Odori

Rate It! Avg: 4.0 (132 ratings)
ALBUM INFORMATION
EDITOR'S PICK

Total Tracks: 10   Total Length: 32:15

eMusic Review

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Andy Battaglia

eMusic Contributor

Andy Battaglia writes about music and culture of various other kinds from a home base in New York. His work has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the Wire, t...more »

04.22.11
The middle ground between ambient electronic music and avant classical forms.
Label: Hefty Records

Mesmerizing like an ambient electronic album but rigorous and tender in a way that skews closer to classical, Radicalfashion's Odori interweaves quietly powerful piano figures with glitches and ticks tuned for texture. There's a dynamism at work in the piano — lots of strategic sustain and a strong command of soft and loud — that holds up Radicalfashion (aka Japanese musician Hirohito Ihara) as more than an experimentalist tapping at keys for sound's sake. In tracks like “Suna,” he plays tight, foreshortened figures that start out melodic and gain dramatic airs by way of repetition, like a Steve Reich phase piece with more space to breathe. “Usunubi” ditches the piano altogether for a spell of noisy but delicate electronic tones made to howl at a calming distance. The album is strongest when all the pieces prance around each other, as in “Ballet,” a piano-led track jaunty enough for an old royal ball but lashed into a strange modern shape by little passages of static.

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Unknown in Japan, great around the world

kenshima

I came across this album years ago and it has staying in the mix for it's ethereal keyboards and overall haunted ambiance ever since. Not listened to every day but with a fair amount of rhythmic creativity it manages to stay interesting.

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Interesting at first.

fontor

I've lived with this album for a while now. At first, I thought, "Wow, this is really interesting and different." Then I started to listen to more classical music (especially Erik Satie) and more ambient electronic music. Now when I come back to this album, I find myself thinking, "Gee, this would be a really good album if it didn't have so much clinking and blonking in it." The extra sound effects are distracting, and not in a good way. If you like this kind of thing, there's lots of other music to get excited about. Try the collaboration between Alva Noto and Ryuichi Sakamoto.

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At Play

tyroneslothrop

Some really wonderful piano gems. There's something of a movement brewing in Japan, it seems, of post-tonal children's chamber music--kindercore, maybe. Like Satie remixed by Foetus, it's dark and atonal enough for adults, but with a sweet heart. If you like this, Nobuzaku Takemura and Aki Tsuyuko have some work that's--to my ears--similar and also wonderful.

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Glad i downloaded it

b.coxuk

I was just surfing around and to be honest it was the cover that caught my eye. I downloaded it with my last ten credits on an impulse and im glad i did. This is good stuff. Have fun trying to describe the type of music using less than three words.

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Feel lost in translation

joemanifesto

Great project. My downloads: Ballet, Suna, Photo Dynasmo and Thousand. Full album is a great idea, also an experimental idea... this songs seems to be the soundtrack for "Lost In Translation"

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WOW!

RjasBlaster

Wow! some of these songs moved me(unlike anything i have ever listened to), i didn't like all of the tracks, but this album has some pretty cool shiz!

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Twinkly?

snakearmy

This record was a nice surprise. I'm not too educated in the ways of IDM (is that what you'd call this album?), but "Odori" is an incredibly rich and moody, and far more interesting than a lot of the IDM I've heard so far. Each piece is loose enough to serve as ambience, but still structred enough to command your full attention. Between the various electronic clicks and clacks and beeps bouncing around throughout the album and the warm piano sounds, you get an album that does the seemingly impossible by evoking several contrating moods at once. Happy and sad. Warm and cool. Day and night. great album.

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Warm, serene, a daydream with acid colors

DoctorTrash

One of the most beautiful albums I've had the pleasure of listening to in recent memory. The mellow, yet dynamic and colorful arrangements run smoothly over atmospheric sounds such as water dripping into a pot. Listen to Mask; very exceptional piece. I can't wait for the next, although this should hold me over for a long time.

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