OBA MASAHIRO
Prot
PGT04
Symbolic Interaction 2008
09 Tracks. 45mins39secs

Staunch pastiche’s accrue in Oba Masahiro’s debut effort Prot and swiftly erode, enabling him to build out from a zero point with renewed vitality.  A grating swirl of heavily processed sound surfaces at first, with keyboard and percussion putatively detectable in the mix, occasional sunbursts of cymbal breaking through.  Masahiro then bleaches and reduces the same basic palette in a long, breezy susurrus that seems to have no obvious limits or durational boundaries; you’re just a part of it and then it’s over.  And when it is, there’s a surprise, since the ensuing work begins under a grey sky where piano notes unravel and spool on the floor in a tinkling heap.

Masahiro continues to explore this vein, Flit giving the piano chords an amniotic cushion of digital echo while Oeil suspends his lines in a clanging tank of whale-like moaning.  Such variation can be seen as a conscious effort on the part of Masahiro to prevent the work from being lumped in with any of the fads surrounding the warmer sides of experimental electronica.  He deserves stronger approbation, however, as the music enticingly bypasses disturbance and reestablished balance and achieves a constant state of renewal.

It’s abrupt adjustments are thus calm, without an end in sight, and yet of a certain rigorous necessity.  After the segment of sparse piano, the music remains full of unexpected dynamic shifts and resonances, from the powdery dryness of minimal clicks and spurts to the strong though muffled beats of an absent party.  On the evidence of these pieces, Masahiro appears as a source of a unique and endlessly interesting musical approach.

3.7/5

Oba Masahiro (MySpace) | Symbolic Interaction

RUDI ARAPAHOE
Echoes From One To Another
SIC015
Symbolic Interaction 2008
12 Tracks. 49mins58secs

Wide open spaces, delicate and precise soundscaping and moving atmospherics all define this somewhat mysterious and haunting delivery from Japanese imprint Symbolic Interaction. The fruit of the labour of Rudi Arapahoe, Echoes From One To Another is an ambitious piece of work on more than one level. Inspired by Dante Alighieri’s fourteenth century epic poem The Divine Comedy, which takes the narrator through the various stages of the afterlife as seen by Christians at the time, the album, which stretches over fifty minutes, is in itself a stunning and memorable journey through stark atmospheric textures and emotions.

Describing himself as a composer, sound artist and storyteller in equal measures, Arapahoe is credited here for concept, sound design, field recordings and ‘antique electronics’, and is supported by a host of additional musicians contributing piano, guitar, harp, violin, synths and vocal performances. While utterly difficult to sum up in just a few words, Echoes From One To Another evokes at time the medieval brushes of Dead Can Dance circa Aion or the cinematic melancholy of Max Richter’s The Blue Notebooks for instance, yet it reaches beyond any genre and define a space very much its own.

Right from the opening moments of I Close My Eyes And Float To The Ceiling, with its flickering harp whirlwinds which momentarily gather into tight molecular formations, the listener is drawn into a world of sweeping beauties, dense emotions and spiritual undertones. Delicate melodies sip through the pores of Ahapahoe’s elegant sound formations to concentrate into wonderfully ephemeral emotional sequences. Shrouded in vast ambient clouds, alive with found sounds and sonic details, the compositions, while very much individual, ripple endlessly as newer pieces are introduced, creating a radiating impression which gives this album its multi-faceted appearance. Whether through the meditative vocals of To Gather Flowers and Echoes From One To Another, the quietly uplifting soundwaves of Dionysian Bird, the crystalline melodic droplets of Every Time I Sleep or the romanticism of Conversation Piece and Last Words Unspoken, each new track, scattered with found sound residue, seem to add a layer of humanity and reinforce the overall tone of the record.

It is impossible to do Echoes From One To Another any favour in just a few words, such is the scope of the project and the mastery of the execution, and one can only partially lift the veil on a piece of work which keeps on revealing new facets with each new listen. Rudi Arapahoe may still be an unfamiliar name, but with such a strong, impressive and fascinating record under his belt, he should soon gain the respect he deserves.

4.8/5

Rudi Arapahoe (MySpace) | Symbolic Interaction

IZUMI MISAWA
Speaking Behind The Raindrops
SIC007
Symbolic Interaction 2008
10 Tracks. 43min45secs

Izumi Misawa stirs the atmosphere with hypnotic suggestion whereby vibration, tremors, repetition – whether of a musical rhythm or a spoken phrase – and special tone colors affect the mind through various levels of pressure on the senses.  These cycles of wistful instrumental sketches and flights of elytra often seem innocent enough, and even seem caught in the web of a giddy eclecticism, but the mood is one of serendipity, and the impassioned whirling is not without its justifications.

The tracks are of a patient, unhurried, un-mechanized mind.  A frenetic succession of scratched fragments cracks the proceedings open before a lurching procession of wobbly, spasmodic beats settles them down, at which point they are wedded to beatific textures, shimmering keyboards and disparate shards of found sound that provide moments of dizzying disruption.

Further tracks are of equal assurance, with ample sonic events both playful and distinctive.  This veritable kaleidoscope of mushrooming textures, found sound, and heavily treated instrumentation is a hand by no means seldom played, yet Misawa makes its flaccid, fixed gesture break slowly around an oftentimes convincing discontinuity of expression.  Misawa not only moves from fractured, digitally processed and suggestive fragments to more fully formed, organic pieces of music with a steady hand, but in his endless shifts in emphasis and instrumentation, spreads a good deal of life into them while, at odd moments, also transforming these respective realms through a process of overlapping and augmentation that has something ritualistic about it.  At times there’s not much purpose behind the sounds, but Misawa undoubtedly has an ear for transforming gentle patterings and unhinged minutia into richly plated constructs perched tantalizingly between naivety and complexity.

3/5

Izumi Misawa | Symbolic Interaction

LOWRIDERS DELUXE
Future Deluxe
SICO11
Symbolic Interaction 2008
11 Tracks. 57mins48secs

Ten years in the making, this debut Lowriders Deluxe release sees long-term friends Mark Streatfield, Joseph Auer, Simon Thomas and Clive Burns collaborate on a full length release for the first time. London-based Streatfield and Chicago-born Auer, who, having spent part of his life travelling the world, has now settled down in Tokyo, founded the excellent Rednetic imprint in 2002 and have since continuously delivered some of the finest electronic music around. Both have also released countless solo EPs and albums, the former as Zainetica and, more recently, Cyan 341, and the latter under his own name. Simon Thomas is also a regular on Rednetic as Utility Player, whilst Clive Burns is best known as the guitarist with alternative outfit Deep Valley Orgasm.

Lowriders Deluxe takes these four away from their usual respective grounds and into a series of elegant ambient pieces reminiscent in part of the lush sonic landscapes of early Orb, Global Communication or Future Sound Of London mixed with hints of classic Warp or early Rephlex electronica. Released on Japanese imprint Symbolic Interaction, the CD is housed in a rather moody cover which fits the tone of the album perfectly. Assembling rich textures and smooth soundscapes into warm melodic compositions, Lowriders Deluxe create here a series of sumptuous atmospheric soundscapes which are deployed over eleven tracks, totalling just under an hour of dreamy music. While Streatfield and Auer are in charge of keyboards, the former adding treated percussions, Thomas and Burns are primarily credited for guitar work. It is however quite difficult to isolate conventional guitar textures from the ever-changing electronic sound waves which form most of the backdrop throughout, but, on Autumn Sunset, the dense clouds at times lift to reveal ephemeral guitar elements.

Although evolving in an overall ambient format, the pace occasionally picks up and the band find themselves on the verge of more radical techno, especially on Futura Industria and Chrome Yellow. These remain however elegant in execution and consistent with the rest of the album, and soon Lowriders Deluxe return to beautiful textural compositions such as Lost Probe, Autumn Sunset No. 2 or the closing Text 4. Opening piece Ultraviolet also builds on tightly woven patterns which seem to interact with each other and evolve in a variety of directions all at once, while sounding incredibly tight and controlled, and the soft tones and warm soundscapes of Offworld Colonies, which follows, prove to be one of the highlights of the album.

With this first album, Lowriders Deluxe have create a masterful classic ambient record which avoids every single trap of the genre and makes the most of the vast musical scope of each of the four members. Feeling at once truly modern and hinting at some of the most haunting ambient of the last fifteen years, this magnificent collection shouldn’t be missed.

4.6/5

Lowriders Deluxe (MySpace) | Symbolic Interaction