Hoshi No Koe

Amazon.com
Kyoto-based Nobukazu Takemura's wonderful music straddles two worlds: the glitchy-scratchy hinterland of PowerBook experimentation (featured on 2000's Scope) and the fuzzy-wuzzy womb of naive-melody-infused electronica (check out Funfare, under Takemura's appropriate alias Child's View). On this release, the man's balancing act is even more pronounced. "White Sheep and Small Light" weds horns and a kindergarten calliope to create a soundtrack for the Penguin Café's day-care center, while the 17-minute "Chrysalis" sounds like a nearly random collection of exotic sonic insects found breeding in machines we have yet to invent. The best cuts fuse the two sides of Takemura's psyche: simple melodies anchor fetching tunes while the beats and noises go gaga. So the comfy chords of "Anemometer" disintegrate into a percussive medley of ceramic tiles and alien xylophones, while the quaint little melody of "Sign" snakes through a world of ruined drum boxes, "Stephen Hawking sings!" and distorted R2-D2 scat. Look for the accompanying remix version of "Sign." --Erik Davis

Tracks:

One Day
Anemometer
Honey Comb
White Sheep And Small Light
Sign (Album Version)
A Chrysalis
A Theme For Little Animals
Trampoline
Stairs In Stars
In The Room-Roof-Wood
The Voice Of A Fish

Amazon.com

Kyoto-based Nobukazu Takemura's wonderful music straddles two worlds: the glitchy-scratchy hinterland of PowerBook experimentation (featured on 2000's Scope) and the fuzzy-wuzzy womb of naive-melody-infused electronica (check out Funfare, under Takemura's appropriate alias Child's View). On this release, the man's balancing act is even more pronounced. "White Sheep and Small Light" weds horns and a kindergarten calliope to create a soundtrack for the Penguin Café's day-care center, while the 17-minute "Chrysalis" sounds like a nearly random collection of exotic sonic insects found breeding in machines we have yet to invent. The best cuts fuse the two sides of Takemura's psyche: simple melodies anchor fetching tunes while the beats and noises go gaga. So the comfy chords of "Anemometer" disintegrate into a percussive medley of ceramic tiles and alien xylophones, while the quaint little melody of "Sign" snakes through a world of ruined drum boxes, "Stephen Hawking sings!" and distorted R2-D2 scat. Look for the accompanying remix version of "Sign." --Erik Davis

Customer Reviews:

maybe sweet natured but by no means great.......2007-02-23

There was once a showcase of groups that featured several DJ's, Tortiose, prefuse 73, Autechre, and Nobukazu. At this showcase, Nobukzu played every good song they had. I happened to buy the record they had on sale, because I so enjoyed their set. However, the recording was not what I expected.

There are only 2 songs worth buying on here: anemometer, and sign. The rest is just haphazard bits of audio that a child could replicate by randomly pressing buttons on a sega genesis games sound effects menu.

Buy the aforementioned songs on i tunes or something, but dont buy this record if you are expecting an album of music, you will be disappointed. If you like random pointless sounds then maybe this is up your alley.

A clear blue sky, dew, Hoshi No Koe........2002-06-20

What I really like about Japanese elctronica guy Nobukazu Takemura's new is album is the restraint he shows. On the whole, Hoshi No Koe is a very gentle album. I have little else to go on, but it seems to me that Takemura is a very talented guy. Instead of running wild, he sticks with a lot of loops and pretty simple songs with short interludes of noise. But even the noise isn't that noisy.

He opens with "One Day," one of the couple short songs on the record that sound like cartoon music. This is the type of thing that plays while the little bunny rabbits are hopping around and just basically acting cute. It fits the album cover well. "Anemometer" goes in a different direction. It loops a simple contemplative synth line throughout and puts in and takes away some soft percussion, bass and piano sounds. "Honey Comb" is the first noise track, although as I said, it isn't that noisy, since silence plays just as big a part as the clicks and whirrs. Takemura's machine seems to labor through this track to get to the next, another cute cartoon melody for curious little kittens.

"Sign" is the only attempt at catchy pop music on the record, but it doesn't seem out of place at all since it uses a lot of the same sounds from other tracks and makes extensive use of the skipping CD, one of Takemura's favorite instruments. After this there's a couple more songs where I'd basically be repeating myself if I described them. Takemura likes to keep his machines clean and his songs uncluttered. A cup of hot tea, a breath of fresh air, and Hoshi No Koe. Cleansing, refreshing, and pleasant. Put it on while you read.

great stuff - childish soundscapes.......2001-10-10

great deep electronic. Eciting soundscapes that really grows on you. Give it time and you'll see. 'Sign' somehow stands out. track 10 has a simple beuty and track 1, 4 and 9 somehow the most childlike and profound

guy20denmark.......2001-08-12

if u like

aphex twin, autechre, brian eno, oval, ryoji ikeda,

ull probably also like this...i totally agree with the first reviewers musical taste...is it truth that aphex twin are working on a double cd release...wooooooooooooowwwww!

The most sweet-natured electronica since Kraftwerk........2001-07-18

This year has seen releases from almost every feted laptop sound-magician in the world, including Pan Sonic, Jake Mandell, Oval, Autechre, Matmos, Four Tet, Arovane, ISAN, and Marumari, with a double CD by their founding father Aphex Twin on the way ( yes, I know that this kind of music can be traced back to Terry Riley and Krautrock bands like Cluster, or even further to early experiments by the likes of Varese and Xenakis, but the 90's resurgence of electronic music is all Richard D. James' doing. ) Autechre's Confield is the best by a longshot, and I think one of the best IDM albums ever made, up there with Black Dog's Spanners and the Richard D. James album -- it's Malevolent Machine Music, the kind of thing that computers will play at sock hops after humanity has been eradicated. Hoshi no Koe may not reach that level of artistry, but it will restore your sanity, even if you haven't been listening to Autechre. For starters, "Sign" is one of the most endearing songs you'll ever hear, and a much more effective attempt to portray the child's very subjective and irradiated world in abstract sound than, say, Colin Matthews' "toy symphony" Machines and Dreams. Takemura even goes so far as to process and manipulate samples to sound like benevolent lions and tigers from a Maurice Sendak storybook. Do you remember, at least vaguely, those biped monstrosities who roared at you until they realized you could speak English, and then turned into courteous, if strangely bemaned gentlemen who would treat you to tea in the thick of the forest? If not, "Sign" will create that memory for you. It's an enchanted, deeply felt, sun-shot epic, and there is nothing kitschy about it -- vocoders, people, do not a Daft Punk make.

"A Chrysalis" follows it and is another fascinating track, although far more experimental, an exercise in stasis that is meant to sound like the painstakingly slow opening of the pupa in the title. Some may find it boring, along with the even more extreme Morse-code blip-and-bloop tracks, and I'll admit I'm not sure these belong on the same album as "Sign" -- but what redeems them, and most of this disjointed and schizophrenic release, is the sheer beauty of Takemura's palette. When Matmos, earlier this year, managed to make rat cages and liposuction sound like typical Aphex Twin-lite, like everyone is using the exact same keyboards, the exact same programs, I almost gave up hope. But Takemura has a sound like no one else's, one that fills your brain with bright bursts of seductive color, like the napalm explosions in the title sequence of Apocalypse Now or those lighted tiles Michael Jackson glided across in the old Billie Jean video. Even when he's kind of wonky and minimalist, taking the concept of the "tone poem" a bit too literally -- a few of these songs sound like someone trying to call long-distance and continually getting the number wrong -- Takemura is a poet.

Terry Riley fans, by the way, will definitely want to check out "Anemometer." But really, you have to have this album for "Sign" alone. I'd wager that this is the kind of music, like Mozart, that could actually stimulate infant brains. Maybe even a few adult ones.

Album Review:

Album Review

album review

Album Review

Disco Party

Jolivet: Works for Flute / Works for Piano

Hymns of Heaven & Earth

Music: Jiyu Heno Suotai [CD-single] [Import]

Heading Home [Import]

Kronik [Extra tracks]

I Want You I Need You

Mars Needs Guitars [Import]

Gospel Songs

Ligeti: Requiem Aventures Nouvelles Aventures

New York to Chicago: 1924-1936 [Live]

I Love MPB: Eu Te Amo Você [Import]

Gunman [CD-single] [Import]

African Blues

Doll Hospital