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CD
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MAV 051CD
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"Packaging comes in embossed copper (no printing). Akiyama's contribution to the 'Mort Aux Vaches' series is an unedited improvisation recorded for VPRO radio in April, 2004. Consisting of guitar washes and digital interruptions, the set was recorded without any use of samples or prepared material. In keeping with Akiyama's ethic of spontaneous composition this recording is a document of a moment. Akiyama's music is a study in fiction and texture. He records compositions and improvisations for piano, strings, and other instruments, and restructures them in his studio in a post-facto montage. Playing on the distortions in causality that recording technology can effect, Akiyama creates music that lays claim to a moment of creation that never happened. Imperfections -- fingers scraping strings, breaths and other signs of humanity -- are underscored resulting in a digital simulacrum of performance. Located somewhere in the interstices of classical, electronic composition and post-rock, his works vacillate between delicate melodies and confrontational bursts of noise."
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SR 238CD
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Best known for his electronic deconstructions of traditional instrumental music, Montreal-based Mitchell Akiyama's fourth and most ambitious solo recording is a sprawling work that bristles, burns and slouches with emotion. Small Explosions That Are Yours To Kee came into being at the twilight edges of composition and digital manipulation and sets billowing strings drifting around household gamelans while shimmering guitars drown in saxophone waves. Since his debut release on Alien8 Recordings, Hope That Lines Don't Cross (SR 209CD), Akiyama's music has been a study in fiction and texture. He records compositions and improvisations for piano, strings, and other instruments, and restructures them in his studio in a post-facto montage. Playing on the distortions in causality that recording technology can effect, Akiyama creates music that lays claim to a moment of creation that never happened. Located somewhere in the interstices of classical, electronic composition and post-rock, his works vacillate between delicate melodies and confrontational bursts of noise.
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CD
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SR 209CD
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"Recorded in Montréal, Canada, If Night Is A Weed And Day Grows Less, the 4th solo CD by Mitchell Akiyama, marks a more concerted return to Akiyama's classical roots. All eight pieces grew out of four piano compositions that were torn apart and reassembled -- fragments of one piece contaminating another -- reordered melodies, hidden references, obscured refrains. It is weeds fighting the hegemony of the lawn, it is the possibility of anarchy resulting in fleeting orders of beauty, it is the progeny of Steve Reich, Michel Foucault and Marcel Duchamp. The clear melodic beauty of Christian Fennesz but with a piano..."
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SUBSF 001CD
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"His debut focuses on a mixture of well crafted IDM and minimal movements, equipped with clicks, pops and scratches. Hope That Lines Don't Cross fits in alongside Tomas Jirku's Immaterial [SUBSF02]; both artists create beats with a heavy dub influence and play with field recordings. Akiyama fuses these with recordings of things like broken conversations, drones and church bells. The disc starts out with easy going, minimal IDM that makes for gentle listening, with a few more challenging moments. Other tracks could hold their ground with the biggest names in minimal techno. The Height of the Matter is reminiscent of Francisco Lopez, blending powerful environmental soundscapes with a very solid minimal beat introduced 2 minutes into the piece. Having come from a jazz background, Akiyama has an excellent sense of rhythm and melody and a fantastic knack for creating memorable music. Hope That Lines Don't Cross runs for 60 minutes and is broken up into 10 different tracks. Some of the pieces are so heavily built around pop aesthetics that you could easily get away with referring to them as songs."
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