Ten different covers exist for this album, each of them photographs taken by Christy Romanick. Having seen all of them laid out on a table at the Brainwaves festival, for which this recording was made, I had trouble believing the liner notes when I read she used no digital means to compose these photos. The purity of the images matches perfectly the music Windy and Carl wrote for this album. The serenity of the autumn season suggested by the title is communicated perfectly in the first seconds and the frozen beauty of the recording, like Romanick's photos, is unique and stunning.
Blue Flea
Akimatsuri is named after Japanese festivals held to celebrate the autumn season, typically with an emphasis on a good harvest. From what I understand these festivals are different depending on what region they're held in. It is appropriate, then, that Windy & Carl have decided to celebrate the autumn season with their own particular kind of music. The different photographs that are spread over the 500 copies of this recording are equally important, however. Akimatsuri is described as a collaboration with photographer Christy Romanick. The images are absolutely stunning. Anyone who attended Brainwaves can testify to the quality of Romanick's work as it was featured as a slideshow during Windy & Carl's performance, each of the photographs a perfect match for the solitude and peace this duo provided that day. This music harmonizes perfectly with thoughts of a cool breeze and the changing colors of leaves, the slow decay as time marches towards winter. It's a time of year when death is undeniably recognizable as equally sad and beautiful.
Divided into five parts, the album consists primarily in the slow building of steam. Easy drones made of organ or keyboard float on the edge of consciousness behind the warm fuzz of an electric guitar and the lazy strumming of strings. Approximately 11 minutes into the composition, an uneasy silence falls on the record before a glimmering guitar solo whispers its way through the music: it's perhaps the most noticeable moment on the album because it is so unexpected and majestic. The fact that the music had been working towards this inverted crescendo was not evident until the crescendo happened. Repeated listens make the tension that Windy and Carl slowly and meticulously built more evident, but the sudden beauty of that guitar solo stands out for me every time.
The album descends after this moment, reveling in the calm that follows so many excited moments. The patient strumming from the first half of the record returns and Akimatsuri slowly fades away into a haze of keyboards and humming guitars. The album is meant to be a celebration, as aforementioned, but the ending reminds me of the first snows of winter. Only certain places here in the states have had the chance to see those snows and the unearthly moan of sounds that populate the end of this record make that white scenery all the more missed. Whatever the end of the album is supposed to represent, there's little doubt in my mind that Akimatsuri is one of Windy and Carl's best recordings. The awe that their serene compositions inspire is amplified by the beauty of the packaging and the care these three artists took in presenting the package as a perfectly realized whole. The music and photographs are intimate enough, but when taken in together they seem like a gift meant for whoever is holding it and not like a product meant for consumption.
Anyone interested in Christy Romanick's work should visit her website at www.space30a.com. The site is currently undergoing some work, but her portfolio has been made available there and some photographs used for both Akimatsuri and the Windy and Carl performance at Brainwaves can be found in that portfolio.
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