Yamaoka - Small Theater

Release Date: 09/02/2022

There’s ambient, and, well, there’s ambient. There are also artists who can drone on and on, who can drone with the best of them, and even over the breadth of a full CD or respectfully-sized catalog still manage to say very little. Yamaoka is not one of these artists.  On the contrary, his is a soundworld forever in evolution, where texture is so finely-wrought and considered it is virtually de-texturalized, his practice being a crash-course in studio dynamics, studio exploration, studio ingenuity. Once again gracing Carpe Sonum with his presence, Yamaoka ratchets the emotional atmospheric level up to ten, ravishing us with wave after wave of aural balm, sensory deprivation, and tonal technique. But gorgeous as it all is, floral wallpaper it sure ain’t.  Rather, these ten slices of discrete music have a habit of sneaking up on you; what seems like a collection of sonic zircons are actually finely-buffed diamonds. The opening track's lush life cascades about the ears and head with the cyclical comfort of digital waves smashing up on smooth shorelines, while the following work adds ticking percussive motifs that help to embrace you in its womblike amniotic fluid. And roughly half-way through, Yamaoka channels his inner (Richard) Pinhas and Fripp/Eno affectations across a series of endlessly-repeating icicle sequencers that refract their surroundings into a thousand brilliant points of light. Yamaoka manages to tap into the awe and mystery of sound which reaches from the inner mind to the outer limits.

Track list:

1. Plot 01