rainstick orchestra - the floating glass key in the sky
coming from tokyo this duo (baku tsunoda, naomichi) have found their natural musical home with ninjatune. having made music together for 4 years, their style is a combined product of their daytime roles as designers and computer boffins, blending together real instruments, piano, acoustic guitars, with sounds and loops from their noise making machines. the lads have made a quiet, polite album that is not easy to categorise. part jazz, part techno, part ambient, the first few listens are like the first cup of coffee in the morning, hardly touching the sides, but essential to get the day going anyway. slowly the delicate melodies rise to the surface and the album becomes a pleasant way to pass 45 minutes.
opening with the clipped strings of 'trick' and tight minimal beat the listener drawn in, and when the late night electronically enhanced jazz moods of 'waltz for a little bird' smooth over then you know this is not a party record but one to accompany those moments of quiet and calm, as becomes even more clear with the flute, delicate synths, brushed drums of 'kiteletu'. in fact, there are times that the album reminds me of ryuichi sakamoto's past attempts to fuse western pop sensibilities with traditional japanese melodies. this point is driven home on the mournful violin line that dominates 'powderly', as its accompanied with clicky beats and subtly cutup vocals, almost like a clash between the penguin cafe orchestra and yellow magic orchestra (all these orchestras !)
to make things more interesting the final half of the album moves into a more pure electronica ambient phase with the rich electronica ambience and synthetic arpeggios of 'overflow', 'electric counterpoint fast' and epic 10 minutes of 'closed circuit' making for a lovely 20+ minutes, irresistible forces' mixmaster morris, and orbital are obvious reference points.
lovely stuff indeed.
as can be assumed from the above rundown, this is not a directly compelling album, it wont get the party rocking, wont be played in the cool shops while you're tracking down the latest mixtapes, wont get the blood pumping, but it could indeed be a welcome addition to any sunday morning papers reading session.
so, my advise is to find space for an uninterrupted 45 minutes, slap on the headphones, and take time out from the time starved world that we live in, to digest and enjoy this special album.