Naoto Taguchi, originally from Sapporo and currently living in Tokyo, is an audiovisual artist with a strong musical background (having played the piano since his early childhood) who is also interested in programming, photography, design in general and spinning records as a DJ. Locating himself inbetween a triangle of minimalist electronica, dubmatics and quirky experimental sounds his latest release on test tube entitled untitled 9 fragments ordinaries sound materials concentrates on the experimental side of his oeuvre.

The main concept consists of chopped sound snippets that were rearranged in a way they exhibit musical qualities despite a rather unmusical approach (A technique pioneered by Oval in the last century). The sound elements are not exactly repeated and therefore subtile changes prevail with each layer added and substracted as it is characteristic of a Minimalist music approach. Naoto Taguchi’s focus is keeping a snapshot of a moment just like on a photography that slowly reveals its details as the viewer gets lost in it. Untitled 9 Fragments Ordinaries Sound Materials uses the brightest colours for painting its soundscapes I’ve come across for a long time. It breathes the atmosphere of a sunny day at the coastline with sparkling reflections of waves in contre jour and seems to leave troubled thoughts and conflicts behind. This brightness finds its equivalent in patches of crystalline sounds slowly passing by like fibrious, wind torn cirrus clouds.

That these fragments are not charged with meaningful titles or philosophical instructions can be seen as a boon and the strong suggestive motifs enforcing intense associations made any kind of instructions superfluous anyway. The only thing I could see some room for improvement is of a technical nature: The tracks have apparently been limited a bit too much and as such most dynamic differences were levelled with a notable pumping effect on former sound spikes. Apart from this minor issue, Naoto Taguchi’s Untitled 9 Fragments Ordinaries Sound Materials is a truly wonderful release, probably one of my favourites of 2008, which demonstrates that even music rooted in tonality can exhibit most interesting structures if a skilled musician sets no limits to his imagination.

Update 27/12/08: Whilst the TestTube liner notes for today wrote about a late Christmas gift, the release was well in time for Leftob audio cast regulars, since I added the release to the playlist on December 24th – 3 days ahead of the official release date ;-)