Consuming the Tangible

Sometimes there are no words. Not because the music leaves you speechless, but because you have no reference points to express your thoughts. That’s kind of where I’m sitting with the latest from composer/pianist/ambient explorer Midori Hirano, whose Otonoma (roughly translated to “the space between sounds”) balances layers of synths and waves of sound again field recordings and acoustic piano to conjure shades and impressions of moods both nostalgic and immediate in my head. I play it in odd moments, and I play it repeatedly, something I don’t normally do with albums – I’m rarely a repeat consecutive listener. But there’s something undefinable to me in the sounds that has me in its grip, so words or not I’ll try to explain why this has the “best of” tag attached below.

Entirely composed, performed, and recorded/mixed by Hirano, the music on Otonoma begins with the arpeggiated sequence slowly coming into the light on “Illuminace” as waves of synth slowly push in from below. It has the sense of waking up, of a prologue for the day to come. I’d be lying if I said it didn’t also conjure up video game soundtracks; I think though at this point that qualification counts as more feature than bug when you consider how far video game music has come in the last few decades – even longer for those who have been following that path since the Final Fantasy games at least.

That’s never really been an area of focus for me, but the parallels to film soundtracks is another story. Tracks like the very synth-forward “Warped in Red” not only conjure obvious neon-lit near futures with rain-slicked streets, but they tie themselves to specific memories, coloring my perception and recall of the events. The next track can be (and is, in fact) very different, providing a new facet to a memory that never rests, shudders and blurs and twists to accommodate whatever strays stimulus wanders by.

At least, that’s what Otonoma is doing for me right now, three days and one funeral later after I started this review.