Despite the credibility afforded by recent hipster forays into wispy synth doodles, new age music remains a problematic area to explore. For all the Emeralds and Ducktails there are George Winstons and Deep Forests, who shift countless more units. Few young turks are brave enough to dive headlong into new age’s ethereal waters, wussing out and muddying up their experiments with low-fi recording strategies, spooky field recordings and releasing on cassette. Tokyo duo Polar Chalors keep an equal distance through different means, their woozy pieces crisply recorded on hi-fi CD, in thrall to a confused vision of Eno’s Fourth World ethno-fusion.
On opener ‘Polar Chalors’ we get child-like twinkling and a boomy choir preset all straight from the can while David Sandborn soundalike Sinsuke Fujieda draws sax lines alongside marimba plonks. Various gear shifts recall a lite kind of fusion, incorporating kooky Moog solos, bent notes and bongos, like a jazzed out James Ferraro. Elsewhere ‘2’ introduces Balearic acid rhythms caked in synthesised bong smoke, ‘3’ a kind of tinned throat singing and ‘4’ a pitched-up didgeridoo, so most world styles a covered, but the whole retains a diluted and washed out taste, like a mall food court, with little sense of individuality or purpose remaining.
Joshua Meggitt
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