Tomas Phillips & Marihiko Hara – Prosa (Review)

Recorded through a series of email exchanges between the US and Japan, Prosa is the rewarding result of two years’ work from composer and novelist Tomas Phillips and Rimcona-lab’s Marihiko Hara. Encompassing a fascinating range of sonorities and textures using piano and electronics, the album moves between the barely audible and enveloping white noise.

Divided into two main sections which in turn are split into smaller movements, each part of Prosa retains its own identity whilst remaining part of the whole. Starting life with Hara’s solo piano joined by decorative flourishes on the koto, Prosa I is a fragile exercise in atonal abstraction, the brittle melodic fragments making great use of extended pauses, allowing the resonance of each instrument to be savoured. The second half brings with it the introduction of percussive samples and field recordings alongside electronically manipulated piano, slowly progressing from the abstract to more beat driven work and back again. The acoustic and electronic continue to merge until one is no longer distinguishable from the other, intertwined to form a gently bubbling texture that springs to life with each rise and fall of sound.

Prosa II i brings with it a much more foreboding element to the music, beginning life as an imposing drone that gives way to drifting tones interspersed with glitchy noise and clicks. Unnerving and restless in nature, this provides a darker edge to contrast the work so far and provide an idea of what to expect from the second, longer part of the album. These unsettling glitches gradually subside to allow room for a gentle piano motif that emerges from within the rich electronic tones to weave its way seamlessly into II ii, providing a more settled piece. Immersive tones surround the minimal piano lines, their loose pulse speeding up and slowing down at will.

II iii acts as an urgent call of polyrhythmic punctuations of static, contrasted against dense swathes of electronics that create slowly shifting chords. Varying tones of noise swarm their way around the listener before becoming more and more abstract, eventually dying away to pass into the more gentle, melodic II iv. Disjointed metallic sounds whir about overhead like the distant chirp of a robotic grasshopper, to provide a soothing backdrop to the lilting nature of the electronic tones.

Drawing the album to a close are two shorter tracks that briefly develop and conclude the previous movements. II v makes great use of sparse tones and prolonged pauses to further explore the darker realms of II i. These sonic fragments gradually disperse, acting to bring the piece towards its conclusion in II vi where a melodic piano motif intertwined with electronic manipulations of itself briefly weaves its way to the fore before drifting delicately into the ether.

The overall combination of abstract electronics and melodic lines that flit between immersive warmth and almost mechanical atonalism will make this familiar ground for fans of the Alva Noto & Ryuichi Sakamoto collaborations and the like. However, whilst Prosa doesn’t neccessarily break any boundaries it is a lovely work that explores the beauty that lies within simplicity, well worth repeated listens.

- Review by Katie English for Fluid Radio

Available through Tench

www.tenchrec.com
www.incursion.org/phillips/
www.rimacona-lab.com/