A guitar can be heard deep in the heart of “Coco” by Michiru Aoyama. It’s a slow strum that alternates back and forth between a pair of chords, neither of them left to fade out entirely before the next one encroaches on its rippling sonic afterimage. The chords are muffled, as if played with wool gloves, as if filtered through a thick canvas scrim. They are overwhelmed, as well, by an entirely other frame of reference, a dense, slow-moving cyclone of brighter sounds, fluttering like stained-glass butterflies sent suddenly aloft, twinkling with the light and each other’s dim reflection. There is no self-evident development to what Aoyama is up to here, except to the extent that the ear might focus on the two patterns and how if at all they might chance to correlate or diverge. If there is change, it is a matter of nuance. It’s an instrumental chant, a singular statement, an environment set to loop.
Track originally posted at soundcloud.com/michiru-aoyama. Aoyama is based in Kamakura, Japan. More at michiruaoyama.jimdo.com and michiruaoyama.bandcamp.com.