and/26

Reviews
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Bagatellen (August 2008)
The second of and/OAR’s tributes to film directors, Yasujiro Ozu –
Hitokomakura, is an extensive work, which is to say nothing of its
uniqueness. Twenty-five musicians and ensembles put to tape their
interpretations of select still scenes from various Ozu films, in an instance of
art responding to art. I get enough from simply listening to the comparatively
short pieces across two CDs, but another experience is delivered in taking
Hitokomakura as a whole. Ozu is known for his posthumously-coined “pillow
shots” – those visual segues between scenes with the camera seated
before a snapshot of the world as it might relate to humanity. Humanity is
indeed the defining characteristic of Ozu’s oeuvre, and the music here
channels the emotion and mystery well enough. Using still captures of
chosen pillow shots, the assignment was to then make music inspired by
what is seen. The musicians were also instructed to view the film from which
the shots were gathered, in the interest of interpreting the poetic still frames
as parts of the greater whole, and, I gather, to allow more perspective from
which the music could be made.

As music is a living art, it is always a crunched representation of experience,
no? The project’s most literal offering is the Aono Jikken Ensemble’s
“Kodama (echoes)”. It’s a four-minute piece that adheres to the concept but
goes a bit further by summarizing a complete passage of the subject (The
End of Summer, 1961), and not just the shot itself. Live snippets of voice and
acoustic instruments are laced over field recordings. In this case, a pillow
shot of crows atop gravestones is the inspiration. The ensemble’s
accompanying notes to the music explain that the piece reflects upon the life
of family father Manbei, yet no summary may be required when studying the
frame alone. The ensemble’s field recording of crows is hardly abstract, but
through the additional gorgeously capture sounds – confined to four-plus
minutes – there is the unmistakable sense of development, as in a
miniature story. Other offerings included are from Roel Meelkop,
Steinbrüchel, Haco, Steve Roden, Jason Kahn, Hitoshi Kojo, and Marc
Behrens, to name a few. The discs also contain a PDF-file, which include
graphics (compliments of Criterion) of respective pillow shots for each track,
and, in some cases, the musicians’ personal notes on
inspiration/instrumentation. A sure keeper that deserves to be heard and
studied, and a lovely homage to Ozu. (Al Jones)

Bodyspace.net (February 2008)
É surpreendente dar conta de que por vezes basta activar um conceito
inteligente para alumiar uma perspectiva até aí desconsiderada ou pouco
questionada. A partir de uma selecção que privilegiou a consistência e
validade da matéria, a and/OAR, selo prestigiado de Seattle, conseguiu,
através de uma dupla compilação, provocar uma reavaliação da relação a
manter com o cinema do mestre japonês Yasujiro Ozu - conhecido também
como o poeta do quotidiano, tal era a sua tendência para retratar a rotina da
classe média japonesa do seu tempo, frisando aspectos globais como a
circularidade e o carácter transitório da vida, e recusando, sempre que
possível, colocar em prática acessórios ocidentais como a moral fácil e
artifícios melodramáticos.

Ao longo dos cinquenta e quatro filmes que compõem o seu muito
apreciado (e imitado) cânone, Yasujiro Ozu manteve-se fiel aos mesmos
temas e estrutura narrativa utilizada. Sobre a última, sabe-se que progredia
através de diálogos e outras vulgares ocorrências familiares, e que -
respeitando a resistência do público - abria espaço a momentos reflectivos
através da inserção pontual de pillow shots (conhecidos também como
espaços intermediários). A funcionalidade dos pillow shots assentava
principalmente na necessidade de assinalar a passagem do tempo de um
modo neutro e desvinculado de um só personagem – por regra, consistia
simplesmente num plano único de uma paisagem campestre ou industrial,
um estendal de roupa sujeita à vontade do vento, o registo circunstancial da
circulação de comboios ou barcos.

A and/OAR reconheceu perspicazmente o valor dos pillow shots como
pontos de referência passíveis de interpretação livre por parte de diversos
artistas sonoros - levando isso a que distribuísse por algumas dezenas
desses estetas um generoso número de pillow shots, encorajando a que a
imagem atribuída fosse considerada como parte do filme a que pertence. O
resultado materializou-se na compilação Hitokomakura, que, além dos
exercícios reunidos, contém, em cada um dos seus discos, um ficheiro PDF
que corresponde cada pillow shot a seu dono e, assim, permite uma mais
completa contextualização de tudo o que por aqui desfila.

A partir dos múltiplos matrimónios instigados por Dale Lloyd (patrão da
and/OAR e participante directo em Hitokomakura), descobre-se então o
germinar de outros enquadramentos lógicos que poderiam, porventura,
passar despercebidos até aqui. Serve isso para esclarecer que Ozu
dedicava meticuloso cuidado às suas composições visuais tal como às
sonoras - sendo habitual escutar aos seus filmes passagens que somam
ou isolam o cantar de pássaros, o ruído de transportes e o burburinho
constante de uma localidade habitada (gomos de uma mesma roda dos
sons comuns). Hitokomakura esmera-se por demais em prestar elegia a
essa noção de que Ozu era, além do celebrado poeta do quotidiano,
também um estudioso do som e do seu enquadramento na vida de cada
dia. É evidente que isso cativa estudiosos das propriedades do som como
Taku Sugimoto, Toshiya Tsunoda ou Marc Behrens – esses que, entre
outros, se servem do mote para, à sua maneira, elaborarem um diário
metódico directamente inspirado pelo tal pillow shot. A partir de field
recordings e instrumentos acústicos, obtêm-se postais naturalistas que
nem sequer deixam de parte a harmonia zen-budista parcialmente presente
no cinema de Ozu (essa perspectiva é nitidamente constatável nas
participações de Yoshio Machida e do Aono Jikken Ensemble).

Contudo, cada levantamento verificado é inevitavelmente hipotético.
Hipotético porque, na vida tal como no cinema de Ozu (o corpo e o seu
espelho), tudo se encontra submisso a uma relativização a que não há
escape possível. Hitokomakura acaba por ser um objecto de um valor
imenso, pelas tais pistas que deixa soltas em relação à composição
sonora, enquanto subestimada extensão do génio de Ozu. Além disso,
repare-se que funciona em pleno mesmo quando à revelia desse paralelo –
assim dita o seu desdobramento em paisagens perfumadas e divisões
(templos) propícias ao apuramento de uma estabilidade espiritual superior.
Fica-se pelo excelente mas... (Miguel Arsénio)

Cyclic Defrost (January 2008)
Japanese filmmaker Yasujiro Ozu has never so much tried to express his
own thoughts as he has endeavored to help clarify those of others.
Hitokomakura, a double CD comprising thirty-one tracks, may be taken as
reciprocation, as a counter-gift or sacrifice on the part of the artists involved.
Steve Roden, Keith Berry, Bernhard Gunter, Taku Sugimoto, and Toshiya
Tsunoda, amongst a welter of others, each select a 'pillow shot' by Ozu, view
the remainder of the film, and then fashion a work which portrays and
carefully brings into clarity the particular investments underlying the sublime
scene in question. The work thus stands as a a tribute and a festive
challenge. That each artist took pains to respect the structure of each shot is
evident enough, but in reflecting on the scenes in such an undistorted
manner, characteristics of a personal sort seep through its pores and
challenge the listener to reflect upon the ever-changing relation of this
filmmaker to present-day society. A concern with sound and sonic
relationships abounds. While flirting with silence, Bernhard Gunter keeps
the music mobile, leading the listener through a succession of warm, often
delicate, acoustic states. On a similar wave-length, Taku Sugimoto has full,
harmonically rich piano notes ease ever-so gently into one another, until the
piece comes to partake in a rumination on still, seemingly neutral spaces, a
common theme in Ozu's works. Asides from compositions of an
electro-acoustic bent, the album canvasses a good many other forms, from
minimalism to sound art, and it does so with remarkable naturalness and
lack of contrivance, stressing the communicative aspects linking all of these
poles. One is left with a simplicity of construction and presentation which
has an elegant way of being open to interpretation. (Max Schaefer)

Touching Extremes (October 2007)
We owe a lot to labels like and/OAR. Not only because they present
us with some of the most extraordinary environment-based aural
experiences, something that Dale Lloyd's imprint releases with impressive
constancy, but also for their contribution to what we used to call "culture",
either in terms of "learning to penetrate both the essence of sound and the
absence of it" (which, on a second thought, means much more than culture)
or "encouraging new artistic interests" through cross-references to different
fields of contemporary creativity.

Enter Japanese filmmaker Yasujiro Ozu (1903-1963), a highly respected
figure in the opinion of movie connoisseurs, his art being mostly constructed
upon "insights into family relations, everyday struggles and simple
pleasures", as per Doug Cummings' liners. Characteristics that, in today's
self-indulgent world, assume a fundamental meaning since our very life - the
life outside the circles of "powers" and "establishments", the good old
"regular existence" that once was a given if one just stayed on a course, and
today is threatened unless you bend to not exactly explained "rules" - can
keep going on exclusively by nourishing the core of normality, an extraneous
annoyance for the non-silent majority ("money, sex, fame" is nowadays'
single refrain). When one takes the whole under a microscope, comparing
the activity of listening "in" silence and "to" silence to the inner balance that
we should always maintain, and which seems to stimulate abnormal
behavioural responses in a largely repressed human neighbourhood, then
it's possible to acknowledge the importance of such an edition.

A double CD comprising 31 tracks - their compositional methods analyzed in
the PDF booklet available as a file in both discs - whose beauty is reinforced
by a series of factors that include the depth of the location recordings
constituting the foundation of the large part of this music, the sensitive use of
instruments and electronics complementing them, the pregnant hush that
leaves spaces for the mind to add its own variations and colours and, last
but not least, the earnestness of the participants (among the many, Marc
Behrens, Keith Berry, Lawrence English, Heribert Friedl, Bernhard Gunter,
Haco, John Hudak, Jason Kahn, Dale Lloyd, Roel Meelkop, Kiyoshi Mizutani,
Steve Roden, Sawako, Steinbruchel, Taku Sugimoto, Toshiya Tsunoda).
There are outstanding moments of contemplative self-collection (a personal
highlight is the Berry / Mizutani / Michael Shannon consecutiveness on the
second disc) and several sections where we struggle to distinguish between
record and reality (until, in my case, I was brought back to the latter by the
firing guns of the nearby hunters during Gunter's wonderful flute meditation,
reminding that the battle against men's stupidity is definitely a lost cause). All
things considered, Ozu is probably smiling somewhere, as this is a
gorgeous piece of sound art that succeeds in every account, the perfect
tribute to painful sensibility. (Massimo Ricci)

Furthernoise (October 2007)
The and/OAR label, which mainly focuses on “environmental recordings,”
has beaten the odds and delivered a highly engaging concept record in the
form of a double CD, various-artist tribute to the late Japanese filmmaker
Yasujiro Ozu. Steve Roden, Alejandra & Aeron, Bernard Gunter, Marc
Behrens, and John Hudak are a just a few of the notable artists that
contributed works.

At first glance, Hitokomakura could have been a disaster; seemingly random
contributions from big-name artists, 31 tracks long, a slightly over reaching
selection of genres - and for us audio snobs - the apparent lack of a
mastering engineer. To be fair, it would be next to impossible to sequence
this type of compilation to give it a natural flow. However, this tribute
succeeds because of its ability to draw implicit parallels between Ozu's film
making technique and the aesthetic choices the compilation’s contributing
artists employ to create meditations on environmental space.

The handsome CD packaging includes a well-written introduction by Doug
Cummings that provides context to Ozu’s contributions to film. We learn the
filmmaker employed “pillow shots” to provide emotional resting points or
dramatic pauses in the narrative. Think of these cinematic moments as “still
lifes” where the content is devoid of any meaning, but inserted to set pacing. I
will admit to never having seen an Ozu film, but after reading the introduction,
I went straight to my Netflix queue to fix that problem.

According to Dale Lloyd, and/OAR label boss, audio contributor, and
executive producer of Hitokomakura, “…all the artists featured on this
release were invited to choose one or more pillow shots from an assortment
of Ozu films; then watch the film (or films) and create new pieces based on
their impressions.”

Various Ozu screenshots, Lloyd’s liner notes, and other helpful reading
material are included as part of the overall product in a PDF contained within
the CD's.

I recommend that if you find a particular photograph or scene compelling,
skip to that track first then jump to the next interesting scene or track using
the PDF document as a reference. Remember, all the pieces are derivative
or inspired by some meditative scene or pillow shot. This may help explain
why I feel the CDs are not cohesively sequenced when listened to straight
through without any visual context.

Hitokomakura contains artists working within a wide range of genres,
including microsound, onkyo, minimal electronic, phonography, and acoustic
ecology. In many ways their contributions feel like excerpts from larger
pieces, melodic ambient segue ways, or even interesting noisy room tone
recordings. Ozu’s “pillow shots” as expertly translated by sound artists
provide Yoga for the ears, and present a case for more subtle, peaceful
banality in our audio diet. (Derek Morton)

The Wire (September 2007)
Japanese film maker Yasujiro Ozu became famous in the post-war
period for his depictions of family life amid the tensions of modernity,
and his influential use of 'pillow shots' - images of empty domestic
space inserted between the main scenes. The latter inspired this
wonderfully conceived and executed tribute to Ozu's art. Each artist was
invited to select one of these shots, electronic images of which
accompany the package, and compose a track to compliment it.
Despite the range of idioms on display, from delicate electroacoustic
tapestries (Bernhard Gunter) and meditative drones (Keith Berry) to
bucolic field recordings (Kiyoshi Mizutani) and frequent uses of silence
(almost all), each perfectly serves their respective image. Highlights
include Steve Roden's beautiful pairing of chiming guitar and hushed
percussive patterns; label owner Dale Lloyd's gently shifting gamelan
shapes; and Taku Sugimoto's "Tengu In Linguistics", where he drops
six strident piano notes into a reductive vacuum, reflecting another of
Ozu's themes, the eschewal of action in favour of the contemplation of
the surrounding space. (Spencer Grady)

Igloo (September 2007)
These thirty-one imaginary soundtracks combined in a deluxe two-pack are
based on the films of Yasujiro Ozu. A very diverse international compilation
that includes work by John Hudak, Roel Meelkop, Steinbruchel, Steve Roden,
Taku Sugimoto, Marc Behrens and many others. They've each created their
own visual/visceral sound experience for the listener to explore with
conceptually dramatic sequencing throughout. In a combination of field
recordings, samples and electronic experimentation, most of what is
contained herein is a wash of drone and ambience – especially noted in the
beautiful three-minute piece "Ukigusa" by Alejandra & Aeron.

Doors creak in syncopation, a stream flows quick and softly, with a light roar
from the mysterious outdoors. On Behrens' "Samma No Aji" there's a
dramatic shift between understanding the listening experience as sine
waves or the nature of crickets. The tone is sharp and postured like stalking
prey, while incidental chirping distracts the potential of the situation. The
work is dramatically dense and ordered, and not necessarily through
common sense, but the shared experience, the happenstance of aural
cinema perhaps. As you listen, read deeply into the well-written liner notes
from Masters of Cinema's Doug Cummings, who truly gives a quick, yet
rounded historical interpretation of Ozu's film work and how it can possibly
endure through recordings such as this. The shaking feedback in Asuna's
short "From Scene 99 To The End - Kohayagawa-Ke No Aki" alludes to the
never-ending buzz of the fixed machine age. It changes the continuum of
energy here, but is much needed grounding.

Kiyoshi Mizutani presents two pieces titled two tables (1 and 2) where field
recordings of domestic scene, watching television in the kitchen are layered
with exotic birds and the hiss of a light rain. Part 1 sounds like the bass roar
of a waterfall combined with the delicate gathering of well water, or bathing.
There are voices and knocking (industrial or 'peckers?). Rustling through
woods can be heard over a fine din of more rapturous rain, along with
vehicles whizzing by and a few cawing birds. It's all quite noir, really. "Tooi
Soba" is Sawako's unusual free-form ambient noise contribution. Sauntering
in slippers, perhaps prepping breakfast with the clink of teacups, it's
definitely morning. There's a frustrated bit of pacing, and a few sparse words
as familiar birds call. This is the morning after (what though)? Dale Lloyd
contributes one of the few truly melodic pieces here called "Return To Me
Who Sleeps" which closes the set. Strumming on strings, with the echo of a
gong-like instrument, there's a distinctly Japanese quality to the timing of his
playing as it fades softly. (TJ Norris)

Aquarius Records (August 2007)
Yasijiro Ozu was a Japanese filmmaker (1903-1963) who had emphasized
restraint throughout the 54 films of his career, offering emotionally rich, if
purposefully understated narratives about the simple pleasures and pains of
everyday life. This compilation is a tribute to Ozu's tableaux; and given that
Ozu quietly punctuated his tales with shots of clouds, arrangements of
bottles, industrial landscapes, and other environments, the tribute features a
handful of suitably quiet sound artists who often use field recordings or
environmental space within their work. Steve Roden is the perfect artist for
such a tribute; and fittingly, he opens this compilation. His circular softness
for chimed guitar and tapped drum patterns is a wonderful departure in
which Roden pushes his sound design closer to the post-rock elegance of
Bark Psychosis. Roden's piece is one of the better tracks on this
compilation, with other highlights including Keith Berry's mournful
grayscapes of drone and slow-motion crackle, Toshiya Tsunoda's
impeccable recording of aerated hiss, a series of lilting lullaby chimes from
John Hudak, There's plenty of raw phonography from the likes of Hitoshi Kojo
(aka Spiracle), Kiyoshi Mizutani, Michael Shannon, and Ralph Steinbruchel.
Taku Sugimoto's piece has to be noted for its sheer blankness except for six
piano notes that emphatically emerge after 3 and a half minutes of silence.
This happens to be the second tribute to filmmakers from and/OAR,
following the now out-of-print compilation homage to Tarkovsky Another Kind
Of Language.

WHITE_LINE (July 2007)
From a very simple premise, that of inviting experimental musicians and
sound workers to interpret the film work of a renowned Japanese director,
comes a startling and invigorating panoply of sounds and visions in the form
of the and/OAR double CD release,“Hitokomakura”.

Interlocking at the threshold of perception, “pillow shots” are a device that
film directors utilise to cut away between “action” or narrative, a discrete
segue that mainstream directors and audiences alike invariably attach little
significance to, in preference of the more meaty intricacies of production,
plot, narrative, action and acting . Yasujiro Ozu, famed in the main for his
intimate portraits of the everyday, a series of seemingly mundane
occurrences finely wrought in hyperreal detail, and a gentle, enveloping pace,
(his work seemingly composed entirely of overlapping pillow shots in
themselves) has become the focus of attention for label curator, and
cinephile Dale Lloyd.

Hitokomakura is without doubt, Lloyd’s labour of love, and like the recently
released Extract booklet by NVO, shares a similar, towering roster of some
25 artists,of varying pedigree. To focus attention on any one artist from such
a wealth of talent would be to relegate others of equal stature, so I will save
any kind of musical analysis or critique for those braver and better than I.

One unique selling point of this scintillating double CD pack is that it is
enhanced by the addition of a series of Windows and Mac compatible pdf
files, that house some of Ozu’s images, and gives the artists an opportunity
to describe their approach. Very often, source material is gleaned from the
most obtuse and elliptical angles, and each artist defines their approach
concisely, elevating this release way above it’s contemporaries for sheer
entertainment value alone. Needless to say, most of the soundworks on
display here are subtle workings and reworkings of pillow shots, or in some
cases take the pillow shots, or other fundamental elements of Ozu’s ouevre
as the point of departure, a catalyst for musical inspiration that in most
instances touches on beautifully nuanced, meditative works of Zen-like
ambience.

No longer a fledgling label, and/OAR has gained ground and reputation on a
series of releases with an almost obsessive focus on field recording, and it’
s associated personnel, and on Hitokomakura, Lloyd simultaneously
reconfigures the definition of what field recording actually is, and in turn
presents us with a simulacra, a second hand field recording at a distance,
but nevertheless, a singularly beautiful collection of sounds ,images and
texts..this is the kind of stuff that I live for…exceptional. (Baz N)

Smallfish (July 2007)
When an album of this calibre drops onto the Smallfish doorstep it's really a
rare treat. Based around the idea of legendary Japanese filmmaker Yasujiro
Ozu's 'Pillow Shots' ('still life or neutral images in films that serve as visual
and emotional resting points') the artist were invited to choose a Pillow Shot
by Ozu (and you can see these in the accompanying PDF documents on the
discs) and then compose a track to accompany it having watched the entire
film that the shot came from to give it some overall context. The range of
styles is, frankly, marvellous and features some real heavyweights from the
world of contemporary electronic music, electro-acoustic sound and field
recordings. Steve Roden, Steinbruchel, Sawako, Kiyoshi Mizutani, Alejandra
& Aeron, Lawrence English, Roel Meelkop, label owner Dale Lloyd, Heribert
Friedl, John Hudak, Keith Berry and plenty more all feature and from that list
alone you should be able to get a sense of how expansive this double CD is.
From micro-fine minimalism, through to deeply beautiful sculptured sound
and on into cleverly adapted field recordings that seem to capture the
essence of the frames perfectly. A brilliant work of musical art (literally and
otherwise) that really deserves your attention as work of this calibre is
something to savour. Remarkable. (Mike Oliver)