Takuro Okada :: “The Near End, The Dark Night, The County Line” - Temporal Drift
Radiating rhythms and technical textures that lure one’s eager ears into the calcified caves of time and space are expected when diving into the endless depths of Tokyo-based multi-instrumentalist Takuro Okada’s (OKD) calm and calculated catalog. A rich renaissance of shapeless sounds swimming through doubtless dimensions of ever-expanding loops and dissonance, Okada’s atmospheric achievements transcend the typical timelessness by bringing to the surface a brand new body of work that quickly evaporates into the humming ether like that of Eno’s “Apolo” or Roedelius’ “Selbstportrait 1 and 2.” “The Near End, The Dark Night, The County Line” suggests sentimental silence while simultaneously rearranging the vocabulary of man and instead replacing it with organic gestures and poetic phrasing. Containing choice selections from an almighty archive that Okada has been carefully conjuring up over the last decade, “The Near End, The Dark Night, The County Line” strips back the musician’s usual collaborations that have featured artists such as Carlos Niño, Haruomi Hosono, and Sam Gendel, by steadily showcasing his sophisticated solo efforts in all its galavant glory. A speeding bullet train through the dense and consolidated streets of dreams and reality, Okada, who once occupied a sonic space in the outfit Mori Wa Ikiteru some years back, surfs the silver silence with bright colors, cosmic composition, and an excellent ear for esoteric evidence of something far greater than what meets our muddied eye on this mortal marble.
“This record is a compilation of songs I recorded over the past 10 years as a kind of diary, at home and at friends’ houses. The track selections were made with a focus on my main instrument, the guitar. Some of the songs were previously released on my Bandcamp page but have now been newly mixed and tracked down on open-reel tape.”
Guiding guitar transitions through melodic mountain scenery while gracious Grey Herons fly high above its poetic peaks; Okada dialed in his spiritual skills, playing along to American military members across Fussa’s infamous “Bar Row.” Gathering reliable remedies to supply to the melodic masses, his decade-long project of collected consciousness has finally found its way through the process, which is set for release on Temporal Drift in early March in all its electrifying excellence. With tracks such as “Reflections / Entering #2,” “Evening Song,” “Ohme Part 2,” “The Room,” and the album’s epic title track, “The Near End, The Dark Night, The County Line” is a magical connection to the musician’s captivating culture and its creative core. While reflecting on the album’s origins and early conception, Okada mentions, “Looking back, ever since I first picked up the guitar at 10 years old, “my music” and “recording” are activities that have been closely entwined. I was born and raised not in a family of musicians but rather in an ordinary Japanese home. There were no microphones, multitrack recorders, or any recording equipment to speak of, just lying around the house. But there was a video camera that could be used for multitracking, and it became my first tape machine. Here’s how it worked: I would film myself playing a backing track and record it on videotape. Then, as the tape was played back on the VCR, I would sit in front of the TV screen and film myself again playing along on bass, and so on. I discovered that I could make multitrack recordings as a one-man band with just a video camera and VCR—devices that were found inside virtually every home in Japan. It’s been almost 20 years since then, and I still spend my days playing guitar and recording, just as I did back then.”
