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Nobukazu Takemura, "Assembler / Assembler 2"
Released just a few months after the rigid 10th, Nobukazu Takemura's newest is an adventure in minimalism that is as restorative as a long vacation taken after going too long without a break. Too often have I heard sound collages that seem to go nowhere; they simply run about in circles covering the same old ground for the duration of fifteen or twenty minutes or more. Thankfully, Assembler/Assembler 2 is about as predictable as a piano falling out of a building.
Each track is a creature in and of itself, suitable for individual release, and captivating both sonically and melodically. Despite the obvious connection to noise music and modern compositions, this album is full of gorgeous melodic tones and hidden harmonies stretched across almost subconscious space. "Conical Flask" gets things off the ground smoothly with a series of skipping tones that all fit together perfectly and form an abstract and rolling melody that jumps from one ear to another. "USINE" and "Ligne à haute tension" are more disturbing and grinding. They're not completely barrages of sound, but the impression they leave with me is the image of two chainsaws being rammed into eachother or perhaps the sight of heavy artillery exploding far in the distance. In either case, they work well next to the more haunting and accessible songs. "Kino-ear" is a favorite of mine and it definitely feels like the centerpiece of the album, it seems to have the most gravity and it is also the longest track. Throughout its nearly fourteen minute duration "Kino-ear" shifts from subtle glass-like ringing and aqueous gurglings to guitar meanderings. Sometimes the movement from one sound to the next isn't so polar and sometimes the changes happen abruptly, but they never happen annoyingly. The sounds don't necessarily always blend together perfectly but they do form a coherent whole: the sudden shift from guitar sounds to car horns to the audible splash of feet in puddles somehow makes sense. Each composition is like a short film viewed through LSD-tinted eyes. It's not that the music is all that "trippy," it's the thematic qualities and the total individuality of every track that ends up producing a disorienting but cohesive hallucinogenic trip. 
