Most Americans know Nobukazu Takemura by Scope, his first album for Thrill Jockey. As high as the highs on that record were (I've written before about how emotionally engaging I find "Kepler"), it offered only a narrow slice of Takemura's musical personality. The precise and abstract line drawings on the cover in part reflected the album's content. "Taw," for example, resonates mainly as an example of what can be done with modular synthesizer software. The base sound material of that track is interesting, sure, but I still find the composition of the track confusing and ultimately devoid of feeling.
Aside from Scope, the majority of Takemura's solo work (most of which is only available on import) has been released under the name Child's View. The title of this project gives some clue as to where he's coming from. What does it mean to have a child's view? There's the romanticized notion that there's something good and pure about the way kids see the world-- the idea that children have some special insight into the essential, an insight lost somewhere around the same time as "innocence." Indie pop fans might recognize this attitude as one of the founding principals of K Records.
I think of childhood and the "child's view" differently. To me, childhood is a time of hyper-intense feelings that are almost possible to understand or express. Internally and externally, nothing makes sense. For example, I remember Walter Cronkite anchoring the CBS evening news in 1975. I always left the room to play with toys when Cronkite showed up, but one day I decided to stick around and see what all the fuss was about. As I watched, I could only understand every third or fourth word. He was probably talking about Cambodia or something, reeling off Southeast Asian place names. Suffice to say, I couldn't make out a thing. I wondered how other people in my house could enjoy it. It was a lonely feeling. I think Takemura has an uncanny understanding of this perspective, and even more amazing, realizes how to turn it into music.
Hoshi No Koe is a rich album that goes a long way in fusing the split between Scope and his Child's View material. The simple melodicism is here. There's even a semi-traditional pop song in "Sign," complete with vocodered singing (I know everyone is sick of vocal processing; it's still working for me). But the fuzzy abstraction on Hoshi No Koe seems more grounded and easier to access.
Take the sixth track, "A Chrysalis." Through its long first section, it seems to move randomly as small clusters of distorted chords are occasionally interrupted by clanging percussion. But somewhere around the eight-minute mark, the haphazard buzzes coalesce to form one long, gorgeous tone that extends for another eight. A chrysalis is, of course, a pupating butterfly, and this title makes perfect sense. It's so much easier to hear the sounds squirming in their cocoon when you realize how beautifully they'll emerge.
"Anemometer" is the only place Takemura indulges his pronounced Steve Reich fixation. Electric piano, organ and clarinet play hypnotic patterns that don't so much change as build up and fall apart. Underneath the pulses lies an awkward drum machine that tries to keep up, misses beats, and occasionally drops out altogether. It's fascinating to hear how "Anemometer," which is very pretty even during a casual listen, as it constantly struggles to find its footing.
Equally poignant, but in a completely different way, are the short, almost folky tracks that crop up between the lengthier statements. The opening "One Day" features the distant sound of oceans and forest beneath the lone instrument, an organ playing a MIDI variation on a music box theme. "Stairs in Stars" find the same keyboard playing what most would describe as a carousel melody, stark and alone in the absence of children's voices. "Sign" is the pop tune, and a fine one it is; the warm electro beat seems wrapped in a layer of cotton, and the sunny melody is immediately appealing.
At 77 minutes, Hoshi No Koe is perhaps too long and varied for its own good, and some of the noisier bits still seem somewhat out of place. But nothing else I'm hearing these days can match Takemura for capturing the complicated feelings I associate with growing up. It's always been hard to talk about. Now I can just listen.
