Yui Onodera - 1982 [Room40 - 2024]You don't have to look very far to find something honouring the lower reaches of the fidelity spectrum, whether that is in music, or elsewhere. Whether it is due to an understandable exhaustion with the slickness of digital production, I cannot say, but in the field of guitar pedals alone, you can't throw a rock without hitting a loft effect these days, emulating vinyl crackles, tape hiss, or just some poorly aged equipment. What makes Yui Ondera's 1982 standout against the riff-raff, is that in addition to employing 4-track tape recorders and other warbly devices in his repertoire for the 10 tracks that make up this release, 1982 functions beneath and beyond the merely aesthetic concerns of the lo-fi craze. 1982 is the year of Ondera's birth, and the place where that occurred, Iwate, is perhaps familiar to some for the waste to which this area was laid by the earthquake of 2008. Taking his cues from visits to see the state of affairs in Iwate today, the Tokyo-based composer relied on degenerative, disintegrating means to adequately portray the distance he felt when looking out at the landscape of his former. After a rather upbeat opener, Ondera plunges us into the wow and flutter of lost time, or time lost, to be more precise. The third cut (each track is titled 1982 followed by the respective Roman numeral) presents the gist of the lo-fi on offer, as washed out as the material will get. While Ondera's compositions are largely without syncopation or obvious structure, the ambience does still smack of 90s predecessors like Microstoria. By the time we reach the penultimate track, the faint ring of acoustic instruments can be heard against the backdrop, fighting to come up for air beneath the wash of sonic jetsam. 1982 then closes with fragments of piano melody that start to point toward a clearer, more articulate horizon.
Fans of lo-fi ambience and those familiar with Ondera will enjoy the audible past as present on 1982. Recommended as well for those of us who never threw away our Walkmans and cassette collections. Highly recommended!. For more info   Colin Lang
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