Ryonkt - Sunlight & Water

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4...according to our Phil on Wed 23 Dec, 2009.

We've got a bunch of CD's in this week on the Land of... label. The one I've got in my hand is a fine CD by Ryonkt who's a Japanese fella. He's had stuff out on the Smallfish and Experimedia labels and here's his newie. Well I'm not sure how new it is but it's new to me so there you go. I'll start by saying it's lush sounding stuff. The warm sounding textured drones wash over your ears all fluffy like. There's some lovely watery noises in the first track which are making me feel like I'm in some floaty wet thing surrounded by candles. God I sound like a right woman..... The Music is constructed by guitar, laptop and field recordings and it's essentially warm sounding drone music which is a cut above the vast majority that passes through the doors here. Well nice!

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Ryonkt is the work of Sapporo based artist Ryo Nakata. In the past couple of years he has become a personal friend, collaborator, label mate and late night whisky drinking partner. We only finally got to meet in September of this year when I went up to Sapporo (in Hokkaido - the northern island of Japan) to play a show organized by Ryo. Ryo was due to open the gig after a short sound-check, yet the sound-check merged into the performance and I was unaware he had actually started I was so tuned into the tones Ryo was playing from his Fender guitar.

As such, people quietly wondered in and just sat down, bowed their heads and became encompassed by the music. Such is the effect of Ryo's work. His music is unassuming, full of memory and deeply moving. There is nothing stylistically complex about it, nothing that makes you think about technique or technology. He uses a laptop, guitar and field recording. He plays a few chords and notes. That really is it, yet what Ryo does with one chord is more than most artists can do across entire albums. There is space to his work, space left for the listener to fill in the blanks. There is melody, oh such beautiful melody, the like of which too few artists truly possess.

'Sunlight & Water' starts and ends with water sounds, but there is a whole lot of sun and light going on throughout these four pieces. Mother Earth rarely had a more beautiful soundtrack. (Ian Hawgood)

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