“Quiet Rain is weave with such a sensibility that we would believe that Juta Takahashi composes his astral poetry on the walls of our dreams”
1 Dawn 15:18
2 Monochrome Sorrow 15:07
3 Quiet Rain 15:11
4 The Azure Dragon 15:17
(CD/DDL 60:53) (V.F.)
(Ambient Music)
A tear of cello is sighing in the quiet breezes which flood our ears and which open the very meditative Dawn. Between the sadness of buried memories and the hope of better days, Dawn is the dawn of a life that is renewed in the ashes of our past. It's very beautiful, very morphic and very intense. Like an artist painting with grief the colors of a bitter night of life which is pouring in the tranquillity of the multiple faces of dawn, Juta Takahashi uses all the primary colors of his analog synths and his somber Mellotron to draw rainbows of melancholy which melt in the ears. The synth layers are crying there, rocked by the heavy waves of a wrapping Mellotron which scatters its intense clouds of mists on a soothing musical painting which inspires the most total self-abnegation. Initially released in 2009 (in a CD-r format) QUIET RAIN (Remastered) is bringing us back into the very meditative universe of Juta Takahashi with 4 long titles of about fifteen minutes which exploit marvellously all the nuances of the serenity.
Monochrome Sorrow is a long astral lament with its layers very iridescent and its hollow breaths which glide as a long quiet river in search of its tributaries. The movement is slow and heavy, as well as very meditative. The nuances within are subtle, while its only movements are its underlying lines which go away to form lineal melodies in search of a captive ear. We are in front of nothingness, copulating with our emotions forbidden of stay. These hollow winds are awaking the intro of the title-track where fine rainy drops fall in the scattered notes of a wandering piano. Immensely introspective, Quiet Rain floats as a thick cloud of dreams lost in the fogs of the spring mornings when the rain and the dew are forming the accomplices of our wonder. The Azure Dragon borrows another tangent with more scarlet tones. Always very quiet the title is carried by massifs buzzing which derive in a void of astral odes, collecting in his vampiric immobilism strata fines and sharpened which hum of a slightly hatched tone. Here, as all over QUIET RAIN (Remastered), the wealth of the musical textures is intensely palpable, multiplying by 10 a stunning ambio-spherical musicality which transcends the simple relaxation music.
Faithful to his very meditative style, Juta Takahashi delivers an album without faults. An album which is a haven of an inner peace for those who want to escape the pressure of a world which goes sometimes too fast so that we can appreciate its beauties. From the first breaths of Dawn we are absorbed by this mesmerizing intimist and intuitive music which lights our memories and calms its torments with such a sensibility that we would believe that the Japanese synthesist composes his astral poetry on the walls of our dreams. If it's true that ambient music often turns around on its grooves, it's also true that some artists always manage to affix on it a unique signature. Juta Takahashi is among them and QUIET RAIN (Remastered) is his signature, quite as Hymn, Silence …
Sylvain Lupari (December 1st, 2012) *****
Available at Juta Takahashi Bandcamp