Akira Kosemura / Tiny Musical (schole, 2008)
01, Overture
02, Departure
03, Parterre
04, Seaside
05, Lete
06, Light dance
07, Sky
08, Glim
09, Moon
10, Shorebird
11, Light dance - home
12, Remembrance
13, Just a Few Minutes
14, Smile
all compositions
written and produced by Akira Kosemura
piano, pianica, guitar, electronics and programing : Akira Kosemura
acoustic / classic guitar : Muneki Takasaka - Paniyolo - (3, 11, 13)
Remembrance from the fragments of Afterglow...
mixed by Akira Kosemura
mastered by Lawrence English at 158
photographs : Yuma Saito, Shin Kikuchi
art direction : schole
- ORDER -
A-MUSIK, NORMAN RECORDS, WHITE NOISE RECORDS,
タワーレコード渋谷店総合アルバムチャート初登場19位
:: REVIEW ::
福田教雄氏「アルバムに寄せて」
どうしても家にこもって仕事をすることが多いので、そういうときには、気分転換がてら、ちかくにある図書館まで散歩するようにしている。「ちかく」といっても、そこは歩いて15分くらいかかるだろうか。近在の交通機関といえばバスくらいで、どこの電車の駅からも離れた場所。そんなところにぽつんとある「中央」図書館。だから、必然、歩いていくにはぴったりだと思われる図書館なのだ。
とはいえ、とりたてて散歩に適した道のりでもない。都区内ではあるのだが、路上を歩く人の姿はすくなくて、あったとしても、お年をめした方が多いように思われる。気の利いたしゃれたお店もなく、コンビニエンス・ストアの原色の看板や、古くからあるのだろう小さな電気店さんが点在しているくらいで、中途半端な道幅のバス道路がだらだらと続き、あまり情緒が感じられるような場所ではない。それに、いつも車が混んでいる。
もともと、このあたりは田んぼや畑が広がっていたらしいから、どこか大雑把なのどかさがある。ごちゃごちゃと小さな家が肩を寄せ合っている部分と、つんと澄ましたような瀟洒なマンションが隣り合っていて、でも、どちらにも汗臭さがない分、このあたりを覆っている生活感みたいなものが、どこかあやふやになってしまうのかもしれない。
しかし、ここに引っ越してきてちょっと面白いなと思ったのが、そうやって歩いていると、ふと、どこかの家から、誰かがピアノの練習をしている音が聴こえてくることが多いことだった。それも、限られた一軒だけではなく、意外にチラホラと、そんな音が漏れ聴こえてくるのだ。その音の感じで、小さな女の子がたどたどしく弾いているのか、それとも音大生か、その受験生かが練習に勤しんでいるのかも伝わってきて、そうやって想像しながら通り過ぎるのは、案外楽しいものである。
小瀬村晶さんのピアノ曲も、個人的には、そのような感じのものとしてここにあった。「ああ、誰かが弾いているなあ」と、ちょっとうっとりして、そこを通り過ぎて歩き続ける。ときには立ち止まったり、歩を緩めてみる。次の音に包まれていく。そして、どこかで何かにまた気づく。
この「気づき」の点は人それぞれだろうけれど、ちょうどよい数のそれが『Tiny Musical』にはあると思う。それはまた、日によって、環境によって、気持ちによって変わっていくのだろうけれど、さて、どこかでピアノを弾く音がまた聴こえてきた。今日は日曜日、小瀬村さんからの原稿依頼のメールを見返していたら、偶然にも、ちょうどその散歩道のあたりにお住まいがあるようではないか……。なんだ、ぼくが耳にしていたのは、彼が弾くピアノの音だった、のかもしれない。
- 福田教雄（sweet dreams ）
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scholeレーベルを主宰するエレクトロニカ系アーティスト、Akira Kosemura〈小瀬村晶〉のセカンドアルバム。ピアノ、アコギ、ピアニカなどのアコースティック楽器と、電子音を繊細かつシンプルに重ね合わせ、ミニマルにループした曲がメイン。生楽器も電子音もみずみずしくきらめいていて、川や森や湖といった自然の景色を想起させる音世界を築いている。ネイチャー・エレクトロニカとでもいうべきか。要所に入るピアノ・ソロや郷愁感のあるメロディも含め、彼の研ぎ澄まされた美意識がすみずみまで感じられる作品だ。
- 小山守（CD Jurnal 10月号）
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“日常に捧げる新しい音楽の形”をテーマに、アコースティック / エレクトロニックが融合した良質な作品をリリースしているレーベル、schole。その主宰者の2ndは、そんな姿勢を体現した仕上がりだ。ミニマルに繰り返される電子音とピアノやアコギ、鍵盤ハーモニカなどが奏でる飾りのない音色が入り交じって、牧歌的な情景を醸し出す。凝り固まった心が解け出すような美しさが際立つ作品だ。
- Sound & Recording magazine 10月号
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人々の体そのものに音を染めた『Afterglow』から早一年。
Akira Kosemura待望の2ndアルバムが完成です。ただただ純粋に音を楽しむことに重点を置いたという今作からは、ジャケットからすでに音が聴こえてきそう。水が溢れて、雲が流れて、陽が沈んで、夜がきて…。人が持つ自然そのものの意思が放たれて、そして記憶になっていく。不思議な感覚で満たされる音々。『Afterglow』の断片から作曲した《Remenbrance》、どこまでもノスタルジックに紡がれるピアノソロ作品《Light dance》。泣きそうになった事は、そっと秘めておきたい。そんな大作です。
- タワーレコード上田店 中山歩（Intoxicate vol.76）
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Tokyo based musician and frontman of Schole imprint and magazine which gathers Japanese and international artists involved in music and other art forms.
Kosemura has released an EP (‘In a Distant Forest Somewhere’, Monotonik, 2006), his first full-length album ‘It’s On Everything’ (Someone Good, 2007) and recently ‘Tiny Musical’ his third album released on Schole.
Again Kosemura delivers a delicate work on which he plays piano, guitar, melodica, field recordings and laptop.
Every piece is crafted with subtle and elegant piano notes that suggest a deep listening. A real cinematic experience about beauty, silence and nature.
If I have to chose one song that one should be ‘Shorebird’ with its gorgeous raindrops. Brilliant!
- Guillermo Escudero (Loop, Chile)
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There's something very comfortable and appealing about Akira Kosemura's music. Over the past few years his body of work has grown and matured and now with this release I think he's reached a new level of refined simplicity and beauty. For the most part this is an album of three distinct ingredients; electronics, piano and guitar. They're put together with such loving care and well crafted arrangements that it's hard not to adore it. There's a modern classical touch to a couple of the piano pieces in particular and I don't think I'd be far off the mark if I said you could certainly hear a Michael Nyman-esque influence in there. The crunchier, electronica moments back up the organic tones superbly and it's a chilled out, relaxed album all round. With an abundance of melody and a deft touch on the production Akira has truly delivered a magical album. I'm a big fan of this and, as such, it's a recommendation.
- smallfish records (UK)
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Probablement faut-il, pour pe´ne´trer dans le monde onirique d’Akira Kosemura, ne pas dissocier sa musique des visuels qu’il aime distiller en paralle`le (illustrations de ses disques, sites internet, ...) pour illustrer son travail musical. A la vue de ces cliche´s de paysages anime´s par des jeux de lumie`re en clair-obscur, on comprend mieux que ce japonais qui re´side a` Tokyo s’inspire avant tout de la nature, loin de son environnement quotidien et citadin, pour ba^tir ses petites pie`ces instrumentales.
Tiny Musical reprend une trame similaire a` Afterglow, le premier album qu’il avait enregistre´ avec Haruka Nakamura, mais cet exercice totalement solitaire est de fait plus personnel. Akira Kosemura n’a pas eu recours cette fois-ci a` une multitude de samples issus du quotidien, a` des habillages sonores e´lectro-acoustiques. Les compositions de Tiny Musical sont pluto^t de´pouille´es, construites autour d’un piano, d’une guitare et de quelques autres e´le´ments acoustiques passe´s dans son laptop.
Ainsi, si Afterglow pre´sentait un inte´ressant travail sur les textures d’ambiance, ici, les compositions du japonais sont plus dynamiques. Tout au long des 14 morceaux, les me´lodies priment : apaise´es, me´lancolies, pastorales, aquatiques, me´ditatives. Light Dance ou encore Glim e´voquent volontiers les travaux de Max Richter, quand d’autres pie`ces lorgnent du co^te´ d’Epic45 en version instrumentale. Un disque entre ne´o-classique et post-rock atmosphe´rique vu par un e´lectronicien, de´licieusement intimiste et douillet.
- denis (autres directions, France)
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Musicals can be considered as the secular, down-to-earth response to opera, an art form conceived for entertainment − in short, a product of popular culture in which a host of arts play a role in conjunction as a total, greater work of art. Musicals are inhabited not only by orchestras and actors, but also audiences. Generally, the cast appearing on the scenario is great in number, and we could say that all musicals are inherently big, because they involve a good amount of people both onstage and offstage, when the lights are on as well as when the lights are out.
A Tiny Musical would then refer to a single person, a cast of only one actor, one life - the one dancing shadow in the cover, perhaps dancing her life away in a sublime evening of cloud-filled infinity covering an equally dark field of grass. We can only see her silhouette; she could be someone we know, but she could also be each and every one of us, it could be our own shadow, merging with the grass beneath in perfect harmony and peace. An “Overture” leads to a “Departure”, and we’re no longer where we are, we’re no longer ourselves, we realize our shadow has become the shadow of every person we’ve shared an experience with, maybe even that of those who we are yet to meet and those who share their shadows with us in the street as we walk by. We all look up and daydream under the same sun, together as one girl’s shadow, together as we embrace the skies.
The field is a shadow as well, and we cannot see where ours becomes different: our departure lead us to this “Parterre”, this garden where our life mirrors that of nature, this place where we become a part of something greater than ourselves. But a parterre is also “the ground floor of the theater behind the orchestra”; we’ve taken our place in this musical, among the rest of the public, and become ready to see our shadows dance, sing, and narrate a story… our collective story. As the shadows act, as we act, we can’t help but realize the soundtrack being played by the orchestra is mostly electronic, and in the very instant that we start to feel deceived by the falsely organic attributions of machines, we see a person behind it − everything’s under human control, everything still tries to reflect nature, and the person is not awed by the contraption’s possibilities.
The musical goes on: what we’re experiencing is a dreamful natural utopia of acoustic guitar-inspired rainfall and seafoam made out of piano melodies. But it’s apparently lacking something every musical has − voices, dialogue lines, facial expressions, intonation. The audience starts to comment amongst themselves in relation to the missing element; the shadow sitting beside you turns and says something in a language unknown to you, but you understand it perfectly. As the words reach your ears, you notice that the shadows acting do exactly the same thing, you notice that the person handling the machine that makes up the orchestra does exactly the same thing; Akira Kosemura tells us music is a language, too, and needs no textual additions, the meanings it creates are autonomous and firmly rooted in the possibility of understanding. The act of hearing and listening to the musical already generates plenty of thoughts, an internal monologue that permanently accompanies the music and provides an ethereal voice that silently sounds like ours when we speak out loud and act our part in everyday life. The actors make a “Light Dance” and we all clap in our imaginations afterwards.
This gratifying experience continues until it’s time to go home: “Light Dance − Home” briefly establishes the cozy, introverted elements of the place we live in through the electronic simulation of a harmonica that warmly welcomes us into wherever we want to be. Once we’re settled, “Remembrance” comes, we look down into the ground and no longer to the sky, recalling the darkness of the public’s side of the theater hall, recalling that the sun always disappears, that all things end and then become blurred impressions lost in time, that maybe − just maybe − we’re no longer whole, we’re no longer nature, and all we have is solitude. The complexity of this memory contrasts with the simplicity of the rest of the musical; this complexity, this ability to willingly remember or forget, and to regret doing so, is what sets us apart from everything else… but there’s still “us”, and there’s still “everything else”, in plural, a plural that gives us relief, or maybe disappointment. After all, there’s a lot of “us” out there, and enjoying oneself might be but an illusion. This line of thought continues for “Just a Few Minutes”, an indeterminate amount of time in which we might come to see that perhaps our remembrances are better experienced when shared, when opened up, when in communion.
Then the musical ends as everything should… with a “Smile”. The slow, peaceful, almost mystical lyricism of the piano conjures up all those lives we’ve shared, all those persons we’ve become, all those photographs in which the pretense of picturing reality as it is ends up portraying all kinds of emotional meanings and connections in which our memories have ended and died, but are recreated in our imaginations. The piano starts fading out into the distance, but it will remain with us until we forget, until we let go, until our smile is no longer seen by anyone, felt by anyone.
The musical has been sincere, elegant, simple, and touching; there’s no feel-good pretentions here, but maybe some listeners will find, especially in certain passages of pieces like “Just a Few Minutes”, that the limit between significant and downright corny is unclear at best. Thankfully, these moments are scarce, and the rest of the album is seemingly well thought-out, providing for a good while of tranquil enjoyment. Just put it in your favorite music player, and smile with your friends, smile to a stranger, and confront the world with pure, unhindered calmness and security.
-David Murrieta (the silent ballet, US)
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