TK a0 is a boldly conceptual release from Carpark. So Takahashi has scored an art exhibit, now closed, comprised of thirty photographs of empty and abandoned rooms with thirty minutes of music. 30/30 is that score, and Takahashi’s score is an extremely minimal composition designed to complement, though not precisely follow, the 30 photographs reproduced in the booklet.
Nine minutes in, on the tenth room, things build up. There is a minimal bleep and bass pulse, accompanied by a slowly moving two-note synth drone. By the eleventh room depicted (an abandoned office, with fluorescent lighting tracks stretching towards one another in the distance) this tone has unified several of the rooms. Finally, this stream gives out with the fourteenth room (13 minutes in) and collapses into a deep bass tone that illustrates what appears to be an abandoned software or video shop but looks more like, with the product removed, an abandoned factory of some kind.
Occasionally the sounds seem to bear little resemblance to the rooms illustrated, but sometimes they line up perfectly. The appearance of the abandoned video store and several empty spaces filled with natural light is accompanied by a twittery drone and wavy chords, then overlaid with sampled voices that distorted to sound as though they are being emitted by a tape deck or television left on in one of these rooms. The laughing voices seem to summon the burned remnants of a party, as a regular, if tiny, beat kicks in.
The ‘structured’ song theme reappears in the last five minutes, this time with a huffing percussive noise accompanying it. This time, the theme seems to underscore the menace in these rooms, as they appear more and more messy, with things left behind and junk the only marker of occupation. Fans of minimalism or those who want to visit the visual/audio art intersection may enjoy this, but it seems to lack some of the functionality and groove that would make one return to it repeatedly. Nevertheless, Takahashi is wisely taking the growing Carpark label into intriguing new directions.
