AOKI TAKAMASA + TUJIKO NORIKO - 28

Two Japanese souls meet, covering the space of estrangement with meaning. Aoki Takamasa and Tujiko Noriko join forces in an unexpected partnership.

The former remains an indelible figure in Japanese (world?) electronic music. Albums like "Silicom", "Quantum" and the latest (splendid) "Simply Funk" open the door to infinite, unpredictable, alluring solutions — the sunny flavor of a soul behind almond-shaped eyes. The latter is as tender in outward appearance as she is angular and meticulous in her music. She merges the female Japanese vocal style (generally quite endearing) with mechanical distortions, achieving an altered take on song form. "From Tokyo To Naiagara" is her best album. Celestial is an understatement: Japanese technological savvy fused with innate sweetness. This album is the result of over three years of hard-won, difficult collaboration, arriving at a pleasing union of female vocal samples, pure and icy juxtapositions, flowing textures, meticulous de-humanized interventions, touches that are painful and pleasurable at once.

Aoki and Tujiko began working together in 2002, in the context of "The Cartier Foundation" event in Paris. They started talking, exchanging impressions, imagining sonic fragments even before meeting in person. They composed "Fly 2" and came to appreciate each other's way of working. They carried on and decided to get serious — a full-length album, ultimately. As mentioned, their professional union was not an easy one: he is permanently based in Osaka, while she has been seduced by the irresistible aesthetics of Paris. They worked long-distance, sending each other material, dreaming of a future, capturing sounds, smiling, gazing at the same sun and the same moon from thousands of kilometres apart. This distance inevitably led to a very long gestation period — one that was partly shortened when Aoki moved to Paris in 2003.

"28" has the sinuousness of a magic record. We're about to enter an unknown, dark world. Grainy images, unreachable sounds, undefinable horizons, alien sensations. Movement seems impossible — stillness both forced and dreamed of. Stretching out in a field of colored hydrangeas, the sky both distant and close, rustling leaves scratching at a stifling silence.

A contagious loop sets the dream in motion. "Fly 2" resonates in the ears (best listened to with headphones), and peace reigns supreme. Muffled glitches settle onto the fertile ground of the mind like autumn leaves: barely detached, they glide gently to earth. Tujiko begins uttering words and the atmosphere is complete. Sweet sonic counterpoints proliferate as if breeding among themselves. Perceptual joy.

A gentle brushstroke sketch painted in "Vinyl Words". A curved line, as if representing the sun's reflected rays, is traced by a frothy, graceful voice. Small touch-ups, represented by mechanical tangles, emerge from the brush of our imaginary painter. The wind is depicted through the frequent intervention of a synth, as if to lend a sense of movement to the piece. Skittering little creatures are sketched by a sly drum machine that struggles to find the beat, before eventually settling in and leaving its mark. Overlapping vocals continue to sketch the sky, the clouds, the invisible air. Sonic grime adds a rough touch to the picture.

A shadowy atmosphere introduces the following "When The Night Comes" — that is, when night is on its way. Night falls and the tones grow corrupted. The words uttered feel detached from context, reluctantly cast out from the center of the sonic tornado. Haunting grains of sand blanket the background. A flow interrupts the initial structure, like a gust sweeping away a pile of newspapers left on the side of a dark street. The tones turn claustrophobic, insistent. Just two keyboard notes form the foundation — ground composed and structured on heavenly irregularities, a construction built on destabilized acoustics. The ceiling is marked by volume peaks and moments of absolute silence. The sky, again, sketched by the voice, growing ever more evanescent. Cyclically repeated choruses complete the piece, lending it a touch of architectural originality.

Breaths and crackles. Dust motes and gusts. Stomps and notes: the introduction to "Doki Doki Last Night". A vocal tone in hysterical crisis peeks through. A solitary keyboard mark forms a disturbing drone. Tujiko, tiptoeing, defines every single corner with meticulous precision, leaving nothing to chance. An almost imperceptible creak soils these corners with an abnormal delicacy. A sugary languor coats the aura of "Fly-Variation", variations on the theme of flight. Stars illustrated by unrecognizable xylophones, clouds depicted by shimmering spatial timbres. Wings move with inhuman grace, causing massive shifts. Drum crashes mark altitude instability, unrecognizable gestures suggest the flutter of moving limbs. The flight proceeds without much difficulty and lands with overflowing happiness and unattainable beauty.

An insistent mechanical percussion introduces the contagious groove of "26th Floor". Frightened voices form the foundation. Vocal convulsions enter with numerous overlaps, in clear contrast with the cheerful, carefree tone of the words and the prickly, sullen aesthetic of the musical backdrop. Frightened phrases, agitation, fear, anxiety, terror: musical composition for the dark hours of a rainy Japanese afternoon on the twenty-sixth floor of a disreputable penthouse. Angular bleeps and a sea of rubbish stimulate the ears and lead them to paradise. You can almost hear the relentless rain falling.

The odd one out (so to speak) takes shape with "Alien", which turns out not to be so alien after all. An (apparently) regular pace and a more stable structure compared to the previous compositions. The usual carpet shaped by countless stardust particles, and a fake percussion sketches a rhythm believed to be steady. Loops repeatedly haunt the atmosphere, making it unbreathable. Hopeless.

The album is rounded off by that slice of sonic restlessness that is "NOLICOM". Disparate acoustic instruments are sampled, infiltrated and dismembered, only to be (re)inserted afterward, disfigured. An immensity of sounds invades the mind with no way out. Tujiko adorns and enriches it with infinitesimal vocal timbres. Annoying, mischievous intrusions scamper along as it unfolds, faint counterpoints sketch the outline, and the voice seals the ending with heartrending words.

In conclusion, one of the finest glitch-pop albums released in recent years, comparable only to the (master)works of Agf and O. Lamm. A work that seems untouched by the frenzy of the record market, thanks in part to its long and carefully architected gestation. An album for sparkling eyes, discerning ears, and a pure soul.

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30/04/2026