Various
Sons Of Traders 002

This urban sound is made to be "air" to you."As ignorable as it is interesting" is how Brian Eno describes Ambient music. Then how should this sound be part of our life in 2020?After works by Oh Shu & BIOMAN, Jim O'Rourke, Ana Da Silva & Phew, Tokyo based Newhere Music is now proud to present this concept album by Okada Takuro + duenn: "Urban Planning" .duenn has been working with labels from all over the world including Entr'acte (Belgium) and Past Inside The Present (US). His experimental unit 3RENSA with Merzbow and Nyantora has performed with legendary sound designer Matsuo Ohno (Astro Boy) and artist Shohei Tsuda. In recent years, duenn's work can be heard at galleries and exhibitions, including a recent collaboration with Shiho Yoshida.After Moriwaikiteiru disbanded, Okada Takuro started his solo projects with his debut album "Nostalgia". Apart from songwriting, Okada is also active as a producer and in film score.The Urban Planning album project started from a sparkle in a discussion between Okada and duenn, with "sound of the city" as a keyword. What should be ambient music in our life, in the present time?Respect of Ambient musicians and contemporary artists since the 80s, such as Yukio Fujimoto and Hiroshi Yoshimura to name a few, can be recognized in this album. However, the two artists are not trying to recreate the past masterpieces and instead, they are taking the cities of the 2020s as their raw material of inspiration. The tracks are concise and comprehensive, and the album has a precise concept with primitive melodies by duenn. duenn and Okada have clearly divided roles during the making, with duenn for the first time on melodies, and Okada on editing and producing. It is also interesting that duenn chose to use GarageBand, a tool accessible to all, for his first melody-making. For the listeners, the touch of simplicity may well remind them of the lullabies in their childhood.The artists have spent two years on this creation. Imagine the commuter trains, the cars, your room, your local park for a walk. This is the sound of the city, blent into every moment in urban life.

Following up after the mental drop by Detroit’s Master of Repetition, Population One, we have a new signing hailing from the Land of the Rising Sun, helping us to set the standards for this new imprint—uncompromised techno funk! Japanese producer Imugem Orihasam has spent the past 3 years slowly evolving. His early work on Ilian Tape and Esperanza sounds like that of an already seasoned craftsman digesting Detroit bit by bit, with a focus on lush textures and swooning eerie melodies. This past year has seen a spike in activity for Imugem, with releases on Patrice Scott’s Sistrum Recordings, Berlin’s Nsyde, and Adam Marshall’s New Kanada—all showcasing a more focused and exuberant approach that has sharpened his reflective compositions. With GEM, Imugem steps away from the supple melodies and tranquil atmospheres for a trip deep into the power plant. Working far from his comfort zone, he has fired off five tracks of puristic, hypnotic techno. We don’t mean template-driven chunky white label Discogs bait either, but something fashioned out of raw sound that places the channeling of energy above composition and cleverness.