Japanese filmmaker Yasujiro Ozu has never so much tried to express his own thoughts as he has endeavored to help clarify those of others. Hitokomakura, a double cd comprising thirty-one tracks, may be taken as reciprocation, as a counter-gift or sacrifice on the part of the artists involved. Steve Roden, Keith Berry, Bernhard Gunter, Taku Sugimoto, and Toshiya Tsunoda, amongst a welter of others, each select a ‘pillow shot’ by Ozu, view the remainder of the film, and then fashion a work which portrays and carefully brings into clarity the particular investments underlying the sublime scene in question.
The work thus stands as a a tribute and a festive challenge. That each artist took pains to respect the structure of each shot is evident enough, but in reflecting on the scenes in such an undistorted manner, characteristics of a personal sort seep through its pores and challenge the listener to reflect upon the ever-changing relation of this filmmaker to present-day society.
A concern with sound and sonic relationships abounds. While flirting with silence, Bernhard Gunter keeps the music mobile, leading the listener through a succession of warm, often delicate, acoustic states. On a similar wave-length, Taku Sugimoto has full, harmonically rich piano notes ease ever-so gently into one another, until the piece comes to partake in a rumination on still, seemingly neutral spaces, a common theme in Ozu’s works.
Asides from compositions of an electro-acoustic bent, the album canvasses a good many other forms, from minimalism to sound art, and it does so with remarkable naturalness and lack of contrivance, stressing the communicative aspects linking all of these poles. One is left with a simplicity of construction and presentation which has an elegant way of being open to interpretation.
Max Schaefer
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