Genre: Ambient / Field Recordings
Tracklist:
01 Luna Sinus
02 Structure of Iki I
03 Sleeping Flow
04 07/07/2005
05 Structure of Iki II
06 Tone Redust
Naoki Ishida’s ambience is indeed to be taken literally, as “Tone Redust” is not some generated sounds mimicking the environment, rather it is the environment. Field recordings are interspersed with loose acoustic instrumentation to simply create a surrounding for the ear to inhabit with. It is not music, nor does the label’s self-imposed “scant fat-free jazz” provide any insight into the album as free jazz is about as jazz as a three year old wailing on his ukulele with a toy soldier. Perhaps the only noun of use from that quotation is “free” and Naoki’s album is indeed a breath of freedom, not hollow by the absence of sound, but complete due to the minimalism invoked. It is an album that is the background. There is nothing memorable other than filling a space which could otherwise be swallowed in silence.
Limning the edges, the atmosphere employs similar tools to create form. Acoustic guitars, sublimely recorded with warmth and resonance, strike odd intervals or gliding chords at seeming random moments against synthesizer that beetles and wends minute organ-like frequencies that laze in the ether. Chimes flutter lightly at times and the crack of a zippo lighter, or something similar, flares unconnectedly. Movement is the sound of shifting, whether people, whether objects it is difficult to discern. They clatter (again gently) with no sequence other than a linear one. Distant conversations are like a school playground blocks away, threaded with sounds of an urban city, a brief draw of further afield cars or trains.
It is all perplexing and incredibly relaxing and quite possibly the type of sound one could happily laze away a Sunday with a book and some time.
The gatefold digipak - in a limited edition of five hundred copies, released in 2006 - is presented in full colour on textured card featuring the childish sketches of Mai Seike, interspersed with abstract typography and a disc garish in primary colours compared to the white and sepia of the album.
