Brain Dead Eternity (IT)

Looking at the impressive curriculum vitae of Sawako, which includes a Master’s degree in Interactive Communications and studies in “Networked Expression, Physical Computing, Post Linear Narrative and Audio/Visual”, one is almost taken aback by the tender greeting that Bitter Sweet, probably the most emotionally intense work she’s given birth to, reserves to the listener.

A polymorphism of warm textures whose ever-changing nuances – best appreciated in two heartrendingly stunning tracks such as “Deep Under” and “Looped Labyrinth, Decayed Voice” – put our thoughts in that zone where childhood’s pureness of reminiscence and the candour of a vital ecstasy meet. A multi-chambered wintriness only rarely illuminated by traces of shimmering light, immediately dissipated by a copious leafiness of meshed melodies, rather simple but, in their intersections, projecting huge shadows all around the place where you’re standing. It’s without a doubt a splendid album, also for the reason that the composer wisely chose to focus the effort on the instrumental weaving, leaving her frail vocal tone appear exclusively in the final “A Last Next”. The whole gains both in concentration and grief, the Japanese girl returning to the highs reached in Yours Gray on And/OAR, making us care for her music with renewed fervour. Among the guest artists, Ryan Francesconi and Jacob Kirkegaard.

A modern ambient miniature masterpiece, with more than a fair share of highlights: play “Tsubomi, Saku” in infinite repeat at sunset and deliver yourself from the burden of an ineffectual mortal subsistence.