‘Lets meet very much’, the rough translation of Tokyo’ Saya and Takashi Ueno’ album, Totemo Aimasho, speaks well to the underlying kernel that animates this collection of tracks, which pay no mere mimetic homage to narcotic minimalism or bucolic haze, but which engage, digest, and recombine these forms with a rustic yearning and hand-crafted elegance. Compositions maintain a specific organic intelligence, as they build, expand, collapse, and release their energy with some subtlety.
This the pair manages while maintaining a degree of sonic sophistication in a variety of fields. There is a cicada-like swarming that changes only slightly over the course of ‘Aurora Curtains’. Though similar in mood, ‘Cacoy’ is more dynamic, as sub-harmonic basslines march in lockstep with the percussion, giving the piece a heady psychedelic aura, while slippery frequencies undulate and are looped into graceful sweeps before plummeting into cold passage of nocturnal ambience.
Throughout, the duo not only temper but also take entirely elsewhere this basic mood of anxiousness, notably on album closer ‘To Do First’, in which some sprightly finger picking is joined with Saya’ clear, tender voice as a heaving crescent of atmospheric noise and warm organ chords slowly reach their zenith, culminating in a faithful representation of excitement and appreciation. The ability of Saya and Takashi to instinctively make their way across these disparate territories thereby enables these shifts to sound as natural as breathing in and out. Indeed, what impresses most about the duo is their utterly natural sense of flow and structure, not to mention the gentle spirit and delicately evolving harmonies that follow them along the way.
Max Schaefer
