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...according to our Brett on Thu 16 Dec, 2010.
Apparently Taishi Kamiya makes his improvised droney ambient meat by slaughtering saxophone cattle with a laptop. Which is a pretty novel approach in the field, I reckon. In the press release Ian Hawgood mentions his worries over the choice of instrument - having 'associated it with eighties sex scenes in movies or something like that' - but upon listening to his work it's pretty clear that it couldn't really be any further from that particular preconception if it tried, unless I've not seen the right eighties sex scenes of course: ones that unfold completely elegantly, layering up their feeling so subtly that you barely even notice and slowly, skillfully drawing you into right into their atmospheric space. Although I guess you might be able to apply all of that to Kyle Reese knocking off Sarah Connor in Terminator. The more overtly electronic-sounding sections are really reminding me of some of Alva Noto's ambient stuff, either alone or in collaboration with Ryuichi Sakamoto. Which can certainly be no bad thing at all.
In Christmas of 2008 I was sent some work by a Japanese artist from Will Long. He was convinced I would like it and I fell in love with the pieces immediately. The name of this rather wonderful artist was Taishi Kamiya, and the tracks sent were live improvised tracks using mostly just soprano saxophone and laptop.
Now I’ll be honest – I’ve never been a huge fan of the saxophone. I guess I just always associated it with eighties sex scenes in movies or something like that. So when Will told me his instrument of choice was the sexy saxophone, I had my reservations. But I needn’t have done because what Taishi does with the saxophone is singularly and uniquely utterly mesmerising.
I’ve always been a huge fan of intelligently done improvised work and Taishi’s was just a cut above anything else I had heard in a long time. After getting in touch, we both decided it would be great to try to make a studio produced record, as well as releasing the original ‘site-specific’ improvised work. As such, ‘Spectra of Air’ was born from these takes, formed into a beautiful work of subtle developments, and carefully woven textures. It was an enormous surprise to receive the final album, with its focus on hidden melodies and an overall rounded development which perhaps can be overlooked in improvised work. You’ll just have to trust me that it makes a really interesting difference between this and Taishi’s ‘live’ album which we will be releasing in 2011. - Ian Hawgood
01. Calm
02. Northern Nature
03. Misty Morning
04. Air
05. Drowse
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