AKI TSUYUKO - Hokane

Being able to enchant, nowadays, is no easy feat

simplistic, nor predictable. Aki Tsuyuko manages it instead, with every release. Her

music hovers somewhere between earth and paradise, a web of sweet,

soft sounds, a watercolor painted in the most vivid, effervescent colors.

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Her aim is to craft a dreamlike atmosphere using just a handful of elements,

chiseling out a melody that goes beyond mere musical entertainment,

transcending sound itself and capturing mind and soul, with tones

that are deliciously fragile and childlike.

The angel capable of these wonders

was discovered in her time by Nobukazu Takemura, one of the most

important artists on the entire Japanese scene, the author of albums with an unmistakable

harmonic flair (“10th”, “Child And Magic”). He produces several of Aki's singles,

aware of her artistic worth, borrows her voice for various

productions and, no small matter, takes the young woman along with him around the

world on his tours, in the role of video-maker.

Aki's formative process

was a very intense one, starting with organ studies

in early adolescence (in her hometown, Gifu), then drawn in by the visual arts,

she develops and refines various performances that blend sound and

image, both at home and beyond Japan's borders.

Precisely in 2000, Jim O'Rourke noticed the worth of this

artist, and reissued her first fully instrumental album,

“Ongakushitsu”, released on Mokai. A work that shines with a light all its own,

a soft, playful tangle made of fluttering electronic droplets,

organ notes wandering through space, errant digital spirits with a faint smile

on their lips. The xylophone is the dominant instrument, and it feels like living under a

storm of ethereal rain, face turned toward the garden of earthly

delights.

It's 2006, and along comes “Hokane”, an album released on the authoritative

American label Thrill Jockey.

Structured differently from its

predecessor, the record reveals a dispassionate love for classical art music,

a skillful work of transposing ancient and

traditional sounds that pervades every single composition. Not unlike

the sketches of another electronic-loving girl like Sawako, her vignettes

stand apart without leaving the listener with a sense of déjà entendu, or a

vague bitter aftertaste. This album, as mentioned at the outset, is captivating in

its minimal, gentle approach, through tender, caressing touches.

It opens with a suite, made up of four movements, the enchanting

“Como Suite”. As in “Ongakushitsu”, the predominant instrument was the xylophone,

here it's the organ that takes center stage. A few strings are added, little else, to

produce a little march for lovestruck children. After this introduction,

a pair of sung pieces follow (performed by Aki herself and her brother).

From the sweet pace of “Owlet Hymn”, resting on a lush meadow, we move on

with the muffled male voice of “Bud Of A Song”, a small magical fairy tale.

An aura of beauty envelops these two gems.

A nursery rhyme for dancing

sprites spreads color everywhere (“Dune and Clarinet”), music for an enchanted

forest, sung with a touch of refinement (“Zou and Chou”), the endless and

profound suite, fit for a sunset painted in soft hues (“Aquilo”). And

once more, cradling one's own imaginative thoughts with music composed by an earthly

goddess (“Noel's Organ”), dreaming and traveling, loving and brushing the sky with the

sound of a rushing stream (“Rainbow Train”), bidding farewell to the

paradise, listening to the soundtrack of the return ("Dance At Happy Night").

Once again, from Japan, sonic threads designed to soothe a weary,

shattered soul, heal wounds that come from far away, and settle the body into a

pleasant drowsiness for half an hour of dreams and smiles.

Ride the wave of great music

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18/05/2006