL & FLEETING - MODULAR MUSIC OF JAPAN

In a digital world of AI and algorithms, analogue electronic music is as human as it gets. Through it we see human chaos, in the form of whim and curiosity, erupting in the midst of circuitry and order.

Any given modular setup is tangled with any number of wires, more and more wires connecting to various other boxes and controllers with buttons and dials and switches. In a sea of perfect glassy screens and haptic feedback, of code that does the heavy lifting, these physical objects are almost as anachronous as typewriters.

Such analogue antiquity is at the heart of Ephemeral & Fleeting - Modular Music of Japan, a new compilation album that arrives to us from Tokyo-based ato.archives ("an archive and a label"). Curated by Tokyoite and ambient producer Yumi Iwaki, the album encapsulates this duality of chaos and order: the ordered circuitry of analogue objects and the ordered mathematics of music and its rhythms、 versus the chaos of creativity and the random results that form through careful manipulation of modular synths.

As such, Ephemeral & Fleeting is an album of two halves, fittingly separated by Straytone (who also runs the label Obscure Sound Research) and their two-sided bass-heavy track 'Χάος Order Chaos'. Brooding and baleful, it begins quietly with insectoid chirrupings, which develops into a creeping flood of noise, whooshing like a stormy sea; an intense series of chords around halfway signals a lift-off into the sky — a cosmic orchestra tuning up before a symphony. Distorted feedback-esque melodies play us out with a noise-adjacent lament, sub-bass pulsing like a distant star. It is the album's pivotal point, before which we have (relative) order and lightness, and after which chaos plays out in darker tracks.

It's followed up with two contrasting tracks: 'exhale' by Chie Otomi, which is this awakening within the void – sparse and meandering, Kenichi Takagi's track, 'SBERM', which with juddering analogue thunder, balances rhythmic clattering order with experimental clouds of chaos, glimmering synths and waves of noise coinciding. Think sun gleaming behind mutating grim-grey clouds.

Two other tracks bear have this opposing relationship, in this instance appearing to mirror each other as a kind of pre- and post-track-five version of the other. 'Coalescence' by Endurance (Nara-based musicmaker Joshua Stefane) is expansive and cold, with icy electronic tricklings like the thawing of some giant, ancient bio-mechanical machine.

Then that same frigid atmosphere arises again with 'mete' by tatata5 (part of the label/collective Hasshiki), except by this time whatever was thawed in Endurance's track is well and truly alive, synths a solid chime yet fluid at the same time, distant howls and hoots as if heard within frosty burrows that tunnel like angular veins through a gargantuan living entity.

Order can be seen represented in 'A Gentle Feeling', the compilation opener by Yu Ogu. Feeling akin to the hirajōshi koto tuning, the guitar arpeggio forms a comfortable counterpoint with wandering high-register melodies. It is perhaps the most "conventional" of the tracks on Ephemeral & Fleeting.

Elsewhere, and for much of this exploration of the modular music of Japan, we hear the disarray of anlogue sounds arrange themselves into order — either through audio trickery or else via human intervention. For example, there is the seemingly random pattern of percussion and shifting sounds of 'Sound of uncertainty #001', but Jun H.'s track melds these into a legible beat, a complicated polyrhythm of glitching intricacies that form themselves into an illusory groove. Again, the track has a "partner" in the form of 'chronofracture' by analogue veteran HATAKEN: a sci-fi collage of disparate beats and propulsive rattlings.

Compilation curator Yumi Iwaki also plays with these percolating percussive sounds. In her track 'Styx Drift' they're like a colony of microscopic pebbles pulled along by some heavenly version of the track's namesake river. Its softness is a satisfying juxtaposition to Straytone's exploration of chaos.

But in the swirl of spells cast through these electronic devices, these wires and chips, are the humans who wield this modern magic. This is perhaps most obvious on compilation closer 'Fable of the Transient Soil', Chihei Hatakeyama's electronic tone poem on the theme of flux.

As it begins, we hear Hatakeyama, the human at work, hands moving, switching, turning dials, until around the two-minute mark, when it begins to sound as though we tuned in to an interdimensional frequency. It moves on, soaked in reverb that appears infinite but with a raw intimacy of something close at hand, in the same room.

It's a fitting finale to the harmony that has been struck throughout the compilation — the harmony between chaos and order, that is. Whether the resulting sound is classed as ambient music, or if it can be neatly filed away under "glitch" or the catch-all of experimental, Ephemeral & Fleeting has showcased a precarious, precious balance between modular synths and the mortal minds that use them.

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• 🔔 You may purchase Ephemeral & Fleeting - Modular Music of Japan over on Bandcamp, either digitally or on cassette tape.
• 🔔 The album release comes with an annoucmenet of the festival Ambient / Week (4-10th May), put on by "festival platform" MIMINOIMI. Several artists featured on this compilation will also make appearances, including Chihei Hatakeyama and tatata5, the latter of whom will be presenting her own event series within the festival, titled blue moment.

  The lineup includes Inoyama Land, Lawrence English, Masayoshi Fujita, Shuta Hiraki, Tatsuro Murakami, Toshi Tsuchitori, among others. For more information see the MIMINOIMI site and also this Resident Advisor page.

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MASAHIRO TAKAHASHI — DREAMIES

In 'Dreamies' we hear an awakening of the world. The slow trickle of water, the unfurling of leaves, the bursting of snowdrops through wet solid soil. It is a soundscape for the thawing of things, a farewell to winter while still on the threshold of its realm, with bare trees sparkling with crystallline fragments of rain.

Created by the Sendai-born, Toronto-based composer and musician Masahiro Takahashi, the track is our first glimpse of his new album, In Another. For this project Takahashi builds on collaborative approach that characterised his previous album Humid Sun (2023), adding a small orchestra's worth of musicians to enact his creative vision.

The result of this – of his "trading Ableton sequences for lead sheets" – is a rich, full sound evolves with an organic quality of live music, an unseen magic in the air. In this musical mapping 'Dreamies' feels like an aestheticised symphonic tuning up, simple and synthesised to begin with, adding textures and different qualities of sound in a veritable sonic buffet, as if filling out the lines of a painting.

But there is also more than just a nod to the embryonic chamber pop that Brian Wilson brought to life on The Beach Boys' Pet Sounds — the intricacies and chimes and dynamic progressions of 'Let's Go Away For Awhile', for example, and the lavish layers in the final third of 'You Still Believe In Me'. In this regard, Takahashi's own singular vision and vocal additions in 'Dreamies' feel very kindred.

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• 🔔 As previously mentioned, 'Dreamies' is taken from Masahiro Takhashi's upcoming album In Another. It's due out 20th March via Telephone Explosion. If you like what you hear you may march yourself over to Bandcamp and pre-order your very own vinyl or digital copy of the album.

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MORIMOTO NAOKI — INSIDE IX - CONNECTION

Stillness pervades 'Inside IX - Connection' by Japanese ambient musician morimoto naoki — the kind of stillness that could, on some days, invite a certain melancholy into the air. Instead morimoto's delicate soundscape, intended for listening within four walls (and ideally with a view), captures introspection that is calm over fragile, peaceful rather than close to collapse.

That said, the sounds that skip and chitter throughout this piece of music feel as though they could fit in the palm of your hand. We find toy-like scrapings and found-sound aesthetic, varying layers of background fuzz that shear through the dust of everyday silence like an old electric fan; high-pitched artificial beeps and electronic twangs add to the sense of miniaturised aesthetic.

Aside from casting a scale model spell on one's domestic surroundings, morimoto's guitar graces 'Inside IX - Connection' with half-tunes, melodies that never start, anti-refrains that in their simultaneous quietude and strong non-statement noodling elevate procrastination to a thing of beauty. We drift into his audio daydream, refreshed and ready for our own.

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• 🔔 'Inside IX - Connection' is taken from morimoto naoki album Still Inside, released by Lontano Series (a division of Sardinian indepedent label ROHS!). You can purchase the album digitally and as a compact disc over on Bandcamp, should you so wish.

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AUS + THE HUMBLE BEE — BELOW THE SURFACE WE SHIMMER AND SHINE

The connection between music and place is inextricable, both the power of the former to soundtrack the latter, and for location to alter our listening experience. This is deftly put into practice by Tokyo-based producer and musician aus (Yasuhiko Fukuzono) on 'Below the Surface We Shimmer and Shine', a track originally intended to be listened to whilst bathing in an onsen — a hot spring, thousands of which are nestled in the forested folds of Japan's mountainous interior.

This piece of ambient music, with additional production magic courtesy of Manchester-based the humble bee singularly encapsulates the onsen experience. In its granular textures are promises of mineral goodness, countless intricate rough-hewn gemstones that speak of hygiene in body and mind, while a golden glimmer of sound illustrates a refraction of light in the hot spring waters.

Not only the onsen itself and its ephemeral liquidity but its surroundings, captured by aus in his field recording work, are brought to life. A coarse backdrop echoes a bristling tree-clad mountainside and the vast unknowable nature that surrounds the onsen town. Icy tuned percussion hints at frigid winter air contrasted with the waves of warm synth representing the steaming hot spring waters themselves. (A warm bath outdoors is super nice).

Though there's a contrast between human warmth and our desire to control nature (i.e. bathing in an onsen, comfortable hotel surroundings), and nature in its giant forboding splendour (i.e. the reason hot springs exist naturally, the harshness of the mountains), here they exist timelessly and harmoniously etched in sound.

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• 🔔 'below the surface we shimmer and shine' is taken from the collaborative album Chalybeate, which is scheduled for release on 13 February via flau. Originating as a sonic document of the onsen (hot spring) town Ikaho, Gunma Prefecture, by aus during a month-long stay, he enlisted the humble bee (Craig Tattersall, known for his releases for labels like Dauw and IIKKI) for production and mixing duties.

  The album is available for pre-order on Bandcamp, either in compact disc or vinyl form.

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[PREMIERE] JOSS JAFFE × JIM WEST × KAZU MATSUI — ACROSS THE OCEAN

A broad spectrum of ambient, instrumental music is written about on yes/no. Rarely does it follow a formula; creativity has a way of being unpredictable, even within the constraints of adherening to particular aesthetics espoused by whatever genre one has sought to somehow inhabit. But still when we think of "ambient music" there is a certain mental image that pops up.

Why? Being ambient does not have to be the sonic equivalent of clean lines and polished concrete. Be unobtrusive, yes; create a calm atmosphere, yes; but there are many ways to be and create such things. Case in point: 'Across the Ocean'.

A collaboration between musician Joss Jaffe, award-winning guitarist Jim West (decades-long guitarist for "Weird Al" Yankovic) and shakuhachi master Kazu Matsui, who's contributed to movie scores from Willow to Jumanji, this piece of music takes a different path to reach the meditative, refraining realm at the heart of ambient music.

Jaffe had already recorded two albums with West – Aum Akua (2022) and Santhi (2024) – but it was a chance meeting with Matsui that led to his involvement in the project. Jaffe explains that he was performing with TAKURO (Takuro Kubo, guitarist for Japanese rock band Glay) in Tokyo when Matsui was brought on as a special guest. "We hit it off," he says via email, thanks to their shared experience playing with many different world music artists.

In 'Across the Ocean' the trio find a singular groove that summons the vast ocean under a vaster sky. Flowing chorused guitar melody sets the piece in motion, a drum heaped in considered reverb deepening the sense of space as it and guitar begin a slow swaying call-and-response, as if between continents. The texture of Matsui's shakuhachi adds to the shifting momentum of the piece, like running a hand over raw silk — soft but teeming with organic detail.

The track is a fluid mix of post-rock jamming and the reflective nature of suizen (literally "blowing meditation", the Zen practise of mindfulness while playing flute). Though uncharacteristic of what may be called ambient music, there is no lure to snag listeners into feeling any particular emotion, no lyrics to inform you of the musicians' own feelings. Instead we have a mesmeric, fitingly oceanic sense of calm.

'Across the Ocean' shows that ambient music – an evocative blend of sounds and spaces between intended as a canvas daydremaing and soundtracking the everyday – can take many different shapes.

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• 🔔 You are free to listen to, and purchase a digital copy of, 'Across the Ocean' over on Bandcamp. You may also stream it on Spotify among other platforms for such things.

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CHINO YOSHIO — そのうちいいことあるよ

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'Someday, something good will happen' — so says the translated title of Japanese composer Chino Yoshio's latest piece. These words form part of the poignant refrain sung by collaborator Michiru (Michiru Tamaki), whose vocals ring with far-off hope. Michiru, a lyricist and doujin singer, brings more than a hint of anime OST to the song, resulting in a decidedly J-pop aesthetic.

But Yoshio's ambient approach to composition results in something different to pure J-pop — something meditative and magical, with the warm silky tones of his synth creating a smooth texture that underpins everything, wrapping it in a gossamer veil. Particularly evocative are the strings provided by MIZ (Mizuho Mori) — a prolific composer and musician who with credits in the classical, pop and video game music (including Final Fantasy Record Keeper) worlds.

Lyrically and sonically, Yoshio pieces it together like a modern-day, minimalist passacaglia: sombre and somewhat serious, yes, but also an optimistic mantra for simple wishes.

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• 🔔 If you really enjoyed 'そのうちいいことあるよ' by Chino Yoshio you can even purchase it on vinyl, if you like.

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CUUSHE FADED CORNERS

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Tokyo-based singer and producer Cuushe (aka Mayuko Hitotsuyanagi) is summoning the ancient past with this slice of new music. 'Faded Corners' features her tradebmark vocals, a textural combination of a far-off call and close-quarters whisper, as they spin words based on 'Asobi wo sen to ya~', a famous poem that was included in the Ryōjin Hishō, a 12th-century anthology of imayō — lyrical poetry that was intended to be sung with music (and dancing).

It's an masterclass in atmosphere-making — the soothing ambient wash of chords, the urgent hush of the vocals — but it's also an excercise in creating a sense of propulsion and a vehicle of dance without actually using a constant beat (aside from the odd deep, bassy thud of a kick). The overlapping rhythms combine to create a complex footwork-adjacent web of energy, extra rhythm provided by the muffled splash of syncopated synth chords.

The stirring strings and plumes of bass, the scratching, glittering, richly textured soudscape reflects the violence and beauty that comes with the preservation of ancient culture through the centuries. Pages tear, fires burn, people forget, and yet scholars record, artists revive — marvellously mirrored in the dense yet flighty crescendo of 'Faded Corners', like a sky ripped asunder.

The single arrives with bonus remixes. Flau label boss aus takes the track to the boundaries of a frosty realm in his 'reprise', waves of ambient synth washing through a minimal landscape with cascading clusters of bleeping synths and snippets of harsh noise, ending with intense destructed glimmers of sound.

Elsewhere there's a chilled, almost New Age vibe to the remix by Korean duo Salamanda, complete with slow, deeply blooping drums spinning a relaxed groove. Melati ESP, on the other hand, makes things propulsive with a bouncing beat and tropical approach to its bubbling collection of iridiscent synths.

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• 🔔 'Faded Corners' by Cuushe is out now! It is available to download digitally from Flau's Bandcamp, or else you can purchase the CD, giving you access to a CD-only track called 'Tsuki to Sakana'.
• 🔔 You can also watch the official video for Cuushe's 'Faded Corners', directed by Tao Tajima.

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RAYONS — A FRAGMENT OF SUMMER

⌾ LISTEN TO A FRAGMENT OF SUMMER BY RAYON ⌾

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Images of summer float by to the drifts of piano in 'A Fragment of Summer'. A cicada screams in the humid green park. Bright blurs of dappled sun wave on tree-shaded grass like living islands. A collection of clouds cruise in a pale blue sky. Cricket and frisbee, sunset drives, salt-washed skin and sandy feet, mopping sweat off your brow on a melting pavement beneath tall gleaming buildings. While the song is a fragment of summer, it evokes many fragments of summer, like a beam of light shot through a prism, dazzling with an iridesence of vignettes and beaming photos.

This is the quiet power of Rayons, aka Masako Nakai, whose playing feels like waves, rhythmic and organic. Nakai weaves in a melody like a tapestry pattern, a motif following a swing beat like the rhythm of a train, a cantering horse, an active hearbeat. Washes of emotion range throughout, encapsulating the contentment, sadness and promise of summer. In Japan, this season comes and goes in a whirl of mind-altering heat, merging the human world and something altogether more earthly, deeply entrenched in the buzz of insects, the burning green of leaves, the hot grey heavy skies.

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• 🔔 This slice of new music is the second in Rayons' digital single series, following on from her previous release 'Luminescence'. Stream and/or download it courtesy of her label home, Flau.

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WATARU SATO — FADING SPACES

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Taking cues from Nils Frahm and Ólafur Arnalds — and studying under Lubomyr Melnyk — ‘Fading Spaces’ by pianist Wataru Sato is inextricably gentle. It begins with meandering touches of the keys, the spaces between poised like unformed thoughts, before a voidsome chasm opens up into the heroic ostinato at the heart of ‘Fading Spaces’.

This spiralling melody is the form to the track’s introductory formlessness, and is marvellous in its ambivalence — it reaches to optimism, but remains a hair’s breadth from it, almost descends to despair, but lifts off before it falters. There are options here, different pathways as if nothing is finite.

With an exploratory volta in the middle that sees bright variations tumble out from Sato’s fingers, a fervent flash of possibility, the piece purposefully, heavily returns to where it began, a vista of decisions ahead.

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• 🔔 ‘Fading Spaces’ is taken from Sato’s Spaces EP, out now on fledging label 1magine (part of the Disk Union family). You may purchase and/or stream it from a variety of places.

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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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CRYSTAL — PHANTOM GIZMO

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⌾ LISTEN PHANTOM GIZMO BY CRYSTAL ⌾

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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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⌾ LISTEN TO 茶摘み BY KIWOKUZA ⌾

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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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KUMI TAKAHARA — TIDE

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⌾ LISTEN TO TIDE BY KUMI TAKAHARA ⌾

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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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MASAYOSHI FUJITA — BIRD AMBIENCE

⌾ LISTEN TO BIRD AMBIENCE BY MASAYOSHI FUJITA ⌾

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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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☟ Chihiro Ono Internet Presence ☟
bandcamp ⚘ official site ⚘ twitter

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CUUSHE — EMERGENCE

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⌾ LISTEN TO EMERGENCE BY CUUSHE ⌾

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It’s Cuushe, but not as you’ve ever heard her. In ‘Emergence’, the Tokyo singer-producer is at her most dancefloor ready. The beat shuffles with insectoid intricacies and thumping kicks, the synth looms laid-back and lounging, nocturnal piano drip-drops in with icy gloss.

Cuushe for a long time has been classed dream pop, but the garage-influenced beat and the strength of her mantra-like vocals launch ‘Emergence’ to a darkly effervescent realm of groove — for example, the sleek, solely instrumental outro conjures a futuristic take on the Streets of Rage II soundtrack. What could be dreamier?

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• 🔔 'Emergence' is taken from Cuushe's forthcoming new album Waken, out now on flau. Purchase it at the flau bandcamp.

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☟ Cuushe Internet Presence ☟
facebook ⚘ soundcloud ⚘ wikipedia ⚘

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SATOSHI KANNO — MONOC

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'Monoc' by Japanese digital artist and producer Satoshi Kanno appears like a electronic spectre on a nocturnal city street. Sparse chopped vocal samples merge with flickering percussion, skittering on a bed of bumping kicks and the soft bursts of distortion. Its angular structure feels mechanical, industrial almost, as the track moves into a moody footwork-infused midsection.

The splicing sounds and fusion of elements in 'Monoc' was a result of Kanno's approach to the track.

"I was inspired to compose this piece to reflect on the ways and meanings of communication between all things in our time," he says to yes/no via email. "The noise in the song refers to nature, animals, plants, machines, and humans, and even though each form remains the same, when they overlap each other, they transform into another form."

The track ends up as a "collective form", each element adding to a whole that brings together its fragmented parts to a sonic sum: a reflection of how an individual is ever-transforming, reacting to their situation, the times in which they exist.

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• 🔔 This is the title track from Satoshi Kanno's Monoc EP, scheduled for release on 10th December via ADRS Collective. You can pre-order the EP on Bandcamp.

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☟ Satoshi Kanno Internet Presence ☟
facebook ⚘ soundcloud ⚘ official site ⚘ twitter ⚘ spotify ⚘ instagram

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CUUSHE — MAGIC

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Cuushe is back. Recently she announced her upcoming album WAKEN via the fresh vitality of its first single, 'Hold Half'. This time around, it's 'Magic' that faces up to the grey piercing light of morning.

A slow steamroller of a beat thuds as the propulsion to 'Magic', rusted metallic percussion ticking faintly at its mechanical heart. A set of heavy-hearted piano chords plays a downcast reverb-laden refrain; "I just wanna die.." Cuushe's voice whispers from this fog of sound. Craggy synths crack in mournful reply, a glistening gloomy call-and-response.

Starting quietly, almost from another perspective, later in the track her vocals rise up, outraged: "Magic... Why are you so silent?" A question perhaps posed to the once-dreaming individual now scrutinised by reality. Lightness eclipsed. This refrain cuts through a wash of intense sounds, synths glittering and roaring together with the clatter of a bright guitar riff — a combination of playful concreteness and fantasy synthetic noise that runs through 'Magic'.

It's all been brought to life with a video by director Tao Tajima. On a backdrop of footage filmed in the wilds of Tibet, it's a tale of ghostly girls tied with string to insistent flapping birds, drawn in their phantomic pastels by sometime Cuushe collaborator Yoko Kuno. The music — mysterious yet methodical in its makeup — matches the stark marching mountains and vast empty tundra.

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• 🔔 'Hold Half' is taken from Cuushe's forthcoming new album Waken, set for release 20th November on her label home flau. Pre-order it over on the flau bandcamp.

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☟ Cuushe Internet Presence ☟
facebook ⚘ soundcloud ⚘ wikipedia ⚘

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ATREM — SLICER

⌾ LISTEN TO ATREM, SLICER ⌾

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'Slicer' by Japanese duo atrem — comprising Ryuichi Shima and Yusuke Kamimura — is a multifaceted being of a track. It all begins with the tricking of looped electronics, glistening drops of glitch, a tour of circuit boards and the shifting complexities of sound.

Streams of harmonised vocals flow into the mix. If you've ever played PS2 RPG EverGrace (2000), the way voices in 'Slicer' are so drastically instrumentalised may remind you of Kota Hoshino's surreal and vocal-heavy soundtrack for that game.

Before long, 'Slicer' shifts into gear. A crescendo of sound, bubbles and crashes into view, drowning out the voices. HEALTH-esque distorted synths swirl and slice through the bristling hyperactive breakcore beats that propel the track into its final section, where wordless vocals soothe the disjointed disquiet that came before.

A showcase of how this atrem can be as intricate as they can be aggressive, as blissed out and chill as they are dedicated to fully fledged noise, in 'Slicer' the duo have made a veritable journey of a track, a tale of kinetic movement, of graceful poise and letting loose.

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• 🔔 Check out the dramatic 'Slicer' as well as many more morsels of music on atrem's SoundCloud.

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☟ atrem Internet Presence ☟
facebook ⚘ soundcloud ⚘ bandcamp ⚘ twitter ⚘ spotify

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CUUSHE — HOLD HALF

⌾ LISTEN TO CUUSHE, HOLD HALF ⌾

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In a scramble of beats, a festival of lights, Tokyo-based musicmaker Cuushe introduces her new album, Waken. Drums and synth explode triumphal in 'Hold Half', a twisting number that balances its way between these sonic fireworks of crashing cymbals and sun bursting over the horizon brilliance, and quieter moments of pinging icicle guitars and soft watercolours of sound, an early hours out of body experience.

It's all brought to life with a sudden alarm clock saw wave buzz, the moment of awakening. Cuushe's vocals drop in, slow, vital, trance-like, somewhat obscured by the same whispering ambience that has always made her voice unique. Less faraway and somnolent than on previous releases, Cuushe's voice this time cuts through the music like wings through cloud.

And there is this sense of flight in 'Hold Half', at least that of floating, being airborne. Looking down on all that's come before, Cuushe joins her track as it heads towards the cold pastels of dawn.

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• 🔔 'Hold Half' is taken from Cuushe's forthcoming new album Waken, set for release 20th November on her label home flau. Pre-order it over on the flau bandcamp.

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📠
☟ Cuushe Internet Presence ☟
facebook ⚘ soundcloud ⚘ wikipedia ⚘

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