Asuna + Opitope

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4...according to our Brian on Thu 20 May, 2010.

Ponderous, dusty arpeggios and meandering guitar strokes mooch in the foreground whilst flickering waves of found sound & field recordings form the backdrop of the soundtrack to an evening beside a gently lolling beach, the peaceful chirrup & whirr of crickets & fireflies enhance your loosely rolled jazz cigarette as you watch the heavenly sunset. A UFO hovers in the darkening dusk sky. You fall asleep, wake up at dawn with a neighbours shaggy Airedale terrier nudging it's mad head into your stiff, crinkly face. You go for breakfast in a beachside cafe, the breeze flutters through the gazebo, huge chimes tinkle & clang at the edge of the eatery in a most serene & calming manner. The neighbour's dog curls up at your feet, you light a cigarette to further enhance the serenity of your morning of leisure. A cruise liner puffs past in the hazy distance, a trailing plume fans out behind a speck in the sky, probably jetting to Hawaii & you think...... "i'm never actually gonna make it as a fucking writer, i'm worse than that Dan Brown. May as well chuck it in & get a job at Wilkinson's, sod it!" Then you realise the dogs pissed on your canvas loafers & you're actually in a greasy spoon in Halifax. and they're haranguing you for lighting up a massive reefer in front of loads of scowling single mothers & builders apprentices. But at least the lovely CD on your iPod is taking you to sweeter climes.

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Asuna & Opitope: "Sunroom" CD (ltd. 500): This is the first collaborative full-length release by Japan's Opitope, the duo of Chihei Hatakeyama (Kranky, Room40) and Tomoyoshi Date (FlyRec), and Asuna (spekk, Headz). Listeners familiar with Opitope's majestic 2007 release "Hau," or any of the more recent output by Asuna, Hatakeyama or Date, will find much to love here. Across the albums' nine tracks, gossamer webs of treated sound (made from all manner of plaintive piano, rubbed strings, delicately picked guitars and evocative accordian, vibraphone and sampling) hover, resonate, ebb and disperse. Paradoxical as it may seem, there is a painstaking effortlessness to this music. In some ways, "Sunroom" feels like a perfect followup to "Hau," with one critical distinction. Where that previous release, as with Asuna's wonderful "THIS" double disc and much of Hatakeyama's recent solo work, focused principally on textures and abstraction, here an added emphasis is placed on songcraft. Ultimately, we might best situate these recordings alongside Date's 2008 masterpiece "Human Being," as there is, to be sure, a similar playfulness, deftness of juxtaposition, accessibility, and sincere reverence to be found in the radiant compositions of "Sunroom." Throughout the album's duration, the masterful, capable hands of Date, Hatakeyama and Asuna, craft miniature, effervescent gems of songs which swell and bloom like the changing of seasons or the passage of time in memory.

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