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Tuesday, March 4, 2025
Meitei - 2021 - Kofū II / 古風 II
Kitchen Label / KI-032
Meitei’s 2020 album 'Kofū' was the bold bookend to an expedition, where sounds were first navigated and then subverted in 2018’s 'Kwaidan' and 2019’s 'Komachi'.
All three albums were Meitei’s attempt at immersive storytelling, reimagining moments of Japanese history he felt were being washed away – not least by the unforgiving sands of time – through wistful compositions that stretched across ambient music, hauntology, and musique concrete.
When it came to finalizing 'Kofū', Meitei found he was left with over 60 fully realized tracks, bursting with ideas that fired in divergent, curious directions. Meitei was content with the 13 tracks he had selected. But when it came time to begin his next album, he found that it had been sitting in front of him all along. He realized his work wasn’t over yet.
Meitei sounds right at home celebrating the past he first reimagined in his previous work. The merriment is palpable in its first two tracks of 'Kofū II' – a loop of cheery whistling amidst the clanking of wood leads into strings, cricket sounds and flutes, all united in bustling harmony.
'Happyaku-yachō' is where it comes into focus. Pitch-shifted vocal samples roam around in the crowded sonic field. “My image of this music is that it expresses the vibrant mood of Edo's merchant culture,” says Meitei, “where old Japanese dwellings were densely packed together in a vast expanse of land.” The affair becomes bittersweet as the track leads into the desolate 'Kaworu', a compositional piece lifted from his 'Komachi' sessions – a final requiem to his late grandmother.
The album is bursting with spectral vignettes of wandering samurais, red lanterns, ninjas, puppet theatres, poets, even a vengeful assassin ('Shurayuki hime', known to Western audiences as ‘Lady Snowblood’).
'Saryō' is as elegant and refined as you would expect. It induces stillness in its repetition, with each synth note a brushstroke. It was inspired by a Sengoku-era tea house he once visited, designed by national icon Sen no Rikyū. Meitei tied it to the reaction he felt while poring over the ink paintings in his grandmother’s house. “The decayed earthen walls and faded tatami mats gave me an emotional impression,” he says. “And the cosmic flow of time drifting in the small room. I decided to put my impression of this into music.”
In 'Akira Kurosawa', an appropriately thunderous track, Meitei finds deep resonance in his vast filmography, which drew equally from Japan’s rich heritage and troubled circumstances post-WWII.
'Kofū II' is not a leftovers album, nor is it a straightforward companion piece. In this album, Meitei has his biggest reckoning with the Japanese identity yet. Over the years, he has attempted to peel back what he believes has defined Japan and its people. After seeking answers with three full-length albums, his fourth poses more questions.
If his first three albums inspired a sense of longing – or, perhaps inevitably, fed an irreparable nostalgia doomed to history – 'Kofū II' compels us to reassess our relationship with the past. By constantly looking back, are we ever afforded a clearer present? After capturing the “lost Japanese mood”, where does that leave its country in the modern world? Meitei offers no immediate answers with 'Kofū II'. It forces you to sit with its disparate moods, to meditate amidst the textured fragments.
'Kofū II' will be released on 180g LP, CD and digital format on December 10, 2021 (LP expected to land January 28, 2022) via KITCHEN. LABEL. Both LP and CD format are presented in a debossed sleeve with obi strip and include a 16-page insert with words in Japanese and English from Meitei, printed on premium paper stock with design by KITCHEN. LABEL founder Ricks Ang, and is mastered by Chihei Hatakeyama in Tokyo, Japan.
Drekka - 2019 - No Tracks In The Snow LP
Dais Records – DAIS128
"No Tracks in the Snow" is a collection of tracks from the early days of
Drekka’s history; the third offering for Dais Records and an appendix
between the second and third parts of the 'Tarwestraat' trilogy of LPs
for the label.
For over twenty years, Mkl Anderson has curated a vast archive of
recorded material for his cinematic ritual ambient industrial project,
Drekka. He works with memory not only as a subject but also as a healing
process, continually delving into this personal world of sound;
examining, revisiting, and repurposing recordings in an attempt to
recall a past which sings from the darkness surrounding the tenuous
provinces of memory and dreams - the real ghosts of time and sound.
Recorded between 1996 and 2002, the album showcases Drekka's early
exploratory development across a variety of styles. And yet it is also
Drekka in the present moment; culled, curated, and assembled with care.
Not unlike Borges’ "A Personal Anthology" - or indeed any of Drekka’s
own recent work - this recording can be understood as a cohesive
narrative more than as a simple compilation.
As Drekka moved from its Bristol UK influenced space folk beginnings,
backwards towards Anderson's earlier UK industrial tape culture
foundation, his predilection for reworking pieces over time was
emerging; recontextualizing narratives to bring out new truths from
one's own history. This process would become a cornerstone of Anderson's
work for the decades to follow.
The album begins with “Strika” (1998), originally recorded for the
lovesliescrushing side project, Vir (a "secret audio army" in which
individual performers were not even aware of who the other participants
were). The track features one of Anderson’s earliest collaborations with
Mark Trecka (of Pillars And Tongues / Dark Dark Dark), who would go on
to be one of his longest standing co-conspirators.
"Christmas 1973 or 1974" (1999) is a lament for a childhood which is
almost entirely forgotten and a yearning for some tangible, physical
proof that this childhood existed at all. The accompanying video for the
track utilizes actual home movie footage of Anderson as a very young
boy, fulfilling this longing and adding heart rending weight to the song
and its lyrics.
"We Who Are Not Lonely" (2000) has become one of the most beloved works
in Anderson’s early canon. A gauzy musing on the catharsis of upheaval,
the piece was written and recorded initially in the months leading up
to Anderson’s relocation from Chicago to Bloomington, Indiana. It is a
brooding work which shows Anderson at his most self-possessed as a
songwriter and is a confluence of the earliest playing-and-singing take
on Drekka and the cinematic world building soundscapes to come.
The album closes with “Tracking shot (wide)” (2000), a brief
stream-of-consciousness sound piece dedicated to Andrei Tarkovsky. The
track most certainly points in the direction that Drekka would explore
extensively over the two decades; the direction which has led Anderson
to where he is now firmly positioned.
"No Tracks in the Snow" is an exploration of the threads of continuity
which bind the various modes of Anderson’s oeuvre. As he nears
completion of the third album in his trilogy of LPs for Dais Records,
"No Tracks in the Snow" is an introspective pause and a celebration of a
life spent listening to the world around us and its sleeping potential.
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