IDM Collection 21-25 / The Structure of Silence by Yu Miyashita / Yaporigami★★★★★ Review by Glenn Swan
Yu Miyashita is a deep thinker and a builder of worlds. Philosophy and architecture run through his veins and serve as guiding principles in his life, informing his work as a musician. His latest full-length project The Structure of Silence is both an excellent album of electronic music, and a written manifesto examining silence itself and the artist’s intimate relationship with it. Such material might serve as an introspective set of liner notes — but he goes deeper into the psyche by volumes. In fact the text becomes an exploded view of Miyashita himself, listing affirmations of his own beliefs, born out of past trauma, altered states of consciousness, prominent musical influences, and more. This reads like an intellectual prism, or a philosopher’s library of private journals. Miyashita is sharing the microscope through which he analyzes his ego. With a magnificent soundtrack.
By examining silence, Miyashita teaches the listener to pay greater attention to every sound that breaks it. In turn, we discover how uniquely he views his own process when he writes about his own ‘collapse’ and ‘rebirth’. Destruction and reconstruction are recurring themes in both his music and text.
For many, it is Yu’s product, not his process, that brings us here. The 23 tracks that make up this album create a sonic fortress of shadow and light, featuring many rooms with complex infrastructure and sharp angles. There are geometric rhythms throughout, like gears that wind up, dismantle and reconfigure themselves, warmed by vapors of tone that slip through the cracks. As a sound designer and producer, Miyashita displays a masterful understanding of space.
The track ‘Farewell to Fatherhood’ is one of many highlights; a pronouncement of chords and distant melody passing through large hallways of cascading percussion -- a stoic and brutalist anthem. Immediately following, ‘Collapse of the Maternal Matrix’ drives a cold electro framework of 4/4 beats across parallel beams of synth, reminiscent of the early pioneering days of UK label WARP Records. It shows Yu’s competency with a style previously championed by artists like Mark Bell (LFO). Consider also ‘The Key of Time and the Mother’s Idol’; a beautiful juxtaposition of clouds passing over watchtowers of rhythm, reminiscent of the early works from duo Autechre.
On the subject of influence, one cannot overlook the impact of Richard James / Aphex Twin on Miyashita’s body of work. Tracks like ‘Immortal Phoenix’ and ‘Platinum Cross Sword’ challenge the listener with reverent breakbeat puzzle boxes, reminiscent of The Tuss – a lesser-known alias of James. In fact, Yu’s track ‘Silver Wolf’ seems to hunt the very sheep featured on Tuss album artwork. Miyashita circles his prey here, with percussive menace dressed in breathy, disjointed chords and dry bubbling oscillators.
Elsewhere, Miyashita channels the celebrated Aphex Twin album “Selected Ambient Works, Vol. II” with his own track ‘Traces of The Strong Ones’, but hyperextends the source material with a mech exoskeleton of clockwork percussion.
The comparisons are understandable, but Yu shows more restraint - choosing structure over collapse. Where Aphex Twin makes huge swings across the spectrum (sometimes into utter chaos), most of Yu’s sharp turns and textures still land somewhere on the grid. He is very disciplined, and appears to be in pursuit of something musically precise, like a craftsman perfecting his trade.
The Structure of Silence is an artistic statement in the truest sense. The music is some of Miyashita’s best work to date under his own name - or primary alias ‘Yaporigami’. The written component requires patience and may come across as being self-indulgent, but it is nonetheless fascinating as it lays bare the inner and outer worldview of a prolific creator.
No comments:
Post a Comment