code of silence by Ryoko Akama
release: 2014
label: melange edition
recorded at: university of huddersfield and IMA institute
design: stephen harvey
Code of silence is Ryoko Akama’s new album after her last release, kise-tsu, in 2005. The album contains five tracks that explore Japanese phenomime and psychomime. Phenomime is Japanese words/phrases that mimic certain physical forms/motions whilst psychomime depict psychological states, emotions or feelings. They are the sounding word for no sounding phenomenon. Akama has created numerous pieces conceptualised by phenomime and psychomime. some are purely electronics and others are for other performers. This is an album which collects solo electronic pieces. gussuri (track02) is a phenomine that defines a state of ‘sound asleep’. The 10 minutes piece conditions transformative experience in listening and not listening. Layers of sound wonder in and out of space. Silent parts are more predominant than sound performed that makes occurrence of sound more apparent. Performance and listening action of no-input mixer is used solely to realise this evolving piece.
Sotto (track 03) is a sound word for ‘gradually’ or ‘quietly’ and used when someone or something is discreet. It is contemplative, accumulative and expands listener’s perception over time in a predictable manner. A listener succumbs to different levels of details in a quality of surface of tonal texture. A series of small intents cause intense listening environments. This intensified situation is a resultant of continuum simplicity where hidden density and timbre are unveiled. (by P. Mcgiure)
