If minimal were to be unbound from the regards of electronica sensibility, dipped in the deep well of minimal classical reshaped as a narrative soundtrack, you may start to have an inkling as to the sound of Messenger. The construction of the sound utalises piano, violin, viola (Utaka Fujiwara), and cello and voice alongside the electronic touches, displays, effects and manipulations. Recorded and mixed by Takahiro Kido in a form simultaneously dense and sparse. The layers of sound often patterned in minimal form, gather and weave lush landscapes to the point where the sense of discrete variation as motif of form dissipates in dense layers. It is unlikely that the intricacy of Films as an act exists outside the studio in any meaningful way, although as an ensemble piece it would likely itself performed as chamber music, which if stripped of its historical context and re-imagined in a contemporary setting may indeed amount to the same audience and inclination.
Moving quickly past the prologue lands you in ‘Water Horse’, where cyclic wisp like vocals drenched in decay overlie piano patterns repeating with touches of variations and glitched out flourishes. It is dizzingly beautiful, a classical psychedelic merry-go-round with quite a nod to John Cage. Then ‘Liz and Lilly’, which has a seeming echo of ‘House of the Rising Sun’ in its melodic construct, yet completely abstracted with bright and muffled wafting vocals, piano and electronics as bright glockenspiel sounds with scratched out record ephemera. ‘Little Forest’ plays deep into the classical minimalism; motif, repeat, develop, layer and unfold. The said form pierced by interludes and harmonic overture only to be finished with dissolving sing-song moving the form closer to a imagining. ‘I’m sleeping under a dead tree’ is the long player on the album, an entrancing mixture of vibraphone and layered vocal intonations. The vibraphone is high in the mix and sharp, the layer of vocals a mix between childlike and waif siren. Then in the midst of the track a change to minimal phrase and building of layers of strings then vocal and vibraphone, all swirling around the central pattern.
This album is quite a lush affair, informed from differing angles of electronica, classical and minimal music. The general air of accomplished construction and performance will aid Films in a comfortable obscurity that only perhaps the form of their name could alleviate.
Innerversitysound
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