Published:
August 10, 2017
The mysterious scenery that Sugai Ken imagines from his home of Kanagawa, Japan takes unusual new shape and form in the shadow of UkabazUmorezU’s moon. Sugai's reverence for traditional folklore becomes an intimate, liminal ceremony of interpretative music on UkabazUmorezU and an invitation for the open mind to wander a nighttime world wild with curious characters and strange, serene sounds.
Made up of recordings sourced and appropriated from a local performing arts center, his daily surroundings, and Sugai’s tool kit of electronic synthesis, UkabazUmorezU evokes tranquil patience while never settling into a single style or still of sound for too long. Upon imagining a landscape, Sugai decomposes the image (and the images within the image) and replaces it with a sound representation - an artifactual terrain, tethered to but abstracted from the natural world.
Check out Kiyotaka “Kiyo” Sumiyoshi’s startling video for “Wochikaeri to Uzume,” the first nocturnal offering from UkabazUmorezU. Sugai Ken’s UkabazUmorezU arrives October 20, 2017 on LP, CD, and digital formats via RVNG Intl.