SYNAPSE - Raw

A trio with impressive potential: Aki Onda, Haco, Ikue Mori.

Three of the finest artists Japan has ever produced.

The first remains one of the gurus of the Japanese electronic scene and beyond. He contributes to a myriad of artists (among others Tujiko Noriko, manning the mixer during the recording of "From Tokyo To Niagara") and produces a wide range of other works, confirming himself as an all-round artist, free of any limits of genre or inspiration. As for his solo output, worth noting is that ambient-noise masterpiece "Precious Moments".

Haco is a girl of perfect, imaginative features. A myriad of acronyms, an impressive versatility of output. Mescaline a Go-Go, View Masters, Hoahio, some of her artistic pseudonyms. Not to be forgotten is her personal masterpiece: "Happiness Proof". If you've overlooked her, there's only one thing to do: catch up.

Ikue Mori needs no special introduction. A self-taught drummer in history first, a wizard of laptop music later. Take a bow.

"Raw" is a dark work. Deep. Not exactly easy to absorb. It's built on elusive sounds. Timbral souls that are aloof and resistant to easy approach. A jumble of jagged, skittering, animated, restless notes. A flaying plunge into a shore with an oppressive air, sulfurous mists, veiled explosions, blurred horizons.

"Moonshadow in Cuba" is a continuous bouncing of aleatory sounds, disjointed voices, cavernous timbres, undulating schizophrenias for haunting moments. Pauses and a continuous unraveling of rhythm leave silence with moments of pure sonic madness.

"Soap Bubble" is a composition in which a classic folk-song is bastardized by sharp, disturbing noise interventions, subterranean drones lend the atmosphere a mystical quality, vocal outlines are altered as if they were the echo of a being tormented by unspeakable pains. Microscopic acoustic details interfere, only on the surface.

The following "Red And Green" is a detached voice reciting its mystical mass. Delirious blasts of noise tear our senses in two, sudden spikes from a calm volume, decaying synths shred without caution, a myriad of dust motes intrude everywhere.

"Morning Song" is the steady rhythm before a beheading. A percussive beat of arcane origin, metallic trinkets, digital lacerations, clandestine phrases, gusts of a freezing wind. A horrific execution is close at hand. Sonic serpents slither with noxious speed, unchecked. Thrilling interruptions, the fluttering journey of a solitary timbre, mischievous bleeps escape in every direction, impossible to catch.

"Mabataki" is infectious, wicked, and shatters our capacity to understand. As the seconds pass, the word that gives the track its title is repeated, on different planes of execution, dismembered and torn apart. Little else, from an interpretive standpoint. Around it, a raving whirlwind of digital filth, hisses, clicks, noises, sprawling souls, convulsions of a machine programmed to generate wrong sounds.

"Howling Pot" is a good two minutes in which one enjoys a constant interweaving of wandering counterpoints, touches of a stripped-down string instrument, pestering games in which concrete notes are destabilized, hopelessly.

"White Dreams" is pure madness once again. There's no semblance of regularity, screams of a male voice in an epileptic fit, a random beat that never stops, digital manipulations of every kind. Slashing strokes, unstable, halting rhythms, disjointed phrases. Pure fantasy, a divertissement for crazy little minds.

"Diamond Dust" calms the waters slightly, where a shifted dreaminess creates an enveloping mood, dazzling atmospheres, distracting sensations, a few sonic ghosts painting a pleasantly gruff undercurrent.

"Jumon" stays in line with the previous tracks, adding small variations, like a jumble of unfamiliar percussion, tiny voices reciting barely perceptible phrases. A guitar of seemingly genuine character strums away carefree, oblivious to what's happening around it.

"Mirror Room" is seven minutes of pure sonic frustration. It's like watching a despot ordering his subjects to destroy everything. Bursts, explosions, screams, suffering, jarring missiles of sonic light, the setting for a cursed tomb infested with unwatchable creatures.

"Rappa" closes things out amid the crashing of a boulder on the surface of our mind, little bells announce the start of an epoch-making war, animalistic disturbances leave us stunned.

The usual Tzadik record, nothing added, nothing lost. The usual imaginative blend of a musical spirit, a tradition, experimental in nature. Sometimes the sounds are slightly out of focus and poorly calibrated. Other times, as in this case, the result is undoubtedly memorable. A record where the sum of its individual parts alone would have made for a decent work, but the trio's artistic cohesion does the rest.

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30/04/2026