It's really hard to describe exactly what I just listened to but regardless I'm not sure if I like it. Nobukazu Takemura's Hoshi No Koe is no doubt seen by many to be a transformative album of boundless beauty and deep meaning, but to my untrained ear it just seems a tad bit out-there. There is definitely beauty within the album, but the ugly glitch sounds that Takemura often employs create a dissonance and stand starkly against the pleasant ambience of the rest of the album. Am I supposed to somehow find beauty within this harsh noise? I admit that it's experimental nature accounts for the fact he employed glitch among all the ambience and drone, but there seems such a huge juxtaposition when you have tracks such as "In the room-roof-wood" which is a slow ballad of pure ambience and reflective beauty but earlier in the album you have "Honey Comb" which literally sounds like a computer raping itself over static backing. It's albums like these that force you to think and truly wonder just what the hell the artist was thinking. I say artist because this is undeniably supposed to be some abstract work of art. At one point in the album you have a 17 minute long track called "Chrysalis" in which the full spectrum of Hoshi No Koe plays out over one track. You think it will stay a slog of spacey drone but the track instead bounds through several different genres, including horrible-sounding glitch. It is total experimental, and it's thick, deep stuff that you can barely wrap your head around. I find myself unable to listen to anything else at this point. This album is by far one of the strangest thing I've ever heard. But does that necessarily mean that it is deep?
This is undeniably glitch, and this is undeniably ambient but it also has folk elements as well. The beautiful tune of "White Sheep and Small Light" employs classical instruments (is that a flute?) to craft a very authentic, very classic Japanese sound. However, we are immediately thrown into "Sign (Album Version)" which mixes together glitch, idm and dnb/jungle as well as makes use of a vocalizer. It's completely different, it could technically be in a totally different album. Did this guy essentially just record a bunch of different shit, all literally non sequiturs, and throw it together? It's almost like a sociopathic mixtape. However, both of the aforementioned tunes are melodic and can be listened to without any real problems. Many of the album's tracks are light, almost all making use of electronic music to craft strange and ambient sounds. Some however, are totally harsh and borderline unlistenable. "Trampoline" reintroduces the self-raping computer and is literally straight glitch. There is no cohesion with any of the rest of the tracks. At one random point there is a short sample of what I believe is a girl crying during a storm. But it's so short I can't make it out. It goes back to glitch and dissonance. Some people sincerely enjoy listening to random computer sounds. To them it is music, though don't really understand the significance myself. It does stand testament to finding beauty in all things.
Hoshi No Koe is something I can confidently call an eye-opening experience. It crept up on me and held on to me. The first track lowered my guard, and I expected a peaceful ambient trip into dreamland. Instead I got the mad delusions of what could either be a visionary or just a batshit insane Japanese man. Halfway through Trampoline there is a sample of a bird call. What the hell is that supposed to mean? Did Takemura believe this fit in like a cog in a set of gears, or was it just thrown in there much in the fashion of some dude throwing paint on a canvas and calling it art? I don't want to get into that debate, in the end this is just plain interesting to me and I can't confidently say it's not music, because plenty of the tracks on here aren't glitch orgies and are simply experimental tunes. Take "A Theme For Little Animals" which incorporates brass, woodwind and various other instruments (including what is probably an electric keyboard or synthesizer.) I suppose you are supposed to an imagine little animals walking around in sync to the music, kind of like the old cartoon. But the tune is so weird you can only imagine what kind of crazed, depraved shit these small woodland creatures are doing. Regardless of how it sounds, there is still a fascinating and altogether entirely listenable quality to it. Each tracks seems to stand on it's own, almost as if completely different artists worked on each.
The track's outro "The Voice of A Fish" employs sounds of water and strange drone noises and other forms of incessant noise, and it serves as a perfect outlook for the entire album. It's noise. Beautiful noise, harsh noise, strange noise, ambient noise. We can debate and argue for years over whether noise qualifies as music. All music is noise, right? But is all noise music? That's the question posed by Hoshi No Koe, for me at least. The first track of this album is basically light synthpop set to sounds of birds and wind. The second is a jazzy tune, an idm beauty that easily stands out as the most melodic and rhythmic of the album. However, the third is simply glitch. That's what I mean when I say this is truly a mishmash of sounds to the point each could've been done by a different artist. Hoshi No Koe is an essential listen for anyone who wants to try true "experimental" music. I can't say I enjoyed all of it, but I feel as if the terrible and harsh parts, the parts that make you cringe and groan, are absolute essentials. The album wouldn't be as strange and enticing without the harsh bits. What would it be without the strange dissonance? That's what makes Hoshi No Koe so special.
I'm not sure if I like this, but it's certainly one of the most important things I've ever listened to in that it's made me think and it's changed my outlook on music in some ways. I suppose this could be considered baby's first experimental experience- I find stuff by Merzbow and the rest of the field recordings crew absolute crap. What makes this bearable is the fact it is not just glitch and noise. It is an eclectic mix of various forms of music. I can't listen to just noise. If this had been all "Honey Comb," I would have panned it. Easy 0/10 for me. maybe that's just me being shallow. Yet I find harsh noise albums terrible! Perhaps this work will better help me understand what that kind of stuff means? Whatever, the point is this is a strange album, but it is still bearable. It is like a gateway drug into higher things. Things I really don't want to associate myself with. Hoshi No Koe is just enough outside my comfort zone that it makes me think but does not repel me away. That's why in the end I find it an essential listen. If you are looking to break into true experimental music but are not ready to get you ears rammed with a hot poker or simply bored to death, then Hoshi No Koe offers a diverse palette of sounds that crosses between countless genres.
I give this album, after a lot of thinking and deliberation, a 8/10. Simply because it made me think and challenged the conventions of what we deem 'music' in all its discordant wonder. When I first listened this was a 5/10 solely for the strange glitch shit. But that would be doing the album an injustice. The rest of it is definitely amazing. The glitch tracks are a controversial and touchy thing for me. I don't find them deep or meaningful, but perhaps they are? I'm not sure how to proceed with them. I may end up giving this a second look. Until then, I'll just leave it at 8, which is a safe enough score.
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