Fourcolor — Water Mirror
Sugimoto is one half of Fonica, one quarter of Minamo and the man behind Cubic Music. He has fast become one of the main players in electro-acoustic music. His solo project is in the same vein as Minamo’s “serenity improve”. It’s not as great as Beautiful was, but we’re not gonna complain since it’s so damn great.
The instrument of choice is the guitar but it’s treated, manipulated beyond recognition: very loooooong sound waves, gradually moving, shifting, and taking up many forms. Of course, the album title hasn’t been picked by randomly looking up words in an English dictionary: there is a greater scheme. The music evokes waterfalls, quiet rivers, appeased seas and sleeping bays but also, condensation, evaporation, freezing and melting liquid. It’s rhythmic without rhythms, the primal pulse of nature. It’s complex, warm and relaxing. It makes its way straight to your brain and impresses by the sheer quality of the sounds, the richness as well as the subtleness.
Last track is the soundtrack to Jun Miyazaki’s Frontire film, which was screened at cannes Festival. It’s quite different to the rest of the album: if the tones are the same, Sugimoto also uses field-recordings and various sounds. It’s great but some might think it prevents Water Mirror to be a continuous flow from start to finish.
As said in the press release, Fourcolor is “extremely gradual music”. They should have added stunningly beautiful.