New York-based shoegazers Asobi Seksu (Japanese for ‘casual sex’) have released a thing of tremulous beauty with their latest album recorded live at Olympic Studios, London, in November 2008. Made up of acoustic versions of songs previously released on their albums plus some covers it is a quietly striking session that shimmers and glows.
If ‘empty’ was ever a compliment to be paid it’s now with this album which has emptied out so much effect and arrangement from previous releases and left us with the fine bones and filigree of the band’s music.
From the start we are given understated and seductively simple tracks. Breathe into Glass is gorgeous right from the oblique title down to the thin pale voice of Yuki Chikudate which sighs and swoops through James Hanna’s deftly picked guitar. It inhabits the venn overlap of consciousness and sleep as do the other nine tracks.‘Blind Little Rain’ sounds like an intimate show tune with piano accompaniment where Chikudate’s slight voice swells with effort and achieves fragile flight. ‘Urusai Tori’ is sung in Japanese to an almost bossanova style acoustic guitar backing and a percussion track consisting of a few shakers, ‘Meh No Mae’ has guitar notes like rainfall punctuated by soft tambourine and Hope Sandoval’s ‘Suzanne’ has a flute backing bejewelled by xylophone notes.
As a whole, it feels like a dreamlike jam session. Not a hit, not a smash, but a pleasure nonetheless. I want to stop now lest my clumsy descriptions leave muddy footprints all over the place.