akisai: Travelers
Schole Records

With Yo Suzuki handling music production and Koichi Nakaie artwork and design, the akisai partners bring a novel working arrangement to their joint project. Their third album under the name presents two parts, the first a CD featuring ten radiant tracks, the second an accompanying insert whose QR code grants listeners access to the visual work re:consideration (the video component is also available at: http://akisai.com/travelers). Note that the visual material features different music from what's presented on the CD; in fact, the music accompanying the six re:consideration videos has been issued as a separate EP under the same title.

As warm and enveloping as a summer's day, the serenades on Travelers are uplifting productions that flatter Suzuki as both multi-instrumentalist and composer. In sweetening acoustic guitar, piano, and flute with electronics, he fashions a harmonious blend of pop, post-rock, and electronica that's endearing and melodically enticing. With the overture an ambient oasis of piano-sprinkled shimmer, “Entrance” is about as inviting a starting-point as could be imagined. In the subsequent “Circle,” electronic beats provide the drive, but it's the sparkle of acoustic guitars, synthesizers, and sunny melodies that generates the greatest head-rush. Sweetly singing flutes and acoustic guitars add a pastoral quality to “Allemande,” but the inclusion of horns and punchy beats lends the tune an aggressive, post-rock vibe. The release's prettiest piece is arguably “Crepavane,” a mellow, flute-and-strings-enhanced reverie that's closer in style to New Age and lounge music than post-rock but is no less appealing for being so.

Whereas the music accompanying the visual component is rather more electronic and ambient than the material on the CD, the six videos emphasize outdoors phenomena—trees illuminated by sunlight, wintry forest scenery, flowing water surfaces, etc.—though elaborate colour and texture treatments also alter the nature display. While online the videos are viewable separately, the soundtrack material connects as a single, cumulative entity that stylistically mutates in tandem with changes in the video presentation. In “Replication,” refractions of forest imagery are cued to the stutter-funk of the music, the character of the latter far removed from the generally acoustic tone of the CD productions. Whereas cycling marimba patterns draw a connecting line to Steve Reich during “Repetition,” peaceful electric guitar musings and percussive sprinkles in “Restoration” emphasize akisai's pastoral side. Ultimately, the combination of the two parts makes for a substantial release when the visual component features thirty-four minutes of video and sound content and the CD totals forty-seven. As a result, Travelers offers a considerably in-depth account of what Suzuki and Nakaie bring to their collective endeavour.

May 2020