REITEN 0.010 by Kosei Fukuda

The tracks comprising this EP are largely improvised, extended live jams. They are original ‘first takes’ whose structure remained largely intact, since any posthoc editing was kept to absolute minimum. Reason? To respect the beauty of spontaneous, momentary dialogue between the artist and the instruments. As the producer Kosei Fukuda points out, such a creative process has a paradoxical character that one could describe as ‘active passivity’ – restraining one’s impulse to control and intervene in every aspect of compositional process, and relying instead on the appeal of the instant intuitive ideas, even if they may seem unclear or strange at the outset. The meanings of Japanese titles of the four selections hint at that methodology: iwakan = discomfort, setsuna = instant, kairi = dissociation, kemri = fog.

But other connotations become instantly possible upon hearing the music. This is a variegated ambient set, incrementally conjuring up phantasmagoric, layered atmospheres. Yet to simply settle for this description would not do justice to these compositions, and to the overall structure of the EP that in fact feels like a mini-album. Nor would it be justifiable to say it’s a minimal down tempo electronica. None of the tracks is entirely beatless, each is a careful balancing act between rhythm and melodic story-telling. Setsuna is a perfect example of an extended mysterious jam that sits somewhere between bass music and ambient. Kairi slows down the pace but loses none of the preceding track’s eerie, strangely addictive mood – in this respect it’s at first reminiscent of the final track from the iconic Eno/Byrne album “My Life in the Bush of Ghosts”, yet it has that bottomless space and lowest of low ends that distinguish best contemporary studio productions.

All that has supremely meditative effects. If techno evinces hypnotizing quality afforded by fast-paced repetition, Fukuda’s electro-acoustic ambient has mesmerizing quality afforded by slow iterative layering of all frequencies. This EP is the fourth in the sequence of five records that showcases a sonic progression from hard to soft, from fast to slow, and from carnal and kinetic to spiritual and contemplative. So it’s logical that it’s firmly within the subdued part of the continuum. The last track here, Kemri, concludes this journey wonderfully – it is yet another showcase of the artist’s skill of balancing disparate wave-lengths and sonic textures into one compelling whole.



Dominik Bartmanski
Berlin, June 2020