Nagoya
based Kiyoharu Kuwayama has an interest in reverberant
spaces, recording under bridges and flyovers as well
as in warehouse
and shinto temples at night. Although he occasionally
employs cello, his works tends to explore space and
perspective in utterly unconventional ways.
Typically, he favours objects found in situ to sound
the acoustic enviroment and is as likely to use a chair
scraped along the floor as a standard musical
instrument. But music this most definitely is. The first
piece on offer here foregrounds what sounds like a handful
of pebbles being clicked together against
a distant backdrop of scraped sheet metal. The thickness
of the room's acoustics lends the whole an almost frightening
clarity, and there's an unreality
to the way the two different reverberant layers combine
that only adds to the sense of unease. We're thrown
into a subtly heightened acoustic realm,
in which scale and perspective are altered, to disquieting
psychological effect. The second piece heightens and
complicates the acoustic picture even further,
and increases the density of the sonic activity. The
sound sources here seem to be bundles of sticks, bottles,
tea trays and iron girders thrown down lift shafts.
Once again the ear tries to make sense of the altered
relationships Kuwayama set up between loud and soft,
close and distant. Slowly, the piece starts to focus
more and more strongly on a huge, dark vibration at
the furthest end of the acoustic spectrum, which builds
in intensity, racking up the tension and subtly
disturbing the mind's equilibrium. By this point, the
music sounds like it's taking piece in a vast, pitch
black aircraft hangar of the soul.
by Keith Moline (WIRE No.264)
Lethe
/ Catastrophe Point #6
Kiyoharu Kuwayama aka Lethe from Nagoya is a man that
is not often reviewed in Vital Weekly,
perhaps simply because there aren't that many of his
releases. In Nagoya he has a small studio
under the subway bridge, filled with all sorts of self-built
instruments and machinery,
and creates much of what he does through methods of
improvisation. However for 'Catastrophe Point #6',
Lethe went to Lausanne in Switzerland where he stayed
a month to record this piece (in two parts)
at a place called Arsenic. It's not easy to describe
the music of Lethe. With his violin or cello pieces
it was easier,
since you could say it was related to drone music in
a modern classical way, but the two pieces here
it's less obvious drone related but on the other hand
it is. I know that sounds a bit of a contradiction,
but with the pieces or objects that fall towards the
floor, in combination with a rich amount
(perhaps sometimes a big too rich) of reverb, creates
an open architectural atmosphere
that in a way is hugely organic, taking the listener
to different spheres.
It's hard to tell what the sound sources are, other
than a vague suggestion of stuff falling
on the floor or perhaps the amplified sound of chemical
dropping on a metal plate. The cover,
a nice printed hardboard A4 sized print suggest something
like that. This is music to take in on
a low volume in a darkened room. It will have an effect
of disturbance as much as it relaxes the listener.
Quite nice altogether. (FdW) Vital Weekly
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