Reviews

BPM (Favourite Ambient of 2021 Review)

Written between 2005 and 2019, and recorded from 2018 to 2020, the 11 tracks of Yokohama artist Tomo-Nakaguchi’s Smile use synths, guitars, sliced up loops, and even the odd smartphone app to create an ambient panorama where graceful cacophony and stillness balance in perfect harmony.

As a member of both experimental rock outfit 1769 and multimedia group Skyward Photo Film, he’s not stranger to working in atypical musical realms, but Smile finds him embracing the emotional nuances of electronic music in a way that is rarely explored within the genre. Glistening synths rise and fall as you sink into the lower reaches of these sounds, finding extraordinary melodies that feel weightless but are filled with a startling intimacy. There are the sounds of life here, a struggle between the digital aspects of our world and the organic presence we so often overlook. As presented throughout the album, this conflict isn’t so much violent as it is bittersweet; there is an awareness of how society and technology are constantly moving forward, incapable of slowing to the desires of nature, but Smile asks that we slow down and simply admire what has been given to us. – Joshua Pickard

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Now Then

As the reflective tones of Tomo-Nakaguchi’s new record Smile bounce around the room, the spectral presence of a sawtooth arpeggio begins to haunt the soundscape from somewhere otherworldly. After a few seconds of investigation, I find the culprit to be my father’s synthesiser humming a modulating mantra downstairs. Smile’s greatest attribute revealed itself in this sonic exchange. Tomo’s absorbing ambience welcomes the influx of external acoustics, allowing foreign noise into its musical bubble without losing a drop of its own artistic identity.

This concept seems to inform a larger artistic doctrine behind Tomo’s work. Through synthetic sound sculptures evoking the aural frigidity of Yoshio Ojima’s ‘Glass Chattering’, all frozen notes and falling drones, the sounds of organic life spring forth. These decorous uses of found sound complement his electronic explorations: water trickles, children play, printers whirr and smartphones buzz throughout. There’s a technological juxtaposition at the heart of Tomo’s music, a reinvigoration of Japan’s distinctive environmental music of the 1980s refocused for today’s digitised climate.

While his derivative song titles may initially suggest the possibility of a new age tinge, yoga mats and bottled kombucha are not required here. Tomo forgoes meditative protraction for succinct structural progressions, using linear compositional forms to gradually build textural complexity. With “chaos and beauty” as his main artistic anchors, Tomo swims through undulating dynamics and tempestuous harmonies, charting his way with brief passages from a melodic guitar. The resulting sound is one of continual nuance, not demanding of active involvement nor begging for the amenable inattentiveness of trance-like listening.

Smile attempts to combat the confusion of modern living by pitting it against itself, distilling the discordance of contemporary civilisation into a 37-minute-long sonic stress ball. It might not stop your neighbours from arguing but it’ll make the profanities sound a lot more serene.

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A Closer Listen

Smile is a fitting title for the new nature-inspired set from Tomo-Nakaguchi, which includes twinkling studies of fireflies, leaves and drift ice.

Kali Music

História ambientnej hudby japonských umelcov je veľmi dobre zmapovaná a to aj v nedávnej dobe, kedy vyšlo mnoho znamenitých kompilácií. Na pulty gramofónových predajní sa v tomto roku dostáva aj album japonského, hudobného mága, Tomo Nakaguchiho, ktorého tvorba spadá do ranku electronic music a experimental rock. Jeho hudba je pastvou pre ľudské uši vďaka jeho minimalistickým, elektronickým nahrávkam. Tak to je aj na jeho druhom albume po debute Landscape In Harmony z roku 2016, titule Smile, kde sú zahrnuté skladby z nedávnej minulosti. Novinka obsahuje lahodné ambientne skladby, kde má okrem syntezátorov, rôznych technických vychytávok a tzv.field recodings, ktoré sú použité striedmo a veľmi vkusné, svoje miesto aj gitara.

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