Ancient Future might lack a little subtlety as an umbrella title for this collection, but it perfectly describes the interplay of opposites that permeate every track. High-altitude chills that suck the air from the lungs and dry the skin compete with extreme heat from an almost permanent swell of vented and enveloping bass tones and drones, and many tracks swing virtually invisibly from opening passages of sublime, slow-motion movement across to almost frozen stillness.
Ryuichi Sakamoto gets about a bit these doesn’t he? Without wanting to sound rude, these collaborations with the avant-garde ivory tickler/torturer have actually started to become something of a cliché and increasingly fail to live up to expectations. Take the final installment of the Alva Noto + Ryuichi Sakamoto unofficially dubbed “VIRUS” series with its gimmicky, awkward and largely unsuccessful use of microtonal piano, or Fennesz + Sakamoto’s Flumina that, whilst undoubtedly beautifully crafted and tranquil, collapses under its own weight, the massive twenty-four track two-disc set blurring into a homogenous whole that is both nigh-impossible to experience in one sitting and fails to deliver enough standout or individual moments to be fully rewarding.
Thank goodness, then, for Christopher Willits and Ancient Future, the latest in the mysteriously titled SMM series from Ghostly International. Willits clearly has a grander design and broader vision than other collaborators, understanding that rather than cowering in awe at Sakamoto’s minimal and often bordering on non-existent compositions and timidly adding only the tiniest wisps of instrumentation as if any more would contaminate them beyond repair, the deliberate silence is best populated with many textures, techniques and instrumental colours, whilst still retaining an overall thematic continuity. Once again, he has entirely succeeded and not for the first time either, this being Willits’ follow up to his first collaboration with Sakamoto on Japan’s Commmons label in 2007, subsequently reissued for the rest of the world by Taylor Deupree’s minimalist 12k the following year.
Ancient Future might lack a little subtlety as an umbrella title for this collection, but it perfectly describes the interplay of opposites that permeate every track. High-altitude chills that suck the air from the lungs and dry the skin compete with extreme heat from an almost permanent swell of vented and enveloping bass tones and drones, and many tracks swing virtually invisibly from opening passages of sublime, slow-motion movement across to almost frozen stillness. Both “Abandoned Silence” and “I Don’t Want To Understand” feature a deep throb, like the thump of a giant heartbeat that ought to be more than a little sinister, but in the former, Willits’ electric guitar is oddly comforting and warm whilst Sakamoto’s trill-distorted piano is restless and uneasy.
“Levitation” is particularly affecting; soft white noise and a slowly undulating melody pull in one direction whilst the hypnotic, elevated, hanging drones pull in the other like a carefully controlled, slow motion implosion with a dazzling, turbulent epicentre. Further kudos to Willits for creating an experience so seamless that there is the illusion of listening to a single, extended but multiple-movement track. The final minutes of the album demonstrate this particularly well, as “Releasing” eases in to the final and most traditional piece, “Completion.” Sakamoto’s piano is more akin to that of Harold Budd here, the heady atmosphere redolent with the scent of flowers, Willit’s floor-vibrating bass a summer heatwave to accompany the florid colours and shapes that all come to a close with a sustained note like a final, suspended cathedral organ chord.
Ghostly International’s vinyl presentation of this release is, as always, absolutely flawless. Beautiful, moody, mysterious royal blues and golds in the artwork, with an almost invisible floating pyramid cap on the horizon, a limited edition clear vinyl edition is available in heavy jacket with inner bag. This is one of the most charismatic Sakamoto collaborations in recent memory and comes with the highest recommendation.
Ancient Future is available on Ghostly International. [Release page]
