textura

Albums
Bayaka Pygmies
Maya Beiser
James Blackshaw
Caffeine Patrol
Call Super
Andrea Carri
Causa Sui
Matthew Collings
Philip Corner
Crandell & Timson
Gareth Dickson
Dryft
Jordan Dykstra
Roman Flügel
Future 3
Graveyard Tapes
Hildur Gudnadottir
Mary Halvorson
Hecq
Idlefon
Yuta Inoue
Jacaszek & Kwartludium
Franz Kirmann
Lachrylic
Machinone
Null
Ocoeur
Octet Ensemble
Oliveros/Rothenberg/Hill
Glen Porter
Gabriel Prokofiev
Rob Reed
Steve Roach
The Sticks
Tangent
Tapage
Taylor | Grosse
Transllusion
Weathers & Chrisman
yMusic
Yokotsuka Yuuya

Compilations / Mixes
Calyx & TeeBee
Deetron
Total 14

EPs / Cassettes / Mini-Albums / Singles
Blu Mar Ten
Break / Fields
Elika
William Ryan Fritch
Andy Vaz

Machinone: Tokyo
flau

Machinone, the alias adopted by Daizo Kato, a multi-instrumentalist and composer who hails from Tohoku, Japan, invites misinterpretation, as his music might be many things but is most definitely not machine-like. More than anything it positions itself within the pastoral acoustic folk genre, with the album, Tokyo, breathing the kind of unhurried, natural air that makes it sound as if he recorded it during some extended stay in the countryside, away from the accelerated pace of the city.

With Kato responding to his surroundings, Tokyo amounts to a collection of intimate sketches—alternately nostalgic, melancholy, wistful, and bittersweet—created using acoustic guitar, banjo, clarinet, organ, piano, wood toys, music box, tape recorder, glockenspiel, and field recordings and featuring contributions from guests Danny Norbury, Federico Durand, and Radiosonde member Takashi Tsuda. The results are quietly transporting, especially when ambient sounds of the immediate environment seep into the material to suggest the recording's homemade character (perhaps most noticeably during “Windwijzer” and “Vihrea” where faint bird sounds are audible in between his guitar strums).

Many pieces feature a single instrument, often acoustic guitar, whereas others are more expansive in their arrangements. “Siksy” and “Juha,” for example, are enhanced by the presence of luscious cello playing (Norbury, presumably), while “Driftwood” and “Tegami” assume an even more affecting quality when dreamlike flute and clarinet playing, respectively, accompany the lilt of Kato's acoustic guitar picking. Delicate settings such as “Flower Stamp” and “Tears of Kivi,” however, prove that nothing more than an acoustic guitar is needed to beguile the listener when the compositions in question are so captivating. Admittedly, some degree of shapelessness is unavoidable when an album features nineteen pieces (all but one of the songs is in the one-to-three-minute range), but that's a small price to pay for a collection whose music feels so genuine and is so generally affecting.

October 2014