ILLUHA - Interstices

That the era of microsound has reached its end is well known to anyone who has followed the metamorphoses of some of its leading figures. Stephan Mathieu, Richard Chartier, Taylor Deupree: these three names alone, and their respective embrace of three different takes on ambient music, would be enough to describe the frontier to which that aesthetic has ultimately led.

Deupree, in particular, has pushed toward organic sounds through his own label as well, that 12k which to this day has yet to put a foot wrong, and which has become a reference point for both new names and veterans of atmospheric music.

After the masterpiece "Faint" — perhaps the finest ambient album this decade has produced, at once modern and rooted in tradition — Taylor appears to have developed a passion for a new form, one that embraces microsound from the angle of field recording, effectively creating a meeting point between the latter and the world of organic sound.

Telling in this regard is the latest 12k double release: Deupree's own collaboration with Seaworthy, and the second record by Illuha, the shared creature of the multi-tasking Japanese musician Tomoyoshi Date and German artist Corey Fuller. A delicate, intimate project, in some ways a "minor" entry in both their careers, aimed at an equally small and select audience, as shown by the 500-copy edition in which this "Interstices", their second album following the fine "Shizuku" two years ago, is being released.

Three suites of hinted-at delicacy and torpor come together to form a genuine small jewel of grace and gentleness, set in a nature that is unspoiled yet never wild or dissipated. The twenty-four minutes of "Interstices II" open with a fleeting drizzle, over which a distant guitar is then layered, played through swelling, fluttering reverbs before the entrance of the piano, which weaves together with arpeggios and crackles by the close.

The shorter "Interstices I" takes shape almost entirely from dialogues between synths and electronic microstructures, interspersed with a poem recited in Japanese and recorded in the middle of a forest, amid the flow of a stream and the rustle of leaves stirred by a light wind. The closing sprawl of "Intersices III" runs close to half an hour, cradling the listener in a starry night deep in the woods amid synthetic glimmers, distant echoes and frail chimes.

"Interstices" frames the musical language of nature by spelling out its poetic and organic components, marking yet another high point for the new sounds coming out of 12k. Where the latest, excellent Chris Watson reproduced such sounds and let them evoke images on their own — running the inevitable risk of further narrowing the circle of listeners able to make the most of such a document — Illuha confirm themselves among the most skilled interpreters of that same language in music, this time in the stricter, more traditional sense of the word.

If the capacity to evoke can still be considered — even at the expense of innovation — the most important yardstick for judging ambient music, then here we have a jewel of purity and an act of rare talent and class. One that today rightfully takes its place among the standout gems of 12k's striking catalogue.

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24/07/2013