Lambent — These Days
Lambent is Akira Inagawa, a young man with an interesting CV. Born in Japan, he studied sculpture in London –where he started making music- before moving to Berlin where he now lives. There, he does hiphop DJ sets, as well as live electronica sets, and music for dance performance groups, viedo artists and even websites.
These days is meant to be a sort of musical diary, each tracks being made in one day -except a few minor adjustments- and meant to be echoing what Inagawa was feeling then. Interesstingly, just like Pola (browse our archive for the review), Inagawa decided not to use a laptop in the making of this album, favouring working with samplers and synthesizers.
The first track is rather good, in an ambient and minimal style it makes for a good introduction, à la 12K. The following tracks are quite different: we get a rather uninteresting kind of melodic electronica. It’s more rhythmically oriented, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but the rhythms are bland, overly simple, really “cheap” sounding. Fortunately, Inagawa is a little better with the melodies, especially when they get on the dronier sides.
However, what strikes me the most is the lack of originality, the déjà-vu of it all. I’m not questionning Inagawa’s commitment to his music, but I can’t say that I feel it. It’s just something that I hear and doesn’t move me one bit. Could be the soundtrack to a trendy café: music to have a drink to, not music to be enjoyed alone.