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Intensity (you are)

For songwriters, there’s music that inspires, music that evokes jealousy, music that invites ridicule, music that amazes.

And sometimes, there’s music you just outright steal.

A few weeks ago, I decided to continue building the home studio I was distracted from building a few years back. (Thank you, economic downturn.)

I reinstalled an old version of Cakewalk, fished out my MIDI interface and hooked up the keyboards collecting dust since I moved back into a bigger apartment to my computer.

My original MIDI workstation was stolen many years previous in a burglary, so I faced the daunting task of recreating work I did at least 10 years ago.

But in sifting through the one demo tape that survived the burglary, it struck me some of those songs could spun into an entire album of adult contemporary pop — jazz-pop for middle class housewives. (Oh, how indie.)

But I didn’t want to sound like Norah Jones on this project. No — I wanted to sound like ACO.

Particularly, absolute ego.

The albums which followed 1999’s absolute egoMaterial in 2001, irony in 2003 — are far more adventurous. But this album fit squarely in the middle of ACO’s creative transformation.

On the one hand, absolute ego is incredibly melodic and deeply sensual. On the other hand, it’s also steeped in a dark atmosphere, sometimes contemplative, sometimes alien.

I studied absolute ego thoroughly — picking apart the elements that made this album such a rich listening experience.

There’s a simplicity to ACO’s writing on this album — the nearly same three chords used throughout “Spleen”, the uncomplicated bass line of “Yoroku Bi Saku Hana ga”. And there’s an economy to the arrangments — the embellishments that only hint at dub on “Intensity (You Are)”, the sparseness of “Ame no Hi no Tame ni”.

ACO could have gone for a more commercial sound with the material on absolute ego. The “Director’s Cut” of “Aishita Anata wa Tsuyoi Hito”, after all, sounds like it could have come off a ’70s R&B album.

But its the production of Sunahara Toshinori and Yamashita Hideki that sets this album apart. They bring out different shades to the songs that a live band may have colored another way.

Even the steady, snail’s pace of the songs aren’t a hinderance — never does the album fall into a mid-tempo homogeniety.

The more I listened, the more I realized — ACO’S writing combined with Sunahara’s and Yamashita’s production created a repository of good ideas.

Amateurs imitate, but geniuses steal. I don’t know where I heard that bit of wisdom, but I won’t use it to justify lifting entire bits of absolute ego for my own music.

Good ideas are good ideas, and absolute ego is the kind of music worthy of creative larceny.

(And just to be clear — the project I worked on ended up sounding nothing like absolute ego. Steal too much, and it becomes imitation.)

absolute ego is an album worth exploring. It’s a seductive work, single-minded in its intensity, but never overcrowded.

And it’s an album that doesn’t tire with repeated listens. If anything, it’s the opposite — it gets under your skin with each spin.

ACO hits the road

Source: Bounce.com

ACO will embark on a tour behind her latest album starting in November. In June, the singer released, irony, her first album of new work in two years. This tour will be noteworthy in how ACO reproduces her electronica sound. Dates on the tour include:

Friday, Nov. 14 — Osaka Big Cat

Saturday, Nov. 15 — Club Quattro

Wednesday, Nov. 19 — Shinjuku Liquid Room

Feeling strangely fine

Imagine what would happen if Mandy Moore somehow managed to morph into Björk or, to use a parallel closer to home, if Hamasaki Ayumi turned into Shiina Ringo.

That would only begin to describe the creative trajectory of ACO. The Japanese singer started out as a young idol, but in recent years, she’s transformed herself into a daring explorer.

Her sixth album, irony, demands a lot of effort on part of the listener. It’s not just a challenging album — it’s a work that defies comparisson from the rest of her repertoire.

And that’s perhaps the most difficult hurdle to overcome in approaching irony. ACO, who distinguished herself from other idol singers by writing her own music, has always been a skilled melodicist.

When she offered that talent to such producers as Adrian Sherwood and Sunahara Toshinori, it yielded two of the most gratifying electronica-influenced pop albums of the early decade — Absolute Ego and Material.

irony represents a natural and yet drastic leap from those albums. ACO has dived straight into a sonic ocean of strange sounds, primeval rhythms and eerie vocals. She sets human strings against inhuman effects, and she pushes her voice to extreme ranges.

Her gift for melody is still present, as demonstrated on the lullaby-like “hans”, the fragile “Subako” and the tender “Kitchen”.

But it’s been obscured, rendered unrecognizable by a tapestry of floating textures. On “lang”, harmonics played on violins double ACO’s wordless singing, a pairing that’s both chilling and beautiful. Rhythmless synthesizers almost sound like they’re broadcast alien signals on the album’s title track.

The vocals on irony almost take a secondary role. On “Akai Shishuu”, ACO doesn’t start singing till half way through the four-minute song. On the opening “00000”, they’re rendered backward.

For long-time fans, the aural world in which this album inhabits is perhaps akin to visiting an alien world. The few beats on the album are delivered in spurts, and any hint of the sensual jazz chords of her mainstream work are missing in action.

But once the lay of the land is set, irony becomes a fascinating work. Much like Björk’s Vespertine or Radiohead’s Kid A, the album abides by its own internal logic, its own atmosphere. And the more you listen, the more there is to discover in such sparse surroundings.

ACO has delivered perhaps the most strangely beautiful album of the year. It may take effort to appreciate it, but it’s well worth it.

The Sensual World

By most accounts, ACO wasn’t always so interesting. Earlier in her career, the Japanese singer attempted to carve out a piece of the sultry jazz-pop pie already staked out by UA and Chara.

After three albums, the young ACO didn’t really go anywhere.

Then in 1999, she got bold, collaborating with hip-hop rockers Dragon Ash on “Grateful Days”, and in early 2000, ACO provided vocals for reknowned international club artist DJ Krush on “Tragicomic.”

She enlisted the help of Japan’s emerging musicians for her 1999 album Absolute Ego and found her voice.

ACO continues to grow with Material, an album that never turns back on her jazz-pop past but trains the 23-year-old singer’s eyes squarely on the future.

The opening synthetic chimes and heavily processed samples of “Melancholia” call to mind Post-era Björk, and from there, ACO delivers one seething, sensual song after another.

ACO is no powerhouse vocalist, and she could never give the likes of UA or Cocco or Do As Infinity’s Van Tomiko much competition.

But when her voice is drenched in thundering bass, ethereal synthesizer effects and booming drum samples, ACO’s bittersweet whisper feels totally at home.

Tracks such as “Hoshi no Kuzu”, “Shinsei Romantist” and “4gatsu No Hero” saunters at a leisurely pace, but ACO fills all the open spaces with an emotive wail all her own.

On “Canary wa Naku” and “Sora Shiranu Ame”, she turns into a space age cabaret singer, delivering a riveting performance amid some dark, ominous music.

ACO cites Kate Bush as an influence, and Material ably demonstrates it. “Interlude” incorporates samples of Bulgarian women’s choirs much the same way Bush employed Trio Bulgarka on her 1989 album The Sensual World.

ACO even goes so far to cover Bush’s “This Woman’s Work” from that album. If it weren’t for ACO’s accent, a person couldn’t tell the difference between the two singers.

While Material concentrates heavily on creating vast canvases of bizarre synthetic effects, the album is still a jazz-pop work at its core.

At a faster tempo, “Time” could have become a very blues-y, bouncy tune. “Anata ni Sagasu Uta” is a total torch singer’s anthem even without the lush string arrangements.

As a single, “Heart wo Moyashite” felt out of place, but as the conclusion to Material, the song becomes the culmination of an artist’s incredibly broad vision.

Material is an intriguing, appealing work, and ACO does an incredible job housing her voice in music suited well for her talent.