Gutevolk - Winter sketches of glitch-pop

Behind the moniker Gutevolk hides Hirono Nishiyama, an angel fallen from the sky to brighten our lonely days with her essential, fragile, breakable, delicate songs. Her music is a delightful hybrid of old, well-worn instruments: manipulations from a machine with a beating heart, a barely-whispered voice, the chimes of almost insubstantial percussion. At times it recalls the Múm of "Finally We Are No One", at others it sounds like a cross between Icy Demos, Textile Ranch and a mix of Juana Molina, Zavoloka and Piana.

Her albums are little vignettes for hearts chilled by a freezing winter. Colourful pralines hopping through an imaginary world made of colours, cotton-candy trees, chocolate houses. Dry leaves falling from a tree, giving off microscopic, imperceptible sounds.

Her career began in 1997, when she composed the soundtrack for a self-produced film. That same year she wrote the lyrics and music for a song used in an advertising campaign for Lion Brand, a hair-products company. Again for commercial purposes, she lent her voice, this time to Yokohama Tire.

Besides her commercial work, Hirono also featured, with one of her songs, on the compilation "Childisc Vol.2", released on Childisc, the label owned by Nobukazu Takemura.

In 1999 she released her first album under her own name, Yura Yura Yureru, and went on to appear again in Childisc compilations, alongside four other Japanese artists.

That same year, the collaboration with Takemura grew closer, and together they presented a concert by one Arto Lindsay on Japanese soil.

Keeping his close ties with Nobukazu intact, Nishiyama continued to contribute to the latter's work, writing and singing a few tracks on the dazzling "Songbook", one of the Japanese artist's most compelling works.

Worth noting, in that same year, 2000, were two opening sets, for Jim O'Rourke and Yo La Tengo respectively, once again on the shores of the Land of the Rising Sun.

Her solo career kept up its relentless pace with the release of two more works in 2001.

The first is titled Kaisentou Ep and again features Takemura's assistance.

The second is called Pied And Pier and serves as the prelude to a label change: from Childisc to Daisyworld.

More fleeting appearances followed on the compilation "Liberation Von History", released by the German label Wechsel Garland; then, again for that same label, she took part in the "Karaoke Kalk" event (2002).

Her debut full-length, The Humming Of Tiny People, is a long fairy tale in which an acoustic temperament blends delightfully with digital treatments. The Japanese vocals are the detail that lends an extra touch of sweetness, embroidering small, imaginative poems.

Where "Musical Balloon" melts the heart with the warble of a swaying synth and a skipping gait, "Rainy Dragoon" darkens the mood with a space-bossa nova swagger, topped by precise, fastidious counterpoints, a solemn piano and metallic sounds. "Dream Fish" is dreamy dream-pop in which one seems to glimpse a cradle gently rocking, while "Yume-Kitan" is a little story, spoken and told, surrounded by a jubilant chime of xylophones.

"Arrested" is a carefully crafted piece of minimal-pop, while "Coquille" offers vocals in French, amid violin spasms, playful percussion and a plucked cello.

Minutes of pure peace drift by in the company of "Hinagiku", while fantastical landscapes are conjured with "Strange Dream". "See You Tomorrow" is a shy song that only reveals itself after repeated listens, and "Voice In A Pool" is pop fused with foreign noises, which in turn mould themselves to the song form.

In the period following the making of this record, Hirono immersed herself in reading the rhymes of Mother Goose, an influence that would shape the gestation of Twinkle, the album released in 2005. Around the same time, she lent her voice to an NHK Television show, for the song "Bi To Deau". "Music Baloon", featured on her debut album, was meanwhile used for an ice-cream commercial ("Lottle Ice Cream").

Gutevolk has collaborated with various artists to fruitful effect, and presents her compositions accompanied by visual performances.

We arrive (in 2003) at an (unjustly) forgotten little gem, Suomi.

A music box for elves, music for a carousel standing in a deserted meadow, amid gusts of wind and rays of light. "Horizonto" is a cello played with conviction, piano notes distant and detached, vocals like a yearning sigh, a weave of strings, electronic crackle spraying colour into the air. "Hajimete No Yuki" is pop laced with injections of fantasy, a small sketch with childlike, infantile features. Counterpoints scamper about everywhere, a percussion line keeps time like a little march, and Hirono sings as if she were a fluttering fairy.

"Parallel Land" is the soundtrack to a dark forest, where cicadas sing, animals scatter in every direction and leaves are trodden underfoot. A piano plays something melancholy, a wind instrument sounds tired and sickly, tiny electronic motes settle gently on the walls of our mind. "Clock Waltz" is jazz played in low fidelity. A little bossa nova for deserted, desolate venues. The instrumental backing is in obvious contrast with the rest of the arrangement, creating constant sonic paradoxes.

"Travel Of Rain" is again a blend of various acoustic instruments: piano, cello, double bass. Simplicity in the service of beauty. The notes seem to come from every corner and slip away with a mischievous little smile. "Snow Flake" is a howling synth, keys pressed down, caressed percussion, suppressed voices. Delightful.

Then come fleeting appearances on two compilations of pop craftsmanship of the highest order.

On the first, "The Compilation Of Daisy Creatures" (on Daisyworld Discs), Hirono contributes "Coquille", a slight, vulnerable little sketch. Also in particularly fine form are musicians such as Swing Slow, Eater, Takagi Masakatsu and Miharu Koshi.

On the second, he enriches a fantastic compilation, "Let's Sing in Do-Re-Mi" (on 333 Discs), with the opening track "Scale Song", digital abstractions for an imaginary of disturbed song form. Also worth noting are Moosehill ("Goro Ito") & Ikuko Harada ("Clammbon"), Ren Takada, Ogurusu Norihide (yes, the one behind "Come And Play In Our Backyard") and Emerson Kitamura.

So we come to Twinkle (2005), the record mentioned earlier.

The songs are as pure and simple as an autumn landscape, as warm and reassuring as a house with a crackling fire, heating up the atmosphere.

"Twinkle Star's Cycling Bolero" burrows into our insides and settles there with a numbing pleasantness. An instrument that sounds like a double bass is looped, Hirono's little voice is sweeter than ever, the xylophones are as crystalline as a flawless diamond, the drums do their job, embroidering percussive patterns of rare beauty. Meticulous bleeps are the icing on the cake. "Light Parade" is an obsessive keyboard note repeated to infinity, over which sonic cycles and watery beats overlap: the flow of a river in its bed, in its calmest stretch.

"Little Girl, Little Star" is an instrumental that has the flavour of indie-tronica, but it's much more than that: piano scales, loops, notes from a vintage keyboard, and once again drums that seem to set the pace for a war fought with water pistols, rifles loaded with sweets and cannons firing candy floss. "Silo" is an unfinished sketch, caught between metallic comings and goings, discarded notes and drawn-out refrains. The scant two minutes of "Moonlakers" enrich the formula with flutes and ferrous clangs that have the feel of compositional completeness.

"Wondering" is a finely embroidered little gem. Strings give off crystalline, precious notes, a little voice speaks to us with these words: "Let me know and more than rest, let it talk and more than there". Electronic tears rip apart a steady rhythm, an electronic drum machine is tender and delicate, a synth comes alive, fizzing away, and it's the blue sky opening up before us.

A handful of songs that could be a lullaby fit to send you off to sleep with a smile, a way of consoling your broken hearts, encouragement after a painful disappointment.

At the start of 2007, Gutevolk presents his new solo work, Tiny People Singing Over The Rainbow.

The shift marked by the previous record takes concrete shape here, in this handful of songs with light, soft-edged traits. Greater attention to the arrangements makes the individual tracks richer and fuller-bodied, without weighing down the delicate melodic structures, which remain, as ever, finely drawn.

"Portable Rain" casts a spell like Gutevolk had rarely managed before, a small fable coloured into the sky with bright felt-tip pens. Raindrops are embodied by the xylophone, while the voice, tactfully reverbed, lends the overall atmosphere a pleasantly disorienting feel.

"Dream Walzer" follows the same starry path, adding quiet piano notes, small electronic tears and drumming with a vaguely jazzy flavour. This nod to such a distant genre had already appeared in another work, "Suomi", where, at certain points, pop elements were even hybridised with bossa nova, achieving an unusual and wholly original result.

Even more sweetness, even more playfulness. With "This Moon Following Me" we're immersed in the vaguely childlike, intense atmosphere that blankets the whole record. It sounds like the soundtrack to a fairytale dream, free from any obsession or fear that might contaminate the peaceful ecstasy deliberately evoked here. "Seed Of Sky" is the clearest example of what's just been said. A breezy ballad, filled with a myriad of percussion, including a xylophone that plays the role of enchanter, its crystalline notes as limpid as dew. And then there's the voice, like the singing of an angel, guitar in arms, cymbals struck with restrained force, a faint tinkling that seems to appear everywhere, like the glow of a wandering star.

"I Like Rainbow" is a charming little instrumental vignette, featuring various orchestral elements, including a battered organ and some strings. A child's voice, lost in watching the night sky lit by the moon, adds just enough innocence to make the song's four minutes irresistible.

"Ao To Kuro" sets off in a spare, essential manner, unfolding along sinuous lines, enriched by a few elements, in particular a "ta-ra-ta-ta-ra-ra" repeated in the background, nimble as it moves through the foundations, quick to go straight to the heart, the catalyst of every emotion.

"The Door To Everywhere" raises the tempo slightly, launching into a frenzied episode with a clear pop stamp and an unstoppable drive; "Planetarium" positions itself as the twin of "Seed Of Sky", with everything that implies, namely a grasp on the blue sky, with a thread of light carving a gap between one cloud and the next.

"Sing A Ring" is the somewhat naive sublimation of all the musical elements contained here. A distracted melody, willing to embrace as many influences as possible, straddling iciness and intimate warmth, amateurish touches and production perfection. Still present, in a more essential form, is the percussion already praised earlier for its emotional effectiveness.

The closing "Antenna" bids farewell with the freshest, most innocent five minutes of the record, waving an imaginary little hand. Words that make up a story, marking the end of a journey through a paradise painted by children, lit by a sun scribbled by small, graceful hands, rays of light shining gold, rainbows made up of shades tending toward the brilliant.

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