東京を拠点に活動するDJ/プロデューサーMax Essa（マックス・エッサ）が、デンマークの名門Music For Dreamsから2018年に発表したフルレングスアルバム。リリースから8年を経た今も変わらず、本当によく聴いている作品です。心地よいグルーヴ感のニューディスコ路線だった前作「Won Ton Sunset」から趣向が大きく変わり、本作は旅先で出会った静かな時間や風景を映し取るような内省的なリスニング・サウンド。後に和アンビエント/チルアウトの編集盤「Oto No Wa: Selected Sounds of Japan 1988-2018」を共同監修するMax Essaですが、本作にも日本の環境音楽のエッセンスが随所に散りばめられ、とりわけInteriorの美学を現代的にアップデートしたような佇まいが感じられます。アートワークはサンセットの光と影を抽象化したイメージなのでしょうか。ダンスとメディテーション、イージーとディープのあいだに浮かぶ中庸の心地よさ。自分自身を静かに取り戻すためのブルーリスニング。本作の延長線上にある「Miró In The Bathroom」とあわせて。
Published between 1996 and 2000, with editorial bases in Tokyo and San Francisco, Zavtone was a bilingual magazine covering digital culture, electronic music, future media, and the rapidly evolving rave scene. Released the year after the magazine ceased publication, this DVD became the first title in the Chillsphere series launched by its publisher, Newsbase.
Titled Flow, this ambient video work pairs Spectronics' ethereal slow-motion footage of fireworks with 5.1-channel surround sound by Buddhastick Transparent (Makoto Yamamoto and Takashi Fukuyama). Although the combination of ambient music and fireworks may seem slightly unexpected, the work may have been an attempt to connect the quiet sense of celebration and uplift associated with a time when "chill" meant more than simple relaxation to the extraordinary sensibilities of urban life, through its practicality as an interior video work.
The soundtrack consists of selections from Buddhastick Transparent's earlier albums, rearranged for 5.1-channel surround sound. To me, they remain enigmatic and almost anonymous—a singular presence that still evokes a quiet longing for the ambient music of that time.
Japanese Fireworks Camera Painting Of Spectronics (2001) ▲
品番：NODZ-00002
監督：General Idea Of Diplodocus 音楽：Buddhastick Transparent 撮影：Spectronics Thanks for Intelligence: Love Link, Artman, M.M.Delight, S.Ono, Starnet, Deepspace Time
A work titled “After the Rain.” Eli Wewentxu, with roots in the Mapuche indigenous people of south-central Chile, expands the violin into the sounds of a non-European landscape. Indrė Jurgelevičiūtė plays the kanklės, a traditional Lithuanian stringed instrument, carrying ancient songs into the present while collaborating in sessions with traditional musicians from around the world. Different in both cultural background and language, these two shared a musical dialogue in a single room in the summer of 2025, shortly after they first met.
The forceful rasp of the violin, evoking an unknown folk instrument; the moist arpeggios and chords of the kanklės; and the rustic, humorous rhythm of the txompe (mouth harp). Synchronizing their awareness and breath, their improvised ensemble moves forward in one direction like the gentle flow of a river. The natural resonance of each instrument is inviting, with a fresh sense of life breathing from every single note.
The cover art depicts a pudu—the world’s smallest deer—and an egret standing in a marshland. That landscape and the sounds overlap, shaping a small ecosystem unique to this work. Wonderful curation by Stroom.
これまでギターノイズをデジタルエラーによって脱構築するストイックな抽象音響を持ち味としていたPluramon。本作ではクルーズの甘美な歌声を主役に据えたことで、当時隆盛していたエレクトロ・シューゲイザーの潮流に接続するドリームポップ的な作風へと大きく変化しています。同時期の作品でしばしば比較されるのが、同じくケルンを拠点に活動していたGuitarの名作「Sunkissed」。MBV直系の恍惚感をサンプリングの反復によって増幅した「Sunkissed」が燦然と輝く太陽だとすれば、この「Dreams Top Rock」は朧月が妖しく霞むようなダウナーな夜想世界。プリペアドギターや即興演奏の断片を緻密にエディットした音響空間と、その中を浮遊する天使のようでありながら、どこか不穏さを孕んだクルーズの歌声。シューゲイズの轟音とツインピークスの幻影。馬をモチーフにしたアートワークや、中盤で見せるアメリカンゴシック調の枯れたバンドサウンドも含め、リンチ作品の映像世界や、その中で特異な存在感を放っていたクルーズ本人へのオマージュが、さりげなく散りばめられているようにも感じられます。
This is the fourth album released under the name Pluramon by Marcus Schmickler, a leading composer based in Cologne, Germany. Featuring Julee Cruise, famously known as the songstress of David Lynch’s cinematic works, as the main vocalist, the album also welcomes guest appearances by Chicago-based experimental musician Kevin Drumm and Keith Rowe from the legendary British improvisation group AMM.
Pluramon had previously been known for a stoic, abstract acoustic style that deconstructed guitar noise through digital glitches. However, by placing Cruise’s sweet vocals at the center stage, this album undergoes a dramatic shift toward a dream-pop style that connects with the wówczas flourishing electro-shoegaze movement. A masterpiece often compared from the same era is 'Sunkissed' by Guitar, who was also based in Cologne. If 'Sunkissed'—which amplified MBV-esque ecstasy through repetitive sampling—is a brilliantly shining sun, then this album, 'Dreams Top Rock,' is a downer, nocturnal world where a hazy moon casts a mysterious glow.
The acoustic space is meticulously edited from prepared guitars and fragments of improvisational performances, through which Cruise’s vocals float like an angel, yet harbor a certain sense of unrest. The roaring wall of shoegaze sound and the phantoms of Twin Peaks. From the horse-motif artwork to the withered, American Gothic-style band sound revealed in the middle of the album, one can feel that subtle homages to the cinematic world of Lynch's works, and to Cruise herself, who exuded such a unique presence within them, are casually scattered throughout.
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舞台になったのは、緑に囲まれたザルツァウ城の池に設置されたインスタレーション「Salzau Music on the Water」。旧ソ連出身の現代美術家カバコフ夫妻とウラジミール・タラソフが手がけたこの作品は、浮島のように造られた木製のステージであり、その空間全体が水上に浮かぶ「巨大な楽譜」として設計されたもの。五線譜に見立てて張り巡らされたワイヤーには、無数の金属棒やカトラリーが音符のように吊り下げられ、風が吹くたびに揺れてランダムな音を奏でる仕掛けになっています。
... An instrumental CD of the rare instrument, Chinese Bells called "Hensho". Titled "Hensho Mizu-no Inori" (Bell and River's Prayer). Composer / performer Yukiko Hasegawa has written four pieces inspired by her fondness of the sound of the river. In this disc, Hasegawa plays the Chinese Bells in Honen-in Temple (Kyoto) and as a harmony has recorded the sound of water flowing from its source (Kamogawa River) until it meets with the Yodogawa River and enters into Osaka Bay - the juxtaposition of human and nature dance together in a sound scape of quiet beauty. The origin of Hensho dates back to ancient palace music. A Hensho was placed in a Chinese burial tomb 2400 years ago (400 B.C.). In Japan, only a handful of Hensho exist. ▲
St.GIGAアーカイヴ「Spacey night A」より。NYのレーベルBottom Line Recordsから1992年にリリースされたディープハウス・クラシック。作者はレーベル主宰の鍵盤奏者/プロデューサーEd The RedことEdward Goltsmanと、彼のパートナーNancy Kay Goltsman、カルト的な人気を誇るプロデューサーNelson "Paradise" Roman。跳ねるようなベースラインと夢心地なシンセのコード、そしてトライバルな混声チャントを織り交ぜたスピリチュアルでフローティングなトラック。日の入りから日の出までの「星の時」。セントギガのストリームの中でも特に高揚感のある満潮に向かう時間帯だと思います。
スウェーデン・ウプサラ出身、現在はニューヨークを拠点に活動するAdrian Knight（エイドリアン・ナイト）。本作「Damn the Flood」は、サンフランシスコ・ベイエリアの現代バレエカンパニーPost:Balletの委嘱により制作された作品で、2017年3月に同市の文化芸術センターSOMArtsにて、Robert Dekkers振付によるダンスパフォーマンスの一部として初演されました。単なるダンスの伴奏にとどまらず、音と身体が空間の中で対等に作用し合う、没入型の舞台芸術として構想。「流れる水の儚さと永続性」をモチーフに、ひとつの楽章に5つの異なる和声構造がシームレスに組み込まれ、Juno 6とRhodesの柔らかなドローン、ヴィブラフォンなどの生楽器の繊細な響きと電子音響の残響処理が溶け合うようにブレンドされています。多作かつ変幻自在な作家ゆえに、その全体像は掴みがたいところがありますが、本作だけを切り取ってみても、彼自身の美意識や緻密な構築力が静かな音像の奥からひしひしと伝わってくる。純度の高い音世界を堪能できる一作です。
He is a contemporary composer of post-minimalist scores, while also crafting a sort of faux-80s bedroom pop with delightfully limp vocals. There is a genuine commitment to both sides of his craft, leaving an impression of someone truly mysterious.
Adrian Knight is originally from Uppsala, Sweden, and is currently based in New York. This work, Damn the Flood, was commissioned by Post:Ballet, a contemporary ballet company based in the San Francisco Bay Area, and premiered in March 2017 at the city’s cultural and arts center, SOMArts, as part of a dance performance choreographed by Robert Dekkers. Conceived not merely as an accompaniment to dance, the piece was envisioned to create a space where sound and the body occupy the performance space as equals, resulting in an immersive performing art. Guided by the motif of "the fleeting nature of running water and the timeless," five distinct harmonic structures are seamlessly woven into a single movement, where the soft drones of a Juno 6 and Rhodes, the delicate resonance of acoustic instruments like the vibraphone, and electronic reverberations blend almost imperceptibly.
Given how prolific and versatile he is, his complete artistic vision can be elusive to grasp. Yet, even when listening to this work on its own, one can quietly feel his distinct aesthetic and meticulous sense of architecture breathing beneath the calm soundscape. It is a piece that invites you to gently savor an exquisitely crafted sonic world.
This is the second installment in the original CD series “cosmosSfera,” developed by the Kyoto-based product brand “Sfera” alongside Milan-based sound artist Gak Sato. While following the style of the previous release—where ambient sounds and acoustic instruments were constructed through a post-electronica lens—this album seems to seek new directions by welcoming Yuko Ikoma and Kosuke Shimizu from the chamber music unit mama! milk.
Recording took place at Hōnen-in, Fukuzō-in, and the Sfera Building in Kyoto. Based on materials from three days of sessions, the tracks were edited and reconstructed by Gak Sato. A diverse array of instruments and sound objects find their way into the mix, including a toy piano, kalimba, accordion, organetto (hand-cranked music box), Casiotone, double bass, clarinet, balafon, ryuteki, shō, and even sound hoses and wind chimes.
Amid the distinct presence and atmosphere of each location, fragments of sound drift quietly, repeating and pausing on a whim. The way these varied movements intersect, irregularly and amorphously, briefly brings to mind sound sculptures or automated musical instruments placed in public spaces; there is a sense as if the very sounds they generate, along with the surrounding environment, have been captured whole as a piece of work.
While many of the sonic elements lean Western, the sparse arrangement evokes something akin to a Japanese garden—a gentle, peculiar sound world where chance and order coexist in a curious balance. While the overall tone remains detached, one is left with a warm, quiet afterglow after the final track, “A (440Hz),” fades away.
