dw054 - Ryuta.k - In the middle of late capitalism

IkEcht - Songsoverruins (c) 2009
Ryuta.k has released music before on the .net label Dark Winter as Ryu. Recently his third album, "In The Middle Of Late Capitalism", has been released there. The accompanying blurp on the website immediately clarifies how this Japanese artist thinks about music:

"Musical things mean nothing to me.
Rather music may be 'aufheben' for me."

I think he means "aufhebend", which is German for "elevating". And if there is a label to be attached, he prefers "Post sampling kinetic nonhierarchical nonlinear nonequilibrium forth world muziq". Sounds like something abstract, although it doesn't help us much.

What we get are five, rather long, abstract soundscapes containing a lot of heavily distorted, sometimes unrecognisable, vocals. Mind you, it avoids power-electronic excesses we are used to from, for instance, Sutcliffe Jügend. Neither does it fall under the banner of "babbling" as Kenji Siratori likes to do (as a note aside: I have decided he should stick to dark ambient, which he does well. Unfortunately he seems to have other ideas on that front). No, the vocal sounds are exactly that, sounds. Sounds that serve as raw material that are being woven into the music, as in "Potala Sympathy For Autism". Large parts of the opener "Hegelian Distress (Song For Ituji)" are also build around these kinds of vocal landscapes. And then there are of course, for want of a better description, the abstract soundscapes. You won't find Merzbow-like escapades here. It doesn't really turn into dark ambient, or into walls of noise. Although a track like "Newest Bolshevik District" comes close to the latter.

Can I recommend this release? Difficult question. I find that the album neither attracts, nor repels me, even after repeated listening. My tendency to get some hallucinogenics and try again might be an indication of how stimulating I find this album to be. The middle three tracks, that sort of tend towards "recognisable" dark ambient and noise, are most to my liking. But "interesting" is still the best descriptor that comes up. Without wanting to sound euphemistic. Possibly it would be nice to mix a track at random in between other things. How much you will appreciate this will likely depend on how well you can stomach abstract sounds. I won't dissuade you on this album, there is simply too much... well, interesting stuff happening here. No, I'll remain neutral on this one for a change.

Originally written for the Dutch weblog IkEcht (http://ikecht.web-log.nl/ikecht/), English translation by the author.

Schizopoiesis (c) 2009
Signifiant Without Signifié
Jacques‐Alain Miller explains about the other's discourse. He means a person can't always make reference to himself. Ryuta.K's new audio work includes signifiant without signifié. We never understand its word meaning ,even by Ryuta.K. Because such word belongs to the other's discourse. Hallucination made by his technical dealing with audio brings us to unconscious world. Our ordinary world has broken because we have emergence of the schizo field.

Makryham Blog (c) 2009
Overdose kunst's dark side ;ryuta.k's new stuff, Title; In the middle of late capitalism ;established "Heavient"(Heavy ambient) from Great Net label darkwinter. It is said that His attempt with tweaking digital knob always seach singularity point near Noos theory or trans-modern theory but always failed.so That is to say, "Post sampling kinetic nonhierarchical nonlinear nonequilibrium forth world muziq!" Track 01 's last treated siritori-ryuou.Itao-ryuou! Track 02 is boring for me compared with megaptera, merzbow,fennesz,pita,vangelis cyberpunk stuff. But Track 03 and Track 05 sounds worth of name "Heavient". We got complex physics feeling with these. Track 04 got different style rather same as enigma or dead can danse , world music style. In the middle of late capitalism, we got Ghost dread denyed communist. it's us.

Usyukuro Sound Space (c) 2009
Dark ,dense, mystical, Newest Ryuta.k darkwinter release. You can see motley eclectic elements like once postmodenizm Such, Scheme L, communist image,Scary aggresion like Aic_Facelift,David Lynch,japanese horror,etc in his Art . But Contradiction between denial thology and possibility seems Important about his music like duchamp's readymade. Track 01 - Hegelian Distress(song for ituji) Hegel Domination failed. You can hear ituji itao (創路板尾) voice which said "brother's drawer"at song last. Track 02 - Hunterwasser 2019 L.A. Cyberpunk dystopian movie "Bladerunner ", we can see Hunterwasser hotel where replicant lives in. Track sounds sad fight between Bladerunner and replicant. Track 03 - Newest Bolshevik District Insect voice is sublimating with Max/msp digital domain as Aggresive bug (both meaning). Track 04 - Potala Symapathy For Autism song has Atmosphere with Digital domain+pagan+wiccan+Tibetan buddismic.call it what you want. Track 05 - Wolfgang Blankenburg Philosopher Wolfgang Blankenburg reminds us Schizophrenia. This song reminds us album ;Kyzyl To Samarkand no.01. It's near Leftfield rather than IDM . Ryuta.k past work; Andansite, schizopoiesis, The Castration, Kyzyl To Samarkand,Thesearenotmuziq ,KHOLODNYI SMERCH,etc...

Neue yapon kunst (c) 2009
Unfortunately or not, but after his previous releases on Dark Winter, signed under "Ryu" moniker, i.e. "Castration" and "Depressed", the Japanese mad art composer went no further than collecting weak sounds. With the third release, it would be at least the right time to change the sound equipment, else the sounding becomes really unpleasant. First track's ("Hegelian Distress") samples are poorly recorded, and sometimes they produce an overamplifying flanging effect (at the time I suppose they should not), contain scratches, and the voice overlapped on these rustles doesn't add anything significant. Obviously the author tries to create a deep atmosphere, since the recording is strictly split to both stereo channels, but nothing in the middle makes it actually very flat. The next continuation, "Hunterwasser 2019 L.A.", gains more success in creating something deep and heavy, which turns the head like into the pail with oil, but still has random crackles here and there, totally disconcentrating the process of listening. Still, it could be called the best release's achievement, and probably the whole album would become more balanced if all tracks would have the same sounding, but... its follower, "Newest Bolshevik District", suddenly goes further. Probably created with combination of field recordings and the sounds coming from the the outer space, at least it gives something referenced to previous Ryuta works, but it is unclear - how the two first recording are related to that? And why it contains 15 seconds of the ending silence? Also, it would be much more nice, if the track would be mastered or balanced, if you listen it on the high volume, in some moments you risk to break your ears. Going further, we meet "Potala Symapathy For Autism", . The atmosphere of the track, anyway, in many cases is similar to the "Hunterwasser...", but its generic balance stands out from the overall sounding of the album. Again, not the right point. Finally, the last track, "Wolfgang Blankenburg", starts with a boring and long intro, as few minutes ago we meet just a poor collection of echoed sounds with no heard achievement. Only in the middle of it, there begins to happen something interesting, even with some hidden melodic guitar sounds, but the pleasure doesn't continue for a long time.

In the notes supplied amongst the release, Ryu mentions: "Musical things mean nothing to me", adding the real order can't be reached in capitalism, that's why his compositions are so anarchic. However there is a lot of similarly experimental, chaosed works around that gain more deep level of the sound art. The current release couldn't be even compared to them. So the recording could be interesting for those who support the same Ryu's idea, only for Ryu fans (hey, are you a lot out of there, huh?..). On another hand, Darkwinter should take more care of their releases. It seems the label starts to exhaust itself, beginning to accept everything just to release something instead of nothing. But everybody related to music should constantly improve previous achievements... else it becomes a poor regular release, with no visible effect even on the very minor auditory.

Negative view(By ordinary sense)

Jacques‐Alain Miller explains about the other's discourse. He means Person can't always make reference to himself. Ryuta.K new Audio track includes signifiant without signifie;. We never understand its word meaning ,even by Ryuta.K. Because such word belongs to the other's discourse. However dealing with digital system,we notice its system belongs to the other's discourse,even. Author can't always make reference to his music. Author must obtain not Aid of new technology power by digital system but poverty result with such overamplifying effect or ghostly frequency glitch.

Negative view(By difference sense)




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