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Mitchell Akiyama, "Small Explosions That Are Yours To Keep"
I wrote about Akiyama's last record, describing him as a kind ofaccidental hero of the instrumental glitch musicians. His newerrecordings, alone or with Desormais, channel the same tugging, emotivebaggage and fragile tension as other real-time deconstructionists(clearest touchstone: Christian Fennesz), but Akiyama's are mostcomplex, less dependenton a single instrument or one's traditional referents.
Sub Rosa
They reach pastdeconstruction as a means or an end, entering new space, a labyrinthinelogic all their own. A lot of this probably has to do with the artist'sfavoring rounder instrumental combinations: strings of a chamberensemble sort, bare piano, brass, metal percussion. Akiyama's last, If Night is a Weed...,inspired Fennesz comparisons because of an ambitious textural grandeur,though this came obscured by spare compositional style and atemperament informed by the deliberate pacing and structural rigor ofclassical music. One of If Night..'s pieces was dedicated toSteve Reich, and Akiyama's music does reflect an attempt to carry thepure variants and divine gravity of Reich's Phase or Ensemblepieces into digital interpretation. If the last record was ambitious instriking a solemn, Reichian pose against the computer's pixilatedshimmer, then Small Explosions is ambitious in a new way. Stillin chamber-glitch mode, Akiyama works within much more scatterbrained,dissonant territory, sketching disquieted spaces through overlays ofwhat sound like largely improvised events. The coalescence of fragmentshere is the artist's most subtle, often stratified by atonalcounterpoints and layers of at-home ambience. Sounds of sleepybreathing in the first track indicate Small Explosions's increased interest in sound-travel and the unreality of dreams. Several of the string heavy sections recall, for me, the Waking Lifesoundtrack in their floaty circularities and spirited-away atmosphere.Akiyama shows also a new reliance on bell tones which give the music asense of distance and foggy boundaries that was not present within theintimate, single-room simulacrum of If Night.. and previousworks. Despite being probably the artist's most pared-down andsilence-ful music yet, with even a reduction in the field recordingsthat colored other records, Small Explosions feels the most far-out and heavily transporting of all.
Sub Rosa
They reach pastdeconstruction as a means or an end, entering new space, a labyrinthinelogic all their own. A lot of this probably has to do with the artist'sfavoring rounder instrumental combinations: strings of a chamberensemble sort, bare piano, brass, metal percussion. Akiyama's last, If Night is a Weed...,inspired Fennesz comparisons because of an ambitious textural grandeur,though this came obscured by spare compositional style and atemperament informed by the deliberate pacing and structural rigor ofclassical music. One of If Night..'s pieces was dedicated toSteve Reich, and Akiyama's music does reflect an attempt to carry thepure variants and divine gravity of Reich's Phase or Ensemblepieces into digital interpretation. If the last record was ambitious instriking a solemn, Reichian pose against the computer's pixilatedshimmer, then Small Explosions is ambitious in a new way. Stillin chamber-glitch mode, Akiyama works within much more scatterbrained,dissonant territory, sketching disquieted spaces through overlays ofwhat sound like largely improvised events. The coalescence of fragmentshere is the artist's most subtle, often stratified by atonalcounterpoints and layers of at-home ambience. Sounds of sleepybreathing in the first track indicate Small Explosions's increased interest in sound-travel and the unreality of dreams. Several of the string heavy sections recall, for me, the Waking Lifesoundtrack in their floaty circularities and spirited-away atmosphere.Akiyama shows also a new reliance on bell tones which give the music asense of distance and foggy boundaries that was not present within theintimate, single-room simulacrum of If Night.. and previousworks. Despite being probably the artist's most pared-down andsilence-ful music yet, with even a reduction in the field recordingsthat colored other records, Small Explosions feels the most far-out and heavily transporting of all.samples:
