Tokyo-based downbeat electronic pop duo All Apologies first formed in 2007 when producers Forka and Geskia! (previously known for his solo album ‘Silent 77’ on Japanese label Flau) decided to collaborate together. Two years on, this debut album ‘Nine Stories’ comes self-described as being ‘whisper-vocal and beautiful beats’, and sees the duo fashioning a delicate blend of downbeat pop and leftfield electronics, with glitchy, occasionally jagged digital textures nicely contrasting with a swooning bed of gentle live instrumentation and breathy, treated vocal duets. Opening track ‘Air’ introduces this aesthetic nicely, as glitchy, sizzling electronics navigate a subtle path amidst swooning, blurred-out treated Japanese vocals and gently flowing acoustic guitar textures, before breakbeats begin to increasingly exert a rhythmic presence that calls to mind the likes of Dntel or The Postal Service.
Elsewhere, there’s more than a stray hint of Telefon Tel Aviv’s intricately sculpted hybrids of live instrumentation and contorted digital textures on the understatedly moody ‘White Whale’ as the distant guitars and bass power forward in almost post-rock fashion, while the languid ‘Meteor Stream’ offers up one of this album’s biggest highlights, as Ai from Japanese band RECO contributes sugarsweet chorus vocals to an almost dreamlike backing of handclaps, strummed acoustic guitars and rattling samples. ‘Nine Stories’ certainly represents an extremely impressive debut offering from All Apologies, the added bonus here being the second remix disc, which sees the likes of Maps and Diagrams, Scam Circle and Sabi offering up consistently interesting reworkings ranging from glitchy click and cuts electronics, right to straight ambient / drone soundscapes. Well worth investigation.
