Fjordne - The Setting Sun

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4...according to our Phil on Fri 07 Aug, 2009.

Fjordne are a new name to me. I've not heard of them before. They have a CD out this week on the wonderful named Kitchen (the best room in any house after the lavvy) of Singapore and it's called The Setting Sun. It's packaged in one of those lovely Accordion packs where you pull the hardback sleeve apart and it folks out into loads of lovely pictures. Musically there's 10 tracks of twinkly pastoral sounding electronica making me think of folks like Harold Budd, Motohiro Nakashima, Brian Eno, Sigur Ros etc. It's all very lovely, very accomplished sounding and it's really well produced. It's one of those packages where loads of thought has gone into the music and the packaging.... The music will take you off to a floaty place of lovelyness where kittens hang from blossom trees throwing feathers at smiling unicorns. Well drifty!

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"THE SETTING SUN" is FJORDNE's 4th album since the succession of 3 albums released in 2008 by Ryoondo Tea (Japan), Dynamophone Records (US) and
U-Cover (Belgium), which received rave reviews mainly in the European community for his visually concoctive compositions. FJORDNE is also known as
Shunichiro Fujimoto (b.1980). Born in Japan, he grew up in South East Asia and America before moving back to Tokyo, where he is currently based.
In the winter of early 2009, FJORDNE worked on “THE SETTING SUN” inspired by the evocative descriptions of simple things in Dazai Osamu’s novel of
the same name (Shayo), a story of an aristocratic family in decline and the moral lapses of its members. Sidestepping the novel’s content, FJORDNE recreates
through sound the introspection and pastoral lyricism of Dazai’s language. "THE SETTING SUN" pushes FJORDNE’s work into a more classical domain
compared to his previous works, underlining his mastery of melody and dissonance through an ensemble of acoustic instruments such as piano, guitars and
strings embodied in layers of dense sonic textures and disorder, transforming his sounds into a new time span.
Packaged in Kitchen. customized 6 fold accordion photo album, the essence of “THE SETTING SUN” is made visible by artwork provided by April Lee (one
half of aspidistrafly and artist for Kitchen.). Employing the progression and pause of time, the flow of the images gently echo FJORDNE's interpretation to
reveal this carefully hidden world.