Japanese Trumn unfolds into 2009
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Label: Trumn
Year: 2009
Format: CD
From Japan we are this year happy to see the inauguration of a new label, Trumn – a label specialised in purveying exciting projects into electronic music with its focus on materialising works by artists exploring in the field of sound on a solo basis. Trumn is owned and run by Hideho Takemasa – a busy Japanese salary-man with a great love for music. Takemasa puts great time and money into his passion – an interest which also has seen him take on promotion and tour manager roles in the Japanese electronic music scene – recently working with our newfound, favourite Singaporean imprint Kitchen.
We are well into 2009 now, and Trumn released their first two catalogue releases in March – Figure from experimental bassist Tamaru and Entropy from composer and multi-instrumentalist Yui Onodera. On Entropy we find a rich and diverse collection of compositions – ranging from outer space-like vacuum soundscapes as those of Biosphere in early recordings on Patashnik, to lovely, microscopic details telling of minute variations of organic life, much in the same vein as Jasper Leyland, BJ Nilsen, and aspirations to long-form compositions in the vein of Stars of The Lid and Celer, the latter of which he collaborates with and on Entropy we see glimpses of droning, long-form compositions where the listener can revel in shimmering, wallowing space of enduring hummed noise, processed field recordings and electronics reduced to sound. Then, on other tracks we find Onodera give way to tracks of low, crackling microsounds and glitchy bleeps and electronics in the vein of 12k, Room40 and Spekk. This diversity makes for highly enjoyable listening and through the course of the album new details are discovered on repeated listening.
Tamaru is a bass player who delivers a record of challenge to the listener. Across a collection of 8 tracks on Figure, he plays bass sounds, modulated by delay and volume pedals, handling his trained instrument adeptly and processing its sounds beyond recognition at times, centering on long-stretched tones of a bass, alternating, fading, evolving, trembling chords and reduced to longer tones of droning, repetitive sound. It is quite meditational – sometimes taking on the hue of the engine noise of planes passing above you in the sky. Other times it shifts in force and feels like a fluid body edging its way through a terrain, yet other times again feeling very lofty with dark bass tones allowed a light shade by lingering in the open or flickering. Tamaru’s release feels physical and exerting; this is no electronic composition for the novice listener, but on the other hand a rewarding study of the bass to those who are persistent and are not daunted by the outset of a single instrument making up an entire composition. But given the warm and dark drone of the bass tone there is also a counter-balance in the noise given life in between the short-lived tones, and the result is interesting to say the least.
With two such diverse releases to mark the start of Trumn – not to mention their stunning, over-sized packaging in thick cardboard made by Hideho Takemasa himself – we believe Trumn is a brilliant new addition to Japanese label flora and we look forward to several more releases from them in the future.
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