Unknown Me

Unknown Me

Bitokagaku

Not Not Fun

The second LP by Tokyo ambient conceptualists UNKNOWN ME began as a commission for historic Japanese cosmetic conglomerate Shiseido, conjuring audio approximations of seasons and scents, but soon flowered into its own refracted and rarefied environment: Bitokagaku. Translated as “beauty and science,” the album is the foursome’s first composed solely with software, reflecting the collection’s utopian, laboratorial muse. From levitational electronica (“A Rainbow in Meditative Air”) and vaporous downtempo (“Dancing Leaves”) to planetarium reverie (“Kitsune No Yomeiri”) and AI IDM (“Retreat Beats”), the music moves like weather patterns in a bio-dome: dazzling, microcosmic, and delicately calibrated. Percolating synths crossfade with field recordings from Shiseido’s research division; the sound of streams and distant birds blur into a processed haze; clinical voices read lists of precious stones. It’s a vision of new age as soft robotics, of serenity streamlined by sentient systems. UM’s team of engineers (Yakenohara, P-RUFF, H. Takahashi, and Osawa Yudai) cite an eclectic swath of inspirations behind Bitokagaku – molecules, stars, Kenji Miyazawa, Akira Kurosawa, even “the sparkle of rainbows” – but their guiding artistic principle is as ancient as it is eternal: “beauty.”

Unknown Me

Bishintai

Not Not Fun

The inaugural LP by Tokyo Metropolis electronica entity UNKNOWN ME, Bishintai, is a sublime synthetic suite of cosmic wellness transmissions exploring “the unknown beauty of your mind and body,” appropriately named for a kanji compound meaning “beauty, mind, body.” Crafted with software, synthesizer, steel drum, rhythm boxes, and robotic voice by the core quartet of Yakenohara, P-RUFF, H. Takahashi, and Osawa Yudai, the album unfolds like a holographic guided meditation, soothing but cybernetic, framed by subways and sky malls. Latticework electronics flicker with texture, glitch, wobble, and mirage, themed around sensory perception and body parts.   A diverse cast of collaborators assist in actualizing the collection's uniquely urban expression of new age ambient, from psychedelic footwork riddler foodman to multi-instrumentalist institution Jim O'Rourke to Japanese underground shape-shifters MC.Sirafu and Lisa Nakagawa. Although the group cites a therapeutic muse (“made for the maintenance of the minds of city dwellers”), Bishintai shimmers with an alien strangeness, too, like decentralized relaxation systems obeying sentient circuits. This is music of utopia and nowhere, channeling worlds within worlds, birthed from a sonic ethos as simple as it is sacred: “in pursuit of beautiful tones.”

Unknown Me

Astronauts

Not Not Fun

Japanese synthesis squad UNKNOWN ME’s latest sequence of electron blueprints is true to its title, evoking a sense of lunar wonder and stargazer reverie, inspired by notions of “20th century space development.” Astronauts expands the group’s signature mode of spatial restraint and hushed harmonics with accents of angelic voice, solar samba, sleeping pod hiss, and futurist vocoder, flowing between moods of heavenly astral drift and nostalgia for life on earth. The album’s eight songs float in an airless limbo of exploration and emotion, final frontiers and memories of home, zero gravity ambient zones conjured from an array of old analog Roland and Juno synthesizers. UM visualist Osawa Yudai’s artwork furthers the theme, abstracting “the universe, the stars, the lives of the space ship into the shapes of sound grains and waves.” Lift off and prosper.

Unknown Me

Subtropics

Not Not Fun

Tokyo trip-ambient unit UNKNOWN ME make transportive vignettes with minimal means: soft-focus static, translucent loops, muted metronomes, field recordings. Comprised of DJ / producer Yakenohara, radloop label boss P-RUFF, electronic texturalist H. Takahashi (Constellation Tatsu, Where To Now?, birdFriend), and art director Osawa Yudai, the group’s sophomore offering, subtropics, furthers the fantasy Zen garden miniatures of their 2016 debut, sunday void. Whereas that collection themed itself as an innerspace voyage of domestic leisure, their latest journeys outward, a lucidly dreamed globe-trot across continents, cities, and coastlines. Dazed tones spiral gracefully against hushed backdrops of floating chimes, distant wildlife, and prismatic vapor. These are less songs than spaces, blissed synthetic bio-domes awaiting habitation. Eight illusions of worlds unrealized, pleasures UNKNOWN. Recorded from July-September, 2016. Mastered by Yakenohara. Artwork and design by Osawa Yudai (Aroe Inc.).