All in all, NOVA + 4 is a transcendent experience of nature in the urban context, an oeuvre which, much like Midori Takada’s Through The Looking Glass or Satoshi Ashikawa’s Still Way, holds the power to appease the soul in turbulent times. As one inspired YouTube commenter once said when describing Yutaka Hirose’s masterstroke: "I can't tell if the birds are singing inside or outside! Thank you!"
Tracklisting DLP
A1. Nova
A2. Slow Sky
A3. In The Afternoon
B1. Taiko
B2. Humming The Sea
B3. Through The Windows
B4. Epilogue
C1. Old Dream Spell
C2. Light Which Shakes Quietly
D1. One Day In Summer
D2. Shadow Of A Water Droplet
Yutaka Hirose - NOVA + 4
£32.00
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As our recent love for Plantasia has shown, we at World of Echo have a soft-spot for functional music driven by a utopia ideal. This reissue of Yutaka Hirose's NOVA fits the bill perfectly, as it was originally commissioned by the Misawa Home Corporation in order to be played throughout the showhomes of the prefab houses they produced. Less so ambient music, more environmental. I make that distinction not just because this was music designed for specific environments (ie the home), but that Hirose makes conscious efforts to incorporate organic sounds, as if the 'natural' and the manmade are indistinguishable, or better still (especially when you're trying to sell houses), at one. In the context of 2019 and our new relationships with technology, such things might be viewed more cynically (hyperreality is hypercommerciality). But it's hard not to be moved by such peaceful wonder, of such purity of vision expressed so patiently. Sometimes this sounds like what you might hear if there were no music playing, no extraneous noise or distraction. What a thought. What an impossibility. Consdier it a form of escapism. Funny for music designed to make you feel at home.
