Hakobune - "The Cowboy Across the River" & Cankun - "Idle" (Constellation Tatsu)

I've had the pleasure of listening to and writing about all of Constellation Tatsu's releases (thus far). Every time I fire one up the music is meticulous and patient and the art/packaging is Pro. This label, and the artists they've released, are the real deal for fans of ambient/drone/impressionist sounds. Hakobune is Takahiro Yorifuji and his, The Cowboy Across the River, might one of the "prettiest" drone tapes I've heard ever. It is slow and amorphous like so many others, but there is a spark...a quality of craftsmanship inherent in the tonalities that swath my weary being. The lengthy pieces like the final composition, "Around This Always," disrupt time. I've heard it said, "you can't really stop time," but with Hakobune's music, time DOES change - or at least it becomes something altogether different.

Cankun's Idle is hands down the most fun CT release and probably the one to buy as an introduction to the label. Not that the music sounds like anything else on the label, in fact, it sounds less like the other releases than Hakobune's tape (which shares some similarities with previous CT releases). The reason I like Cankun's tape best is the guitar playing, the SOUND of the guitar is truly psychedelic - in the best sense. It stuns me as a listener and as a guitar player. I actually LOVE the bounce, slash, splunky, slink of the playing. Normally I'm not one for heroic fret work, but Cankun surprised me. I wasn't expecting the "jammy" quality of sorta-kinda Galaxie 500esque leads. The instrumental nature of the music makes for excellent repeat listens. Fuck me...

Buy and Listen HERE.

CANKUN - "Jaguar Dance" c47 (Not Not Fun)

French minimalist/electronic brainchild - Vincent Caylet, gives us his debut outting under the new Cankun moniker, a fantastic new cassette entitles "Jaguar Dance".This couldn't have found a more suitable home, than the one it's found at with the amazing Not Not Fun family.This album is painfully addictive and fresh right from the get go.On "O Mountains O", a weightless soft synth drone floats along at a crawling pace, warming up and melting down into pools of thick, bubbling melodies.There's already a deeply organic vibe, one that might conjure images of a liquefied hologram, a sort of neon colored cyclone, spinning wildly through the air.Heaps of colorful guitars are spilled into the mix, with a heavily delayed, slow bounce.They quickly begin to grow and multiply, as the clusters of sharp micro-rhythms find their way into the deep and continuous keyboard swell, the two start to intertwine, creating a lush and vivid landscape.Jaguar Dance's sound is easily comparable to that of Sun Araw and High Wolf having an underwater calypso jam session, with Matrix Metals controlling the soundboard.It's bubbly tone suggest that it may have been recorded somewhere in the depths of a underwater cave, and rarely, if ever, does it come up for air.
As you begin to explore more of Jaguar Dance, you will notice that the songs begin to take shape a bit, and find a more swaying, rhythm based approach,"Congo Mobile Disco" fades in with a swirling psych guitar stride, draped over top of a minimal beat, and just when you've gotten comfy, it pulls you in a whole new direction.Caylet introduces a faster, more prominent drum pattern, along with some subtle, treated strumming in the background.This all plays on for a minute or two, slowly building upon itself, with layers of electric guitar noodling and some rather piercing riffs that climb over top of each other.Things finally come to a head, and then quickly plateau, fizzling out like the red sun, as it descends into the sea at dusk.A very, very good debut on all fronts.Another gold star for NNF.