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06'01 |
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AOKI TAKAMASA |
Second volumes in the Silicom series, the new album by Aoki Takamasa compiles more of the music created for the live shows. The highly technological settings shaped by Takamasa are minimalist in essence. Very much like with his first album, Takamasa weaves delicate artificial sounds into intricate organic structures, creating lightly balanced soundscapes, supported by complex beats. Very much like on recordings by Autechre or Monolake, and regardless of the diversity of genres, the extreme abstraction of the compositions doesn’t get in the way of their inherent beauty, as the focus is very much on the actual ambience of the piece more than on its technological inputs. By developing atmospheric idioms, Takamasa constantly regenerates his basic expressive outlines, avoiding distancing himself from his audience, or his purpose. Silicom 2 dwells in more deconstructed shapes than its predecessor. If Mry, Sluc or Worb recall the linear low key techno of Chain Reaction artists, the rest of the album appears slightly more extreme and convoluted, highlighting the evolution of the Silicom project, and the very close link existing between the visual and auditory elements of the work. Silicom 2 is however very much a stand-alone production and doesn’t require Takagi’s creations to work perfectly. The environmental perception of the musical component of the work, although acting as support during live performances, is developed exactly to operate independently.
Silicom 2 expands further the sonic experimentations started by Aoki on the first album in the series. The music has gained in organic impulses as it approaches maturity. If proper melodic structures are relatively rare here, Takamasa Aoki compensates by initiating some incredibly dense soundscapes, leaving the listener with a curious impression that machines have finally dominated men to produce strangely emotional pieces of music.
| 01 | Ope | 07 | Pimo |
| 02 | Remo | 08 | Stdt |
| 03 | Monc | 09 | Sluc |
| 04 | Mry | 10 | Worb |
| 05 | Sorc | 11 | Neuger |
| 06 | Nod |
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12'01 |
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AOKI TAKAMASA
Silicom (PFC1) Progressive Form 2001 11 Tracks. 71mins52secs. |
When released in Japan, this album received praise from the press for its cutting edge approach to sound structures and forms. Takamasa’s compositions are minimalist in shape. Using only a few sound sources at a time, each track is a complex formation of noises arranged around central beat configurations, sometimes running in parallel, as to generate density from extremely basic components, on which microscopic melodies are furtively anchored. Set somewhere between Mille Plateaux-style arid clicks and the more hypnotic ambiences of releases from Chain Reaction or Basic Channel, Silicom offers a series of twelve assertive soundscapes, as enigmatic as their titles suggest, and challenges the mind by its constant technological abstractions. From the deconstructed beats of Jung 25 or Exp.2 to the linear patterns of Ham or Kes and the atmospheric calm of Exp, Takamasa explores the frontier between classic electronica and electro-acoustic as he create intense organic moments. Using mostly percussive, often metallic, noises, as main architectural feature, he builds thick sine wave clouds in the background, introducing other elements at irregular intervals, even playing with human voices on Vos and Rec. It is easy to imagine the correlation that this work has with visual installations, and the technological impact that they cast over each other.
Silicom is an incredibly interesting record. Takamas takes some unusual paths to create the soundtrack for Masakazu Tagaki’s work, using intricate sounds and beat patterns to produce dense atmospheres, and abstraction to create substance.
| 01 | Std | 07 | Nuron |
| 02 | Jung 25 | 08 | Gar |
| 03 | Sin | 09 | Kes |
| 04 | Ham | 10 | Vos |
| 05 | Exp.2 | 11 | Rec |
| 06 | Exp |