The music of Japanese born Melbourne resident Ai Yamamoto is gorgeously textured ambient electronics. With beatless vistas of subtly shifting drawn out melodies and tones, she imbues her sounds with a nostalgic, almost wistful tranquility. Whilst initially on the surface it may seem like there is very little activity, closer inspection reveals a shimmering quality to the swells of drifting textures, bringing to mind the work of Susumu Yokota or Brian Eno’s ambient experiments. Whilst she retains this consistent reflective mood throughout Euphonious, there is much diversity in her approaches and palette on individual tracks, utilizing gentle synthesizer (or organ) runs, skipping electronics, warm pulses, some rigid acoustic guitar and who knows what else – there’s possibly a xylophone in there somewhere as well. Regardless, the languid pacing, the gentle tones, its sweet natured mood and Ai’s compositional rigor and diversity all conspire to produce a sound world that is so calming, inventive and rewarding that you’ll never want to leave.
Bob Baker Fish
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