DAISUKE TANABE – PAPER PLANES

Beginning with an onset of fuzz, and what sounds like a faint Windows XP error sound, Japanese producer Daisuke Tanabe's latest track 'Paper Planes' is yet another step in an incremental climb to greater and greater heights, glitching onwards and upwards.

It's a complex weave of rhythms in three parts, going through some type of mystic lounge punctuated with reggae-esque soft-synth stabs in the first, to a volumised half-time-footwork mid-section, ending at the final third (not before an audacious & astounding second-long cut in sound) with a bristling beat that's filled with as many noises as you'd hear in some busy forest. The bass here skips in and out, cut beautifully and jiggling with fun wobble, double-timing what was previously slowed in a jaunty finale.

Throughout, it's a cascade of sounds: bells, chimes, sheafing metallics, blips and bops, and a whole host of percussion that ranges from thin, phantomatic snares to juddering woodblock percussion. Lush. That's the word.

I'm well excited to say that it's taken from Floating Underwater, a forthcoming album from the musicmaker himself – with mastering from field recording magician, Yosi Horikawa. It'll be available from 15th September on German label Ki Records and Cat Eat Mosquito, a new, independent label from Japan which (I think) is Daisuke's own brainchild.

• Check out our Lazy Interview with Daisuke Tanabe for YES/NO
• Also check out, if you haven't, check out Kidsuke, a collaboration between Daisuke and UK musicmaker, Kidkanevil.

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Check Daisuke Tanabe • Facebook • Soundcloud • Twitter

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CUUSHE BUTTERFLY (KIDSUKE REMIX) [FREE DOWNLOAD]

I've literally been listening to this song on repeat. Like, repeat. I couldn't tell you how many times I've had it on. Why? Not cause it's catchy, no. And not because it's too short (that happens sometimes). It's just cause I like how it sounds yo. It's the kind of sound that really suits an evening chilling, having a browse around the internet, answering a few emails here and there, tip-toeing around facebook or whatever - just a "general" evening vibe. Anyway, that really really doesn't do the song justice.

In fact, it's almost an insult to the song. I'm sorry. Err, maybe I could just backtrack by saying it's just a versatile sound. Yeah that's right. But then again it's not that versatile: I wouldn't wanna be cookin' up a storm in the kitchen to this music. Conflicting emotions.

Anyway. Enough of that. Cuushe is a songstress from Japan whose haunting voice has captivated quite a few people recently with the offerings we've had the pleasure of listening ('Twilight', for instance) to from her upcoming album Butterfly Case, out 23rd September on Japanese label, Flau. 'Butterfly' is one of those songs. But this time around, an additional dimension has been added in this remix thanks to Kidsuke: the dynamic duo of Kidkanevil and Daisuke Tanabe. I wrote about their debut, self-titled album and the pairing of these two thorough and glitchy soundscaping beat-makers was clearly a match made in heaven.

It's clear to see in this lovely remix, too. Giving it a healthy dose of bristling organic percussion seems to suit Cuushe's distinctively breathy voice right down to the ground, despite it sounding very much up in the air. The mechanical sound of those ticks, taps, whirrs and rattles give it a lovely glitching toy appeal - although it's busy and bustling, it's not a dark or overpowering beat, so there almost seems to be something cute about it.

Other noises join the show, ambient blips and static popping out from the warm stream of the song's atmosphere to augment and fly alongside Cuushe's soaringly dreamy vocals. The general resulting sound is something that's delicate, a glass machine with spindly legs toeing its way along the bright petals of a chorus of flowers all singing together. A world of beauty and emotion in fragile, detailed miniature.

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KIDKANEVIL INTERVIEW

From bringing to us his glossy, minimalist beats to most recently teaming up with Daisuke Tanabe for side-project Kidsuke (which I wrote a bit about last year), kidkanevil (aka Gerard Roberts) has been pursuing music for a long time. Or rather - not pursuing, but living in it. Within the atmosphere of his music there is a certain love of the process and attention to detail that arises from something very simple: liking, if not loving, what you do.

The man himself was kind enough to allow me to send over some questions for his perusal, and kinder still to send back some answers. Gain some insight from a music man. Yes they are the same questions. Maybe it's a lazy interview. In any case, it's not like anyone can cheat or anything, can they? Every person answers differently. And here's what kidkanevil said...

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Who are you? Where are you from? What do you do?
My name is kidkanevil, I’m from the UK, I make music.

Why did you decide to start creating music?
Music has been a passion since I was a kid, so it just happened naturally, I didn’t really ‘decide’ as such.

How would you describe your sound? What makes you and your style stand out?
I don’t know really, its rooted in hiphop and watching too much anime. I just try to make original and honest music and hope that myself and other people like it, if it stands out to some people then I am appreciative of that.

Is there a perfect time and place for listening to your music?
Not that I know of.

What inspires you most when writing a song?
The usual – life, art, film, daydreaming. I have a far too active imagination, it’s kind of a problem sometimes.

What is your most memorable musical experience?
Wow, I don’t know if I can answer that, most of my life has been a musical experience. I met Arvo Part once and I bowed.

What are your favourite three songs at the moment?
Arvo Part – Adam’s Lament

Tetsuya Hikita – Party of Autumn

Jameszoo – The Clumtwins

Who do you most admire in the music world?
I admire anyone who makes their own music and not someone else’s.

In your opinion, what is the future of music?
Messy and unexpected probably, like all things.

What's the future of your music - what do you hope to do next?
Messy and unexpected hopefully! I’m just making ideas for fun at the moment, I don’t like to engage with the ‘music industry’ until I have to. I feel in a really special place creatively right now, the place I’ve been working to get to all this time. I know my next body of work will be very special to me. I’m just trying to make sure I don’t rush it in the excitement.

What, aside from music, is most important to you?
I’m currently in the process of fucking up my life to find out actually, I’ll let you know. ^ _ ^

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A glimpse into the world of kidkanevil. What shines through the most is his "far too active imagination" (be it sometimes a problem or not) - his music is filled with sounds that aren't the regular type to be cradled by a beat, nor are they the regular type full stop. I think it's a case of not being inspired by music itself, but being inspired by other things to create music (as he said); that's how you get a truly original and imaginative sound.

The prospect of a "messy and unexpected" future is a kind of fun uncertainty - it's difficult to predict. Uncertainty is the best policy. But his own musical future sounds good - the reality of that future, when it comes to us all in song-form, will probably sound even better.

As for a concrete future, Mr kidkanevil tells me there is "def gonna be more kidsuke!" amongst other things, so that is pretty cool, too. ありがとう！

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Like kidkanevil on Facebook
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Listen to kidkanevil on SoundCloud
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Hear more kidkanevil on bandcamp
Visit kidkanevil's official site

KIDKANEVIL AND DAISUKE TANABE KIDSUKE

It's a beautiful thing when one or more already established artists come together to create something new that embodies and amalgamates each artist's style and dynamic. This much is true of the fantastic new partnership sparked and kindled between British Kidkanevil and Japanese Daisuke Tanabe (sketch of each just on the right here).

West meets East in an array of complex electronica that stuns, enlivens, chills and otherwise masterfully captures the imagination of the open-minded listener.

The album, Kidsuke, released 2nd November this year, marries the structural hip hop stylings of Kidkanevil and the likewisely leaning offbeat flavours of Daisuke Tanabe (whose delicious music we've written about before) perfectly - being similar artists, in that their sound utilises that unique glitchness that you find in the songs of each individual, certainly helps when trying to make an album that works harmoniously. The starting track, 'IntroOoOoO', announces the partnership with brash confidence ("Kid-o-suke!"), there being no coincidence that it is a child's voice proclaiming as much: the album certainly seems to be an evocative playground of the kinds of blips and bleeps that typified the video-game-centric collective childhoods of many people in their 20s now, as well as music box melodies - as in the lullaby-nightlight tones of second track 'Nanotrees (Out In The Woods)' - and merry-go-round aesthetics that otherwise conjure a childlike wonder, or love, for the sounds that make us smile.

That child-proclaimer is a recurring theme in the album, popping up here and there to remind us, perhaps, that both artists doing this for fun more than anything else. A questioning "Kid-o-suke...?", for example, marks the start of 'SGstep', which is a fun, pots-and-pan percussive dubstep-styled track, featuring much modulated synth bleeptude that drip-drops over the sound as a grinding sound comes in and out in waves.

Hip hop, however, is never far away, with the distinctive offbeat of 'MoOoOoOn' housing a foundations for flights of electronic fancy that whizz over and above. Those sounds, at once recognisable as part of both artists' separate repertoire, are heard best in the popping bubble atmosphere of 'Frogs In A Well', the fizzing cauldron of 'Sine Flowers' and the frantic, unworldly sounds in 'Harmonics Pt2'. How emotion can summoned with such obscure, unnatural noises is difficult to say, but it is done so successfully. The feeling, for instance, in the touching melodies of 'The Other Day We Thought Of Our Friends' is quite evident, in the bathtime evocation of 'Super Deformed', and even more so in final track, which even smells and feels like a drawn-out, modern-world goodbye, 'The Last Train'.

That the album should carry a name that is a portmanteau of Kidkanevil and Daisuke Tanabe says as much about the sound therein; it the work of neither artist, it's the work of both, together: it's Kidsuke and it's lovely. Stream it all below.

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Kidsuke // Twitter / SoundCloud / Bandcamp
Daisuke Tanabe // Facebook / Twitter / SoundCloud
Kidkanevil // Facebook / Twitter / SoundCloud / YouTube / Bandcamp / Official site