Many North Americans have spent time knocking about Western Europe or South America; fewer have ventured into the remote enclaves of Eastern Europe, and fewer still to Japan. No wonder the latter has been so extensively mythologized in America's books, films, and music.
In the Western mind, Japan is often a trope for mystery and otherness, and two contrary images of it exist simultaneously, like a double exposure: A samurai scheduling his honorable suicide in a Palm Pilot. One can observe our collective vision of Japan evolving, as rapidly as the culture itself, from one of historical fantasy to one of futuristic wonder. It's the Japan of Lost in Translation-- a garish, hyper-accelerated land of rampant technological advance and debased tradition-- that's dominant today.
Ninja Tune tends to be good at picking out international acts that avoid caricature, and Japanese duo Rainstick Orchestra's debut eschews the Western vision of Japan as a pinball machine full of lab rats. They also don't cleave to the imagined Japan of old, which occurs to us as a blur of cherry blossoms and hedge gardens, scented with vaguely detected aromas of honor, humility, feudalism, solicitousness, and quietude.
Since America is so fascinated by Japanese culture, it's no surprise that the Japanese are intrigued by the U.S.'s as well, and Rainstick Orchestra's polite, placid debut evinces no overt connection to its creators' native country. Instead, it assimilates Western fragments-- the minimalist, avant-garde compositions of Reich and Cage; the breezy demeanor of AM Gold pop and smooth jazz; chill-out techno and laid-back funk; liquid glitchcore; maybe a little Sam Prekop or Archer Prewitt-- into a glassy, frictionless surface of meditative geniality. The duo's electronically sequenced clouds of guitar, bass, piano, and synthetic sound effects have an airy, fluid quality that echoes in both their moniker and the album's, although "Muzak for Glass Elevator" would have been equally apposite.
The Floating Glass Key in the Sky takes its sweet time-- its seven tracks are longish, five to 10 minutes each, and develop in casually relentless inflections of detail and subtly shifting layers of repetition. "Trick" burbles and emotes with varied melodic percussion, fluttering piano, and expressive shadings of sliding bass tones. "Waltz for a Little Bird" is a romantically melancholic shuffle snatched from a 70s sitcom theme, all jaunty arpeggios and twinkling xylophone. "Kiteletu", besides the lively flute figure that peppers it, is less clear in its melodic intention, building itself from a swirl of sonorous rhythm that collapses into the piano dirge of its middle section.
"Electric Counterpoint Fast" finds Rainstick Orchestra reworking Steve Reich's collaboration with guitarist Pat Metheny into an imbricate cascade of digital tones and whispery trills, and the ethereal keys of album ender "Closed Circuit" ebb and flow over a metronomic hi-hat. The Floating Glass Key in the Sky understatedly demonstrates how technical complexity can achieve pristinely simple results when melody is given priority over esotericism.
