1 Move From Drop 7:04
2 Ricochet 13:34
3 Flow Into Foam 12:54
4 After The Stream 17:53
5 Entrance 22:02
Japan's Aube (Akifumi Nakajima) has carved out his own niche in the ambient/exploratory listening realm by focusing each of his many releases on a single sound source. His latest (on Lunar, an offshoot of Italy's esteemed Amplexus label) is an exercise in long-running, meditative textures, subtly shaped using water as his source material. Ricochetentrance is by no means his first dip into the aquatic.
His other water-borne recordings include Hydrophobia, Spindrift, Drip, Submerged Tension, Aqua Syndrome, Flush, Healsonar , Across The Water , Spiral Tricle Distillation and more I'm sure amid his vast catalog of many sounds on many labels. (See at least a partial discography here.) And those are only some of the water-sampled works... Nakajima's dozens of additional recordings use other source materials such as metal (see Metal De Metal in this month's Overviews), fluorescent & glow lamps, voltage controlled oscillators, steel wire, cans, magnetic resonance spectroscopy, female voice, the lungs, brain waves-electroencephalogram, heartbeats, glass, telephones, bells, fire and even The Bible.
Bubbly/clunky sounds ooze from the obviously aquatic Move From Drop (7:04); headphones are recommended for this aural bubblebath. Largely formed by binaural metronomic ticks and driblets, Ricochet percolates and grows considerably louder in its course... building, echoing, then abruptly cutting off. After a long fade from silence, Flow Into Foam slowly displays a sonar-like quality which radiates through the gurgly aquasphere, splashed with further accentuating splishes and bloops.
The splattery start-and-stop bursts of After The Stream sound alarmingly like the noises one might hear during a bathroom excursion, though certainly more prolonged! That disturbing notion slightly mars my listening enjoyment, I must say... though the 18-minute track develops further, leaving those "streams" behind, becoming a minimalistic rhythmic cycle which passes through various (rather quiet) phases and subtle forms. The disc exits with Entrance (22:02); hypnotic patterns of drips and blips, eventually coalesce into something like a tiny, tinny, subaquatic techno rhythm.
To further explore this enigmatic recording, I contacted Akifumi Nakajima with three questions and received the following answers.
AmbiEntrance: Aube has used water as a source many times before... How is Ricochetentrance different from the others?
Aube: The water as a source is not so different in all, but in Ricochetentrance, I manipulated it more minimal and rhythmical than before.
AmbiEntrance: What was your goal with this release and how did you achieve it?
Aube: There were not exact goal I wanted to be. It achieved by natural.
AmbiEntrance: Can you give us some insight to the processes/processing you used here?
Aube: I use several analogue & digital effects all the time.
AmbiEntrance
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