Très beau début de journée, avec la pop ambiante japonaise de Oh, Yoko, un duo composé de Rie Mitsutake (Miko) et Will Long (Celer). I Love You, leur premier disque, atteste d’une très belle fusion des univers sonores de ces deux artistes. Les mélodies naïves, la voix frêle, les rythmes mal équarris et les petits instruments de Miko; les électroniques délicates et les sons ambiants de Celer. Quatorze chansons, surtout dans les quatre minutes, qui s’écoutent comme dans un rêve.

Very fine album to kick off this morning, with the Japanese ambient pop of Oh, Yoko, a duo consisting of Rie Mitsutake (Miko) and Will Long (Celer). I Love You, their debut album, shows a deep intermingling of their respective soundworlds: the naive melodies, fragile voice, askew beats and small instruments of Miko; the delicate electronics and ambient sounds of Celer. Fourteen songs, mostly in the four-minute range, that float by like a dream. 

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Parallelo a “Night Ride”, “Harmony State” costituisce la seconda testimonianza della nuova incarnazione analogica di Will Thomas Long, ormai sempre più affascinato dal recupero della rudimentale tecnologia di tastiere e sequencer degli anni ’70-’80.

Rispetto al lavoro “gemello”, le dodici brevi tracce di “Harmony State” costituiscono un ulteriore passo verso la definizione dei contorni dell’autonomo progetto Rangefinder. Da un lato, la spinta sulle componenti sintetiche appare qui più decisa, tanto da presentare passaggi costellati da frequenze irregolari e pulsanti, dall’altro, le fonti sonore prescelte vengono impiegate in funzione di trasfigurazione attraverso mezzi diversi dei due principali cardini dell’imponente produzione di Long come Celer, ovvero l’iterazione armonica e il rumore. Entrambi – con netta prevalenza del primo – sono ben presenti in “Harmony State”, lavoro che pare ricondurre il pulviscolo sintetico generato dalle macchine a modulazioni avvolgenti, non affatto aliene da suggestioni emozionali.

Le oniriche trame di “Particles For Rebuilding” e le sinfonie modulari in miniatura di “Balance Drive” e della conclusiva “Carrier” gettano così un ponte tra il passato di Long e le sue nuove idee, rivelando le inesplorate potenzialità di una strumentazione il cui ruolo, anche nel caso di una scelta così marcata, permane comunque secondario a quello della sensibilità dell’artista che la impiega.

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I keep returning to this tape and listening to it in the early morning hours after my daughter’s had her first feeding of the day and I can’t really explain why. Rangefinder makes deceptively simple music, usually grabbing onto one, maybe two ideas, and repeating them until they’ve become part of my brain’s architecture. I’m just as burnt out on “synth jams” as the next fella, but there’s something pure, almost naive about Night Ride that it’s infectious. Each piece is short and never overstays its welcome and acts as a quick glance into passing windows as you ride through and overcrowded city on an overcrowded train. Rangefinder creates brief moments of solace amongst the insanity and it’s oddly, wonderfully beautiful.

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Qualora qualcuno si stesse meravigliando della scarsa attività discografica di Will Thomas Long (col “solo” “Viewpoint” pubblicato dall’inizio dell’anno), ecco qui il prolificissimo artista californiano ormai da tempo residente in Giappone presentarsi con un nuovo progetto e una denominazione diversa rispetto a quella di Celer che lo ha accompagnato per svariate decine di pubblicazioni.

Al mutamento onomastico corrisponde l’intrapresa di diverso e parallelo percorso espressivo, incentrato su synth e sequencer, l’interesse per i quali Long ha probabilmente sviluppato in seguito alle collaborazioni dello scorso anno con Machinefabriek. Mantenendo fermi alcuni cardini della suo consolidato profilo artistico, in Rangefinder Long si cimenta in composizioni brevi, incentrate su fremiti e variazioni tonali, in opposizione alle abituali iterazioni droniche di Celer. Inoltre, il flusso sonoro della sua nuova creatura, così come si manifesta nelle tredici tracce di “Night Ride”, risulta pervaso da densi vapori che tracciano paesaggi post-atomici percorsi da luminose scie sintetiche.

Eppure, se nel lavoro non si riscontra solo un immaginario sci-fi d’annata, questo è dovuto alla personale interpretazione di Long, capace di applicare anche a una materia sonora apparentemente inerte e fredda, strati omogenei di malinconia che tendono a conferire un minimo di respiro compositivo all’universo di pulsazioni e brevi irregolarità prodotte dai synth.

Rangefinder potrebbe dunque essere una naturale evoluzione, su nuove basi, della ricerca di Will Thomas Long, della quale “Night Ride” un primo assaggio sotto forma di concisi notturni di visionaria densità analogica.

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Night Ride has traveled a long distance to reach my Walkman-cum-stereo but much like its physical adventure from Kokubunji, Japan to [PARTS UNKNOWN], the metaphysical journey of Will Long’s newest project absorbs all the scenic pastures and cityscapes, spewing them out in equal parts toxin and organic. Lush scenery is invaded by harsh technology, and though I flash to thoughts “Broken Household Appliance National Forest” as an ideology on which to base this tape, it’s a blind grasp. The only sonic relationship shared is a fondness for electronic-based pop, but Rangefinder is lighter in subject matter if sometimes darker in melody. As you might imagine, the album is a whiz of synthesized sounds hurling past at high speeds as moments of natural beauty slow down the chaotic trip across the global space of location. When I listen to Night Ride, I’m transported into the travels of this singular cassette through a wormhole of cultures. I’m picking up dialects and customs unbeknownst to me before its arrival. And though there’s a familiar tinge to the music, its exotic existence makes me think of Long and his transplanted life from that of rural America to Japan. So it seems only right that he would craft such a fulfilling and open-minded road mix that would spiritually complete his earthly trek back to his homeland. It seems so detached from his roots but so wholly aware of them. Or maybe this is just a good tape to put in your ‘92 Honda Civic and cruise to at night because who wants to burdened with heady thoughts when you’re just looking for a good breezy buzz.

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On sort de ce disque comme nous y invite. Avec en tête ces quelques mots “dance with me”. Et pourtant Oh, Yoko réalise une oeuvre ouatée, en apesanteur, d’un calme olympien. Capable de trouver une mélodie radieuse avec trois bouts de ficelles, de mettre sur pied de petites odyssées électroniques et pernicieuses, d’inviter Saint Etienne, Tujiko Noriko, Lodz, Slowdive, Emeralds…

Empli d’instants de chansons, de mélodies attrapées par le vent, ce disque possède cette intensité enfouie qui ne se veut ni immédiate, ni fulgurante. Les références scintillent de façon ostentatoire à la surface, mais c’est l’éclat de soleil que l’on découvre sous la couche du givre. Nuances et fantômes, souvenirs, nostalgie, impressions et ritournelles du quotidien, ce disque dévoile son univers étrangement familier.

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Oh, Yoko is none other than Will Long of Celer fame along with Rie Mitsutake aka Miko, on this their debut album out on Normal Cookie Records, we experience a pleasant mix of lo-fi electronic/acoustic pop folk that is both highly accessible and challenging at the same time. Pastoral ambience and playful electronics go hand in hand with soft female vocals sung and spoken in both Japanese and English.

An array of instrumentation appears here, mostly electronic but with the addition of acoustic guitar, mandolin, accordion and soothing found sound like rainfall (‘Song With Coyotes’), birdsong (‘Treehouse’) and TV and film samples, including one of a news interview of Paul McCartney being asked about the shocking death of John Lennon (‘Newsbreak’). The electronic element is one of vintage quality, analogue synth sounds mix with modern bleeps and warm piano and the pop side is very lo-fi like on ‘Grand Prix’ with its drum machine hand claps. This is a super little album full of wonderful surprises, limited to 500 copies packaged in a triple fold card sleeve featuring photography from Rie Mitsutake.

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Precise, crystalline synth academia from Rangefinder, with Night Ride, on Tokyo based Bun Tapes. Tracks that seem to present themselves as objects for observation. As each new element is introduced, it is made fully available in the mix, unobscured, and presented from all angles to absorb each new effect in context with the former. For me, this feels as much academic in execution as artistic. That some synth music can be as much about displaying the science of composing sound as it is about creating astral soundtracks shrouded in mystery. This one strikes a fine line between the two, plenty of opportunities to zone out into the horizon, and still not lose sight of the computations encompassing the delivery of a sine and square wave. Sounds like a starship full of mathematicians.

The physical product is really quite striking. Peach shells, professionally imprinted, nice beefy card stock and design. Seems like the tape equivalent of the PAN aesthetic.

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“In a white-hot blue rush, the sun came breaking in with enough strength to push you over backwards. Smoke was still lingering on the ceilings, being sucked out once the windows opened up. She leaned out the window, looking down into the empty streets. Nobody. It’s a more peaceful life, now. Everyone’s at the beach, no more working. They gave that up years ago. He came into the room, and laid down on the sofa.

Minutes later, night was coming, and the car warmed up, as they went out along the boule- vards, and into the mountains, for the foggy climb to the top. The keyboards on the tape ste- reo sizzled in the crisp night air, and below, from the lookout point, all the lights were off and quiet. Let’s sit here and see the moon rise.” – Harmony State

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Harmony State is the debut release by Rangefinder, aka Will Long. The project was started as a return to the technology of the 1970’s and 1980’s, using only Yamaha synthesizers, Roland sequencers, and multitrack tape mixing. With the current availability and countless options through computers, it can be overwhelming, and can destroy the immediacy of creativity and spontaneity through becoming too involved with processes and possibilities.

Harmony State came from experimenting with simple capabilities and ideas, and through this, finding a way to have fun and enjoy making music.

Available from now Room40!