ARTICLES
Benoît Pioulard's Précis
Label: Dynamophone
Label: Hidden Shoal

ALBUMS
Aemae
A Lily
Arc Lab
Blotnik Brothers
Gui Boratto
Cagesan
Jeremy Caulfield
Loren Dent
Do Make Say Think
Eats Tapes
Enduser
Domink Eulberg
Explosions in the Sky
Michael Fahres
The Field
Frivolous
Maximilian Hecker
Hug
Hush Arbors
Jan-M. Iversen
Espen Jørgensen
Kattoo
O.Lamm
Bruce Levingston
Tobias Lilja
Lusine
Marcia Blaine School
The Missing Ensemble
Nebulo
Ölvis
Charlemagne Palestine
Palomar
Pornopop
The Postmarks
Propergol Y Colargol
The Retail Sectors
R/R Coseboom
Sankt Otten
Scratch Massive
Slow Dancing Society
Stars of the Lid
subtractiveLAD
Sunosis
Aoki Takamasa
Amon Tobin
Tokyo Mask
Kate Wax
Wes Willenbring
Windmill

COMPILATIONS/MIXES
Chaos.Lovers
Cryosphere
Hub: 2004-2005
Rufs
Satoshi Tomiie

3" /7" /10"/12"/EPs
Agnes
AM/PM
Arctic Sunrise
Audion
Characterize 1
Dartriix
Death is Nothing To Fear
Don't Be A Stranger
Einóma
Fusiphorm
Heartthrob
Human Nature
Infant Cycle / Antmanuv
Lilienweiss
Luci
Mauve
Paco Osuna
Ben Parris
Carola Pisaturo
Portable
Sutekh
System
Aoki Takamasa
Cortney Tidwell
Andy Vaz

The Retail Sectors: Subject Unknown
Symbolic Interaction

While Symbolic Interaction's recent split disc provided a decent introduction to The Retail Sectors and Yaporigami, it offered a mere snapshot impression of the artists. The Retail Sectors' hour-long full-length Subject Unknown now rights that wrong by presenting a fuller portrait of Kyoto-based Kentaro Togawa's musical style. The album's not solely a solo effort, though, as Togawa receives remix help from guests Yaporigami (Yu Miyashita), Headphone Science (Dustin Craig), Si Begg, and Maps And Diagrams (Tim Martin): Si Begg's jaunty mix of “The First Step to End the Life” opens the album jubilantly, Maps And Diagrams imbues Togawa's guitar-based sound with subtle electronic enhancements on the too-brief waltz “The Decadence and the meditative soundscape “The Decadence,” and Headphone Science transforms “The Longing Song” into a mutant ‘post-rock' variation of a Scottish jig. Though such pieces are appealing, tracks like “The Distress” (reprised along with “The Decadence” from the split release) and “The Lonely Shy Boys Fly To Sky Again and Again” are more representative of The Retail Sectors' style; here Togawa builds up multi-layered lattices of chiming guitars over basic drum patterns and bass with the mood predominantly lyrical and melodic. Intermittent swarms of guitar buzz surface to give the music extra oomph (brace yourself for the detonation Yaporigami drops into the middle of “The Dread” and the beautiful crunch that builds in “The Story of a Girl Who Is Socially Ostracized”) but for the most part Subject Unknown is more contemplative and wistful than the post-rock norm. The album's only weakness is an occasional moment of lackluster drumming but that's hardly a crippling aspect.

April 2007