A compilation album of 11 artists curated by Jyoti Naoki Eri
Literary concepts are extraordinarily difficult to translate into visual art, let alone music. Expounding on a verbal concept with more words at least gives the writer some room to move, even if this space is arguably imaginary; but transplanting said space to a different medium suddenly makes one’s frame of reference extraordinarily small- how to narrate without speaking?
Science-fiction has helped to bridge the gap before (some of Phillip K. Dick’s or Burroughs’ alternate realities now tend to seem hocked together from everything humanity has tried to forget), and it continues to help push artistic boundaries in unexpected ways, as evidenced by Japanese Aurovilian artist and label-founder Jyoti Naoki Eri’s new compilation ‘Inter-Galactic Sonar Probe Vol. 1’. Featuring contributions from worldwide artists such as Psychopanda and Matt Black, the album is centred around the fictional concept of music being used as a form of sonic communication on a joyride to Andromeda eighty years in the future. Using a minimal range of textures, the result is something akin to music you can read, the unspoken words abstractly comforting… Something you might try and beam out to other life forms just for general reassurance.
“No worries, just passing through…”
This is consequently not the sort of music that can be easily written about analytically.
Track 1- Looking for Something // Strangebird~Sounds [BEL]
[Stangebird~Sounds is a Belgian, Antwerp-based sound artist and musician]
Abstract comfort is the keyword here. Building up from the void, the only recognizable melody comes in the form of a narrow tonal centre that steamrollers steadily on until it takes over the space a written melody might occupy. Blips and bleeps that sound like a kid’s synth routed through a ring modulator and sequencer, something oddly disquieting about the familiarity of these sounds, the slightly fuzzed-out bells that ring in your inner ear.
Can something be truly harsh yet comforting?
Image of a NASA skyscraper drifting sleepily past Neptune, lights in the windows winking off and on… Sonic invitations to the Waldorf-Astoria. Strange bird indeed.
Listen to the track here: https://nadasana.bandcamp.com/track/looking-for-something-strangebird-sounds-bel
Submitted by Dhani Muniz