There is a place you probably go to escape the rest of the world. Maybe it's not even a physical location, but a state of mind that blocks out movement and noise everywhere. I guess it's a pretty noisy world, and isolation doesn't seem like such a lonely word when you're cornered by the frenzied and fucked up on all sides: Buddhists meditate, and from what I can tell-- my exposure limited to a haggard David Carradine roaming the Old West-- they seem like pretty levelheaded people. Transcendence: to rise above and beyond, and into a world of equilibrium where all is perfect, natural and without dissonance. Ahhh.
But then again, without anything to brush up against, I'd probably explode into a boundless ball of mush. Especially in music, it seems friction and strife are absolute necessities to produce anything interesting. That doesn't mean there has to be crazy explosions going off all the time, but until the day comes when my spine can take no more celebratory flailing, there has to be a tension-release involved. Ogurusu Norihide, a Shinto priest and self-proclaimed "laptop-folk" musician, makes music with round edges, and without much of that tension to chew on. His music is pretty, in a way, but in general seems a tad on the static side to me, opting for continuous (some might say directionless), mellow resolve at the expense of something more viscerally engaging.
Modern is Norihide's second release, on which he further develops his mildly computer-assisted acoustic mood music. It is also a rather stone-faced document in stark minimalism, with some tracks having much in common with contemporary avant-garde Japanese improvisers like Toshimaru Nakamura and Taku Sugimoto, who are working with an extreme idea of "negative space"-- in other words, really, really quiet music. Norihide doesn't title any of the tracks on his CD, and that may further distance them from some folks. Personally, I'm just listening for something, anything, to grab hold of.
The sixth track features very spare handclaps and single, fingerpicked guitar tones in what seems like a take on traditional Japanese court music. The suspension created by the guitar notes, and what seem like endless silences scattered everywhere within the piece, do lend a considerable tension to the music-- but after ten minutes, the tension loses its potency, and the end result may well conjure impatience rather than real interest. Likewise, track four features only soft sine tones, and while arguably the most relaxing track on the disc, isn't really the kind of thing I'd put on to chill out to. Again, he's superficially related to the onkyo (experimental Japanese electronic improv) scene, but tends to either emphasize an almost transparent mix of sounds, or run very sparse ideas too long.
I wonder if Norihide might not sound better as a straight acoustic folk performer, without the aid of his gear. Track seven is a gorgeous ballad featuring only two guitars, and extremely minimal effects. The vibe is delicate but not passive; the melodies are sweet and it captures a mood similar to Richard Youngs' non-psych-out folk music (and Norihide seems a lot more Jagjaguwar than Carpark to me, in general). Maybe that means I like Modern best when it isn't, when the music seems less an awkward electronic fusion and more a simple, perfect meditation.
