critic by Dissolve :
http://dissolve-mag.weebly.com/
Finally , a Frenchman living in Kyoto, Samuel André, a.k.a. ieva,
closes this Japanese series with La Cascade de la Montagne de l’Aube [ 日ノ岡 の滝],
a rich and fascinating record.
While his predecessors most of the time chose very limited sound sources,
ieva prefers clear drones, field recordings and real melodies to form a pointillist landscape.
Using birdsong, the wind, water sounds, indistinct cracking and aerial melodies,
ieva offers a vision of HIS Japan, the vision of a Western man in a foreign land
which gets richer little by little, as ritual percussion and chanting voices
(we’re somewhere between a ceremony and a demonstration, unless it’s both)
let life seep in through every corner of the landscape,
a vision which hardens and becomes more radical but never loses its apparent composure in the process.
Yin and Yang (and all the relationships that unite them)
are expressed and exposed in a little over twenty minutes : not an easy challenge,
and yet a particularly impressive balance is achieved in this record.
http://www.taalem.com/alm81.htm
