Yui Onodera and Celer — Generic City
I’m assuming from the title of the album that perhaps we are supposed to view this as a sort of soundtrack to a nondescript, anywhere, sort of a generic city. I think this is borne out by the large use of field recordings that are deployed throughout the four lengthy tracks. Most of them are of indeterminate origin but all sound like they come from the general hubble bubble and mish mash of sounds that act as a backdrop to daily life as you move around a city. The more recognisable ones are a large flock of what sound like geese, a city airport and other travel based sounds. All of them alluding to perhaps moving from city to city but the basic backdrop being the same. (I could be way off the mark here but’s that how I’m reading it).
For the most part the tracks could be described as a mix of keyboard drones and field recordings. It is though more than that as the list of instrumentation used on Generic City includes guitar, violin, piano, musical box, cello, Theremin, electronics and ocarina but actually picking a lot of these out is not that easy.
It’s a fairly relaxing sort of album that can work as both background and as something you give some attention to. I have minor gripes with some of the field recordings being too long or prominent. There is a section recorded in an airport departure lounge that would have been better shorter or lower in the mix and likewise on the last track there is what sounds like some sort of religious chanting that I could have done with less of. These though are minor gripes and overall it’s a very listenable album and perhaps we’ll see more collaborative work from Yui and Celer.