Top Bar
Musique Machine Logo Home ButtonReviews ButtonArticles ButtonBand Specials ButtonAbout Us Button
SearchGo Down
Search for  
With search mode in section(s)
And sort the results by
show articles written by  
 Review archive:  # a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z

Ryuichi Sakamoto / Illuha / Taylor Deupr - Perpetual [12K - 2015]

Japanese ambient pianist Ryuichi Sakamoto has paired with art ambient soundscape artists Iluha and Taylor Deupree for something of a 12k supergroup.  "Perpetual", the resulting album, is a rich and complex sound environment, containing a deeper density of sound and wider range of timbres than most 12k releases.

This meeting of 3 minds has produced a multi-faceted, non-linear swirling of soft-hued domestic remembrances, a warmly glimmering ode to intimacy and vulnerability, a necklace of blurred creamy tones, with the reassuring irregular persistence of a candle flame flickering. 
It is the essence of love distilled to its harmonic essence.  Faint crackles, metallic clatter and other field recordings are faintly audible at times, but remain subservient to the deep, throbbing hum, the current of universal benevolence which renders all wrongs inconsequential, a light capable of coloring any form so that it may be pleasing.

This acqueous embrace of consonance could be compared to Alio Die, who similarly sketches a vibrating web of compassion by layering improvised performances, and saturated them in reverberant, glowing processing.  It gives the listener of being suspended weightless within a chord, within nectar, or an emotion itself.

Sakamoto's loose cohesion, stream of consciousness style of piano improvisation finds no silence in which to diffuse on this recording, this time only a single entity in a watery expanse of unknown depth, with an undisclosed number of inhabitants.  Hinted fragments of melodies blink in and away at every level of the multi-tiered space. 

Although I'm a fan of Sakamoto, I'm glad the piano isn't too much of a focus on this album, as minimalist piano improvisation has been the most oversaturated flavor of 'relaxing ambient music' ever since Eno's "Music for Airports" set the precedent.

In this album, we have a perfect fusion of the chordal tides of ambient soundscapes and the layered, timbrally exact non-linearity of musique concrete.  The intimate, loving, reassuring feeling of the album is familiar from many other 12k releases, but comes through with particular poignancy on this album, which feels richer in substance than many of Sakamoto's albums.

Rating: 5 out of 5Rating: 5 out of 5Rating: 5 out of 5Rating: 5 out of 5Rating: 5 out of 5

Josh Landry
Latest Reviews

Ryuichi Sakamoto / Illuha / Taylo...
Japanese ambient pianist Ryuichi Sakamoto has paired with art ambient soundscape artists Iluha and Taylor Deupree for something of a 12k supergroup.  "P...
180925   Maskhead - Maskhead(Blu Ray)
170925   The Home - The Home( Blu Ray)
170925   Derelict - Derelict( Blu Ray/...
170925   DAYOFWRATH - And The World W...
170925   Applez91 - Hydrostatic Kill P...
170925   Lord Cernunnos - Memories Of ...
160925   Bloody Legend: The Complete T...
150925   Creepshow 2 - Creepshow 2(VOD)
150925   múm - History of Silence
150925   Various Artists - Disk Musik:...
Latest Articles

Third Window Films - A Label For ...
Formed in 2005, London-based Third Window Films has been one of the key film labels releasing Asian cinema in the West. Their catalogue touches down in a lot...
030925   Third Window Films - A Label ...
130825   HNW fest- Barcelona- 12th Apr...
250725   Raté interview - Walled-in F...
180625   Matthew Holmes - Of razor-sha...
280525   The Residents - Visits From T...
090525   Ennaytch - Of walls, abused ...
150425   Dead, Dead Swans interview - ...
110325   Sebastian Tomb - Walls of unb...
040225   Alien Sex Fiend - Possessed B...
231224   Best Of 2024 - Music, Sound &...
Go Up
(c) Musique Machine 2001 -2025. Twenty four years of true independence!! Mail Us at questions=at=musiquemachine=dot=comBottom