The wonderful Kitchen. Label from Singapore is well-known for their beautiful and well designed artbook releases. Their latest (KI-005) masterpiece has been released in December 2010 – ‘Sketch’ by Ironomi. ” ‘Sketch’ attempts to conjure something of the glaring light and torpid air of a Japanese summer using sound alone. The titles of these compositions invoke a literal kind of emotional color – specific nuances associated with the unique hue of summer insects, or the underside of leaves in the shade. The names of these colors belong to a romantic, anachronistic vocabulary found in literary works that date from the Heian period (794-1185), like Sei Shonagon’s The Pillow Book.” [taken from the introduction printed in the artbook].
Ironomi is Junya Yanagidaira and Yu Isobe. Whilst Isobe’s part is the more electronic manipulation (laptop), Yanagidaira delivers the beautiful piano music. Often reminding me of Claude Débussy – mostly due to the often used pentatonic – their music seems to be mainly inspired by impressionists musically. Also regarding the artbook with the descreet and sometimes even pale colours this impression is increased visually. Regardless of this theoretical inspection ‘Sketch’ is a truly beautiful piece of work. Following the nearly jazzy ‘Twilight’ album by Haruka Nakamura ‘Sketch’ appears to be more experimental and classically orientated. The song form cannot be found in any piece, instead Ironomi presents a collection of piano loop collages. A brilliant overall sound is delivered through the complete 33:30 minutes (which is pretty short for an album like this! But the repeat-button extends the pleasure for another half an hour…). With the piano arpeggios looped and newly arranged to peaceful sound collages the album appears like a warm auditory summer rain, both refreshing and recreative. Again this impression is increased through the visual aspect, the photographs by April Lee are full of warmth, showing often healthy nature or even summery colours. A perfect combination of auditory and visual elements. A beautiful sketch of summer, light, warmth, rain and life in general.
The format – CD plus artbook – still is a very special way to release music. It’s a feast for the eyes as a collector’s item and to image the music itself. However, the Kitchen. Label artbooks are top-notch pieces of art, both the artbook and the CD – but especially the combination of both.
[ 4,9 / 5 ]
