“This is one of the very good albums from Juta Takahashi”
1 Music for Urban Promenades II 63:32
(CD/DDL 63:32) (V.F.)
(Ambient, Drone)
A little more and I would have missed this album of Juta Takahashi! Identical artworks, almost identical time length. MUSIC FOR URBAN PROMENADES 2 has slipped into the pile; reviewed CD, since I thought there was just one volume. It's when I wanted to listen to Seabound that I realized that there were two volumes to this Music for Urban Promenades series. The difference? Well, is huge!
No need to wait for long minutes before being connected to this concert of church bells, urban bells and different tinklings that suspend time. After a short rise of a synth wave, Music for Urban Promenades II offers this concert of bells, chimes and ding-dongs, very discreet in Music for Urban Promenades, with a sound impact that is surprising considering the slow symphonies of serenity of the Japanese musician-composer. And this concert my friends is quite an event with the big church bells and their harmonious chimes echoing and merging into a resonant pile of sounds. The synth is discreet with scattered bursts that divert our fixation on this concert where the buzzing echoes of bells and bells end up creating a minimalist symphony. The iridescent rays of the reverberating echoes end up creating the illusion of a melody sculpted through these reverberating zones. It's like a celebration of freedom. The victory over the fear of loneliness! I'm not sure, but Music for Urban Promenades II is far from being a long, monotonous thing. This river of tinkling and buzzing is illuminated by Juta's very judicious choices in his arrangements and his huge collages of bells' samples and chimes. He is the ringer who knows how to illuminate that inner light that is always (have you noticed?) fascinated, if not obsessed, by the songs of the bell towers of a village or a big city whose ambient hubbub too often hides these anagogic lyrical odes.
According to my point of view; MUSIC FOR URBAN PROMENADES 2 is one of the very good albums from Juta Takahashi. The way he illuminates this long spiritual panorama is both bold and surprisingly calm. The melody of the bells overshadows any return to heavy and gloomy ambiences; the bread and butter of my friend Juta...
Sylvain Lupari (April 16th, 2021) ****¼*
Available at Juta Takahashi Bandcamp