yui onodera / ENTROPY
Trumn (Japan) 2009 CD
(originally issued on Critical Path in 2005)
Recorded &
composed in Tokyo, Spring 2004-Winter 2005.
All sounds sourced from electric guitars, field recordings and electronics.
■REVIEWS
The artwork of this reissue of Yui Onodera’s self-released CD-R features
a handsome Jon Wozencroft-style photograph of a fogbound landscape, and
the sounds within aspire to the dreamtime electronic of Lawrence English,
Biosphere, BJ Nilsen and plenty of others on Touch. The title is a little
misleading, as many of the sounds are caught in an Ambient stasis. Field
recordings present traces of rust soon to be consumed in the next vaporous
drone. Shoegazing melodies from Onodera’s guitar push to the foreground
throughout; it’s best heard on the untitled sixth track, which should have
stretched out longer to give its mournful two note melody room to grow.
THE WIRE #306 (UK)
Originally released on Critical Path in 2005, Entropy is yet one more release
on a seemingly endless conveyor belt of static distillations of guitar
and electronics, transposed into saccharine galaxies of purple-pink cumulus.
Imprints such as Touch, 12k and Baskaru have made their names with music
such as this, but the constructs of Tokyo’s Onodera possess enough poise
and finesse to rank them alongside works by Christian Fennesz, Lawrence
English and Ethan Rose. Like those aforementioned artists, Onodera is a
sculptor in total control of his materials, deploying the timbre and tempo
(or absence thereof) of a minimalist palette for maximum effect. The introduction
of snippets of environmental recording serve to create the occasional,
welcome bookmark during an album of often disorientating uniformity; 10
untitled drones forming a monolithic constant, losing the listener to its
hex. Yeah, maybe there are too many albums like this floating around but,
if from the over-populated crop-fields jewels such as this can be harvested,
then we’d be fools to really care.
RECORD COLLECTOR #363 (UK)
