Trollheart

Okay, March is about to end and we're onto a new album from today. Choice is Lisnaholic, so blame/praise him as appropriate.



Program Music I - Kashiwa Daisuke

__________________
Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Lisnaholic

Thanks Trollheart. ftfy

This album is available on YouTube, where you can find the full album (Running time about 1 hour) or just the first track, Stella, running time 35 mins.
For your convenience, i'm putting up both versions here:-

First track only:


Full album:

__________________
"Am I enjoying this moment? I know of it and perhaps that is enough." - Sybille Bedford, 1953

SGR

Here's the spotify link if anyone would prefer that:

https://open.spotify.com/album/6Wx8t8cw8kF1P3USoiP32h

FETCHER.

Thank you very much SGR! I have added them to my list. After I have reviewed the next album ofcourse I am going to do it in the next day or two so I stop messing the order of everything up



As soon as I put on the first song I knew I was going to really enjoy it.

I really enjoyed the feel of the first song, I could tell right away it was an album from the 60's and was quite typical of music I heard played by adults throughout my childhood so although this was the first time I have listened to it it felt quite nostalgic.

I really enjoyed his voice, I didn't feel that there was any harshness to it. I didn't particularly enjoy a few aspects of "Flower Lady" & "I've Had Her", I felt they dragged through and it was quite a big contrast from the other upbeat tempos but I really enjoyed the Violin? and Piano work on both of the tracks. It was really soothing to listen to but overall the tempo and feel of the track was a bit down in the dumps in compared to the other songs.

Really enjoyable, easy to listen to and he has a great voice . 7/10

__________________

My Journal.
Last.Fm if your interested...

Marie Monday

I listened to Program Music today. I like the beginning. This type of experimentation with glitching and field recording sounds reminds me a little of Meitei, whose music I adore, and it works as an addition to the fractured piano tones. Once the music 'takes off' more I lose most of my interest. There is some glitching and such, but the music underneath (which in the end is more important) feels unadventurous. I think the the difference is that the beginning works as ambient mood music, but the way it develops brings out an aspect of the music that just feels a little bland to me. Around 10:00 there is a strange violin harmony in two voices which I quite like. There are other things that I enjoy, for instance the ominous bass/percussion just before 25:00, and the playful piano around 37:00. I also like the last bit, I think the beat works well with the rest of the music here, it fleshes it out, and the piano has the kind of meandering, trance-inducing quality of most minimal music I like. Especially the last bit of piano, with distorted violin drifting in and out, is nice in the way it sounds like it shifts chords without having obvious chords.
overall I'll give it a 6/10

__________________

Lisnaholic

Thanks for introducing me to the term "glitching", Marie: new to me, as was the technique itself when I first heard Program Music I. That's partly why it so caught my attention.
I was interested to read how the bits where the music "takes off" were the bits that appealed to you least. When I first listened to Stella, it was the exact reverse case for me: I only liked the calm parts. Now, though, I enjoy both. I like how the glitching builds up tension, keeps you "on your toes" and enhances the sense of relaxing into the unglitched parts.
Anyway, thanks for giving it a proper listen and a decent score!

__________________
"Am I enjoying this moment? I know of it and perhaps that is enough." - Sybille Bedford, 1953

rostasi

In 1972, I wrote a piano work that I had problems trying to realize because what I wanted
needed a technology that wasn’t yet available, but I had faith that it would someday come.

In the mid-80s, with the advent of compact discs and the beginning of a post-digital society,
I decided to revisit the work thinking that my earlier ideas could finally be realized using a
combination of glitch patchwork and circuit-bending (which reached their heights, universally,
in the mid-90s).

When I listen to the first work, “Stella," I hear an attempt at the same kind of realization,
but it loses me very quickly for two main reasons. One is that it has little room for silence and
second, it is, to me, annoyingly major scale heavy with an forced attempt at little pretties throughout.
After the initial segment, it begins to almost sound like a Sharpie-marked CD of
King Crimson’s “Lizard” playing at George Winston’s house.

The only parts that get my attention are the ones that veer from those pretties -
and it might only be for a single second (around 20:46) or at about 23 minutes
in when he decides to break it down into segmented bits. I haven’t decided yet
whether 36 minutes is too long for this work - it depends on the context, I suppose.

For “write once, run melos,” he starts out with a ghostly choir sound which
just begins to get interesting and then soon turns into a fractured jazz piano trio
which works in interesting ways as it breaks up 3 minutes in. I think I’m more
impressed by the quality of the sampled instruments - some of the strings are
impressive (which he likes to use a lot in both of these pieces). Still, I can’t help
but see it as modern soundtrack music for some kind of adventurous YouTube video.

Though there are some wonderful segments that could be expanded for use in
actual film soundtracks - especially the middle section of the second piece.
The mystery element that begins about 13 minutes in? I would love that type of
soundtracking in 2022. It would certainly make films much more abstractly interesting.
The piano ostinato and it’s melodic extension beginning at about 17 and a half minutes
is wonderfully developed (I would leave out the voices here - unless used for film).

He’s young and he says that he’s still finding his way sonically.
His interests and ways of looking at his surroundings are attitudes
that I’ve always found engaging when it comes to composers from Japan.
I just don’t think that he’s been able to translate that to his music … yet.
I’m happy that he’s doing soundtrack work for ¥, and this may be precisely
what’s called for under those circumstances, but it seems at odds to what
I’ve read and seen him speak of when it comes to his interests.

I’ll still follow his work (I think he’s coming up on something like a dozen releases),
because I’d like to think that there’s some promising non-soundtrack work yet to be made by him.
He’s more interesting to me when he decides to compose vignettes (like on “program music II”),
but I think someone needs to remind him that it’s OK to be Japanese.

rubber soul

I listened to this twice, and I have to admit, I liked it better the second time around. I don’t like the glitches as much as Marie does but, otherwise, it flows quite nicely, sort of like art on a canvas. I thought the violin bits were especially nice on Stella. I will say side one is a bit superior to side two, though I can’t say Write Once is bad by any means. I do think the tracks were a bit too long, especially Write Once, but that’s likely more due to me being used to listening to shorter pieces in general. Anyway, a nice album to listen to if you’re multitasking or just typing which is what I’m doing right now. Would definitely recommend for those into modern classical.

7/10 (the Word has spoken )

__________________

Lisnaholic

In a post packed with info, this was the statement that stood out to me most:-

To be composing music requiring a technology that hadn't arrived yet is extraordinary!
______________________________

In contrast to rostasi's, my own review of Program Music I is void of any background info or even rudimentary musical knowledge I'm afraid:

Stella: Starts with random sounds that tell you "expect the unexpected from this music". With the first glitching (copyright: Marie) I was checking for faults in my audio, but then I began to adjust better to what KD was doing. By about 11 mins I was enjoying an exciting bit where the music is really tripping over itself to get out, and then by 15 mins things had calmed down completely: this is the piano/violin section that Marie found disappointing and rostasi, I think, would call "the pretties". Personally I loved it, and was kind of reassured to hear female voices that could've come out of Atom Heart Mother. To me, this whole track has a good balance of easy and more challenging listening.

Write once, run Melos: Coming after such a long track puts this one at a slight disadvantage, but KD does a good job of making it distinctive with its jazzy piano intro. There's a middle section with a lot of violin and glitching during which I couldn't repress the thought, "Oh, just more of the same then". But then halfway through the music gets faster, noisier than anything on Stella. In the last section a repeated piano riff pushes the music along at a furious pace and KD keeps it interesting even as the sounds slow down to a few last isolated plinks of piano.

So, this album keeps growing on me and gets a 9/10, losing a point because, much as I like it, there's always a point in the one-hour running time when I think, "Ya, take it off please!" Also, both tracks have weaker sections that made me think of computer games like Zelda, or of a violinist running to catch their bus home while still trying to finish off the concert.
_______________________________

PS: Glad to hear that you were able to enjoy in this album too, rs.

__________________
"Am I enjoying this moment? I know of it and perhaps that is enough." - Sybille Bedford, 1953

Trollheart

I knew I was in trouble when the word "glitch" was bandied about. I'm pretty sure I've heard something else by Daisuke (the name is certainly one you'd remember) and think I liked it, and in general, I'd say yes I like this.

You know there's a but coming don't you?

Here it is.

I feel that the music, lovely as it is, is spoiled (for me anyway) by all this atonal/glitch/dissonant/delete as appropriate nonsense. I just don't see why music like this needs such, um, effects? Embellishments? Whatever: for me, the music stands on its own, and while in fairness, there are not that many "glitches" (not like James ****ing Blake, thank you very much, drove me mad) I would have been happier had it been a cleaner sound. It's certainly beautiful music, but my attention keeps getting distracted by the glitches. To my mind, it's like watching a beautiful sunset or something and someone keeps blasting noisy music, or throwing a ball at you, or shouting at you. Ruins the effect. You try to ignore it, and some of the time you can, but it does get to you.

I realise I'm probably alone in this, but you know me by now: I don't go with the flow usually - I'm normally left behind sitting on the beach going "no I can't swim. I'll just stay here and read." And that's how I think I'll be perceived here: the guy who just "doesn't get it". Well I don't, and I don't mind that I don't.

Right; I see there are only two tracks on it. Well I have to say "Stella", despite its plus-half-hour running length, went in really fast and didn't seem overlong at all. Second track seems to have way too much glitching for my liking, and it sounds already like it might be veering in a jazz direction, none of which inspires me with confidence.

Okay, no, I was wrong there, or so it seems. Settled down into quite an ambient/neoclassical style, and the glitching, by and large, seems to all have been done in the first minute or two, leaving the rest of the track largely untouched. Quite enjoying this now.

Overall, the glitching was not really the barrier to enjoyment of the music I had expected it to be, and I really liked this album. I would imagine I would listen to more.

Rating: 8.5/10

__________________
Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018