Review
A singular sound, most recently enjoyed on Animala Corolla by Jüppala Kääpiö, basically the same song under a different mantle. Both sound like the first sounds ever made by the planet and the last ones that will ever be heard. On High Tide Mirror, Hitoshi Kojo again seems to hold sway over an extraordinary beastiary, chanting and leading ragas for and seemingly by the elephants and bandicoots, blue whales and giraffes and all that creepeth upon the earth and all the birds in the sky. A ceaseless tune-up of the orchestra that is this nebulous, dim puff of stardust in The Milky Way, a de-harmonizing of the spheres, many colored drones wheezed through bagpipe bellows, bleating through bladders, trumpeted through horns and rung like bells. “Lunar Germination” is more delicately plucked and stroked, silky strands stuck to the feet of hatchlings taking first flight. The title track is a woozy tide pool reflecting the swirl that makes the cosmic pearl. Gorgeously handmade, silk screened packaging, as per usual for Kojo.
Igloo Magazine
The Japanese born, Belgium resident, Hitoshi Kojo describes himself as a 'sound-painter'. It suggests an audio exploratory form of abstract expressionism - a far less cluttered and confused realm than the more constricting, less meaningful tribal genre tags he undoubtedly encounters such as drone or dark ambient.
'High Tide Mirror', recorded live between 2010 and 2011 in Vevey, Switzerland and his current home of Brussels, has an idea of the music of the spheres at its core. His website presents a 'Preface' to the work - a great idea for a conceptual release that's confusingly omitted from the packaging. It states "Our bodies can become a receiver of cosmic music when we connect our roots to certain places on earth... to participate in the circular dance of the celestial orbs". This sense of universal animism permeates the six pieces on offer here, while remaining 'rooted', as his preface suggests, thanks to the raw qualities endowed by recording the pieces live..
The controls are set for the heart of the moon with opener 'Interstellar Creepers', its processed bird calls painting an outdoor environment where powerful kosmische chords streak the night sky. It's a howling invocation, a tuning-in, perhaps, to the vibrations of the universe..
Primed and ready for "the tonal dance with the sun and the moon", 'Seminal Weavers' follows with surprisingly musical matter. Here a jew's harp, harmonica and fiddle melt into each other in a resonant, cosmic hoe-down. The long breaths of harmonica lead onward into 'Unlaced Constellations', less of a celebration and more of a journey, as its tonal waves ebb and flow, gaining energy as the piece travels steadily onward. Midway through, Kojo's voice emerges as a devotional chant whose vibrations linger within the amassed vortex of sounds. The combination, with its delightful sruti box qualities, brings a sense of eastern religions and philosophies.
Finally reaching the moon with 'Lunar Germination', the sparse landscape is lent a more stately mode with uneven backward piano slices plotting a reverent melody gilded by scintillating string motifs. The hymn becomes submerged under building layers of suspended tones to suggest a kind of terra forming where growing signs of life cry out (occasionally reminding of the iconic language of The Clangers).
It's back to earth for the last two pieces as the moon's magnetic field conducts our planet's aquatic movements. The title piece begins with droning strings, reminding of Tony Conrad's New York experiments in the Sixties. Their subtle nuances shining brightly like dappling light on restless waters, then blending with the rich waves of an exhaling harmonium.
While Kojo's concept (and this written extrapolation, for that matter) may discourage those for whom a whiff of patchouli, or a yogic position rings post-punk alarm bells, the work is highly enjoyable on a purely musical level. Indeed, far from being merely abstract sonic artistry that the job title of 'sound-painter' infers, 'High Tide Mirror' has a highly melodic charge. Kojo's blend of recognisable, live instrumentation with natural found sounds and magical manipulations has far more to offer than mere hippy vibes - it is an unusual, highly personal musical statement on our relationship to the world around us and the mysteries of the surrounding universe.
Musique Machine
Gorgeous new CD from Kojo, one-half of the amazing environmental drone/ritualists Kodama, presented in a deluxe silkscreened card package with inner screened sleeve and die-cut detail in a hand-numbered edition of 200 copies: this is cosmic, organic drone work that moves through violent storms that sound like distant recordings of the surface activity in variously imagined universes through the sound of whale song in space and a gloriously hi-fi take on the kind of epic ascension style of early Skaters.
There are various nods to Taj Mahal Travellers, Coil and the deep field visions of Hermann Nitsch but this is a singularly beautiful statement of psychedelic/cosmo bliss that lines up with classics of the form like Axolotl’s amazing Telesma in terms of a profound reconciliation of fleshy cosmic eternities and brain-razzing electro detail.
Sudden rushes of microtone thick drone trail into the distance while ancient sounding horn calls, mouth harp, hurdy gurdy tones and forlorn morse code melodies circle like the Third Ear Band soundtrack Space Is The Place in a higher key specifically designed to ‘speak’ to aquatic alien life-forms. And when Kojo adds the odd human gasp or held vocal tone the effect is tectonic.
Sublime organic eternal music with one foot in ritual folk forms and the other in the pool of the cosmos. An amazing side, highly recommended!
Volcanic Tongue - David Keenan
Power drone of the highest calibre. Flecked with bits of organic found sound, but the electronics on this are an exercise in audio hypnosis. Little eddies and vortices of sound spiral through your headphones. Time moves out in all directions.
The title track shimmers with sustain until about four minutes in a chord descends/emerges. It feels like a blanket being laid down upon you. Histoshi’s drones are never stark, nor mono-focused, but deftly filled with color and slow evolution.
I’ve seen some of this photographs which capture nature in decay but simultaneously spawning more life, and that’s what is music captures.
Water washes in and out of pieces, and a jaw harp burbles through “Seminal Weavers.” Processed voice comes in gossamer whispers, blending with the keyboards. voice is most present as mini-mantra on “Unlaced Constellations.” Is that bowed nyckleharp on “Lunar Germinations” skittering of some sort, fast yet steady like hummingbird wings. A guitar can crash like the ocean, a synth is a satellite is an owl.
Turntables and tide tables both influence this transplanted Japanese artist working in Belgium currently, but he’s clearly a citizen of the earth, water and sky.
A co-release on his own imprint with Shining Day, with packaging that shows the emptiness of mp3s. Thanks Hitoshi!
KFJC 89.7 FM - Thurston Hunger
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