Tomotsugu Nakamura’s new release, ‘Literature’, is a record of peace and sedation. This is achieved through a selection of light electronics, inserted field recordings, and the gentle sound of a guitar as it sings single notes. Nakamura’s elemental music creates calm amid much desperation. The stitched-together-music isn’t disjointed despite its sporadic nature, and it doesn’t feel harsh or sharp. Rather, it captures the spontaneity and free-flowing essence of nature and time spent outdoors, where leaves rustle and brush against one another in a sudden gust of wind, creating a whoosh of music. Literature does much the same thing, mirroring nature.
Trapped in a world of chaos, uncertainty, confusion, rage, and indifference, Literature goes the other way, seeking peace and providing a breath of fresh air. Its notes are coloured with the glow of dawn, a rebirth, a returning, and a new growth. Spacious and absolutely lovely to listen to, with no shocking intrusions or Breaking News banners to raise the heart rate, Literature offers a time-out with its carefree, easy loops. Nakamura’s music is refined and elegant, and despite being pretty on the eye, its beauty is deeper than the surface, and there isn’t anything shallow about it. Listeners will be able to extract the deeper electronic sediment through repeated listens.
Literature sends out signals of peace without ever becoming a new age cliché; something real, tangible, and attainable. The elements are all in balance and in harmony. One never overtakes, overlaps, or dominates the other. There is a unification between nature and peace, and Literature rather fittingly ends with the solitude of ‘Library’, the album as a whole successfully tapping into a quiet place.