Together with visual artist Masakazu Takagi, Takamasa
Aoki has been defining new boundaries in performing
art with their Silicom project, based on visual
displays and accompanying soundtracks. Expanding from
their regular performances in Kyoto and Japan, the duo
have taken their show all over the world, including
concerts in the US, Germany, France or Turkey.
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.
4.5/5 |
