Kurai Keshiki — Mozaiku
My initial impression is that of a noisy improv session in an empty warehouse. We begin with rolling steam, drops of water on metal, wood tools clattering across the floor, Keshiki kicking objects around. I can hear the cloudy churning sub-bass depths of air, which microphones seem to make audible in many rooms. There is the tearing of soft malleable materials, light unhindered separations of zippers and particles of styrofoam. The recordings may have been layered, but their improvisatory rhythm is intact. Lago can be heard moving from object to object, manipulating each, with silence between.
Then the microphone is inside a car, glued to the material of the seat, so we can feel the modulating whine of the idling motor up close and personal. We ride around with Lago for at least 5 minutes. Later come slurred Japanese voices, the sound of a fork scraping the bowl, the sounds of travel. In its last couple minutes of the opening 27 minute track, it breaks form with a scratchy orchestral loop, sounding like a field recording itself, likely captured from a mall or elevator intercom.
Lago has captured a pleasing variety of sound environments from the civilized world, but blurred all into disconnected remoteness, windy slow-motion contrails, so white and wispy I find it likely they were digitally augmented. It is, to my ears, too great a quantity of added reverb, the ubiquitous white halos masking the distinctness of the textures into a billowing white cloud, the continuous output of a smoke machine, pea soup fog air. The 'cold wind' sound has already dominated hundreds upon hundreds of dark ambient releases, and with far greater dimensionality and spacialization than is created here.
The organization of the sound is meandering. Keshiki never dwells for more than a couple minutes on any particular texture, often abruptly cutting into new permutations of chilled ventilator exhalation and vague metallic rattling. None-the-less, considered as a whole, the album appears uneventful, exploring similar vague drifts for long stretches with little to jolt the listener's attention back to the sound.
Nothing in particular differentiates the 5 pieces. The initial 27 minutes of "Katachi" segue into "Mihon" with no discernable change in sound palette or pacing. The approach found on this album is also not markedly different from what I have heard on any other release Lago has been involved with. Any sonic distinctions between his aliases are not overt. Kurai Keshiki may be intended to specifically evoke industrialized environments, but it's my personal opinion that all of Lago's albums generally do. His albums all tend to have the same problems, as well, such as a general lack of direction and clarity. He is incredibly prolific, but I find his albums have a tendency to be hastily thrown together, filled with many similar, unremarkable tracks.
I enjoyed aspects of this album at first, but it wore out its welcome with unengaging vaguery and murky production. It is a soporific, half-formed image which only seems to slip further from clarity and consciousness as it goes. The album's first half seems to contain a larger number of field recordings and sound sources, while the 2nd half is reserved solely for cold air and soft rustling. I find myself wanting more from the texture of the music, and to feel like there is some kind of meaning to its arrangement in time.