Colure is a new collaboration between sound artist, Corey Fuller, visual artist, Synichi Yamamoto. Commissioned by Toshima City in Tokyo, Japan, for a new park and public space, Ikebukuro Nishi-guchi Park, Colure creates a quiet space outside of the third busiest train station in the world
Created for Shinjuku Creator’s Festa, an annual art festival taking place over two months in Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan, FRAGMENTS is a collaboration between sound artist, Corey Fuller, visual artist Synichi Yamamoto and calligrapher Mariko Kinoshita.
A commission by Mori Building in Tokyo, Japan for their new Urban Lab that brings together Corey Fuller, Shohei Shigematsu from Rem Koolhaas’ firm OMA and MIT Media Lab for a collaboration of sound design, architecture and a 3D printed glass light sculpture for a new space in the heart of Tokyo.
Corey Fuller was commissioned to compose a series of multichannel, long-form pieces for Medicha; a new meditation, art and quiet space in Aoyama, Tokyo. Read more about it here
5月27 月曜日 渋谷 WWW での「Break」Release Partyに向けてBreak Ensembleのメンバーを紹介したいと思います。今回はこのアンサンブルでの初ライブとなります。新作「Break」の曲をスコアに書き起こす作業からライブで電子音をどうリアルタイムで再現するかという所からスタートを切り、現在リハなどを重ねてライブに向けての準備中です。まずはメンバーのご紹介です。
一ノ瀬響 (Kyo Ichinose)
Piano
東京生まれ。東京芸術大学音楽学部作曲科卒業、同大学大学院音楽研究科修士課程修了。2002年、半野喜弘主催のCurrentより初のソロアルバム「よろこびの機械」をリリースする。以降、「Lontano」(cubicmusic, 2004年)、”Protoplasm”(starnetmuzik, 2007年)、”Earthrise 2064″(Plop/Mu-nest, 2011年)と合計４枚のソロアルバムを制作、UKの音楽雑誌”WIRE”の特集にて年間ベストアルバムの１枚に選ばれるなど、ヨーロッパをはじめとする海外から高い評価を受ける。ソロ活動以外でも、先鋭的なCM音楽をはじめ映像のための音楽を多数手がけるほか、アーティストとのコラボレーション、インスタレーションのサウンドプログラミングまで、常に音と音楽の境界を探るジャンル横断的活動を展開している。http://www.kyo-ichinose.net/
TRIOLA
波多野敦子 (Atsuko Hatano)
Viola
波多野敦子 2003 年に初のソロ・アルバム「13 の水」の発表をきっかけにCM、映画などの音楽制作を開始、 同時期にEgo Wrappin'、トウヤマタケオ、mama!milkらの音楽をサポート。東京へ移住後、個人のための音楽 制作Order Made Musicを開始。 作曲活動や自身のソロライブを続けながら様々なジャンルのレコーディングやライブ、ツアーに参加。 近年ではMOCKYジャパン・ツアー2019への参加や石橋英子、ジム・オルーク、 OORUTAICHI、 YOSSY LITTLE NOISE WEAVER、折坂悠太らと共演している。2018年にストリングス・ オーケーストラ作 品「Cells#2」を発表、同年、増田セバスチャン監修によるPOLA のアートムービーの音楽を担当するなど勢力的に新たな音楽を追求し続けている。
須原杏 (Anzu Suhara)
Violin
大学卒業後､実験音楽の勉強を始める。2012 年ASA-CHANG& 巡礼に新メンバーとして加入。その後は個人だけでなく「須原杏ストリングス」としてNHK 朝ドラや宇多田ヒカルなど多くのREC に参加している。また､20人の小さなLIVE から5 万人規模の公演まで､メジャーもインディーズもジャンル問わずLIVE サポートを行う。参加アーティスト▷▷絢香､今井美樹､宇多田ヒカル､森山直太朗､くるり､クラムボン､TK from 凛として時雨､SEKAI NO OWARI、fox capture plan､GLAY､tofubeats､ジム・オルーク、渡邊琢磨､青葉市子…and more。
千葉広樹
Contrabass
主な活動はKinetic、Isolation Music Trio、サンガツ、蓮沼執太フィル、スガダイロートリオ、Luca、赤い靴、古川麦トリオ、優河、王舟、渡邊琢磨、haruka nakamuraなど、その他様々なサポートやコラボレーションで活動している。
主なリリースは、OMSB、K-Bomb、志人をゲストに迎えたKineticの2ndアルバム「db」、
ベースソロEP「Eine Phantasie im Morgen」(2017)、「Nokto」(2018)等。
近年は、優河「魔法」のプロデュースや、YUKI、Beatniks(鈴木慶一、高橋幸宏)、吉澤嘉代子、関取花、前野健太、吉田省念、Kie Katagi(Jizue)、VIDEOTAPE MUSIC、古川麦などのレコーディングに参加。
豪華なメンバーです！！ 是非お見逃しなく！！
OPEN/START
19:00 / 19:30
ADV./DOOR
￥3,500 / ￥4,000（税込 / ドリンク代別 / 全自由）
LINE UP
Corey Fuller + Break Ensemble
Corey Fuller (Piano + Electronics) / 一ノ瀬響 (Piano) / 須原杏 (Violin) / 波多野敦子 (Viola) / 千葉広樹 (contrabass)
with special guest
TICKET
一般発売：3/2（土）
チケットぴあ / ローソンチケット / e+ / iFlyer（English available） / WWW店頭
INFORMATION
WWW 03-5458-7685
I am very excited to announce my first show performing the music from ‘Break.’ Although the album was composed in solitude, I wanted to do the songs justice live and breathe new life into them for an audience. To accomplish this, I’ve formed the Break Ensemble with some incredible musicians; Kyo Ichinose who will be joining on piano, Atsuko Hatano on 5-stringed viola along and Anzu Suharu on violin who together comprise the group Triola, Hiroki Chiba on contrabass, zAk on PA, and myself on analog synthesizers, electronics and pianos. Together, we will present ‘Break’ in it’s entirety, live, with new arrangements scored and specially composed for this Ensemble. We will be joined by a special guest to be announced shortly. Not to be missed! Check back often for news and updates. Tickets can be purchased here.
Break』のリリースパーティーを開催！アルバムの世界観をライブで表現するため、「Break Ensemble」波多野敦子（Viola）、須原杏(Violin) 、一ノ瀬響（Piano）、千葉広樹 (Contrabass)、そしてPAエンジニアにはzAkを迎えた特別編成でお送りします。また、オープニングにはスペシャルゲストも出演予定。エレクトロニクスと生楽器が織りなす繊細かつ壮大なサウンドスケープ、ご期待ください！チケットはこちら
The lead track of Break, “Seiche,” is a masterwork. On first listen, I was immediately hooked by its incorporation of exciting traffic-like sound effects into a sonic landscape of deep bass hits, analog arpeggios, and swelling chord patterns. From Tokyo-based composer Corey Fuller, Break comprises tracks anywhere between three and 15 minutes in length (not including the silent interval), though all are equally developed and innovative. Outside of its composition and sound design (both of which are executed perfectly), one the best qualities of the album is its exceptional flow. Not only is Fuller clearly well-versed in pacing, but a key component in Break being so satisfying a listen is Fuller’s elegant balance between building a distinct and recognizable sound, and constantly experimenting throughout the album’s runtime. In the few short weeks since I’ve first listened to it, I’ve been continually surprised at how quickly time passes before “A Handful Of Dust”’s scratchy, detuned piano appears to signal the upcoming end of the album.
-Ari Delaney
VICE/dMute (France)
Translated from French
Some disparate notes are hesitant at first to start, or at least to form something that would be akin to a harmony. They are joined by a breath, then a short song, by floating tablecloths, then a distant breath becoming squalls clashing. The long composition Seiche (below) opens masterfully this album and we recognize well in this subtle hatching of sounds this particular attention brought not on the music in itself but on what makes it born from nothing, nothing . "The vase gives a shape to the void, and the music to silence" said Georges Braque.
Half of the Tokyo duo Illuha formed with the Japanese Tomoyoshi Date, the American Corey Fuller returns this time alone on the 12k label with a mastered work with a care always meticulous by Taylor Deupree. Break leaves the piano as centrally located as in Illuha, the instrument seeming to be the heart innervating all the organs of a proteiform ambient album. Sometimes sensory in what he has to offer us in terms of immersive sound sculptures, sometimes emotional when he opens the abstraction of his fluctuating compositions to clearer and more distinct melodies, this album evokes as much Ryuichi Sakamoto with whom he previously collaborated (Lamentation) as scattered notes of Arvo Pärt's Für Alina (Look into the Heart of Light, The Silence and its whirling curls). Break offers the listener a form of wandering melancholy never lead, welcomes him into his cottony refuge in the enveloping heat and invites him to make a "break" ("break").
Corey Fuller's new album is above all a remarkable piece of piano sound, continuing the work of the Illuha duo and sometimes reaching a few heights when it manages to capture this double aspect, dear to any instrument: to be on the one hand a transmitter of sounds, notes, melodies, therefore transmitters of emotions, and secondly to be an object having its own body with all the asperities, the material and internal mechanisms sometimes defective that it includes. These seem sometimes worn out by time as evidenced by the crackle of the magnificent final A Handful of Dust (below), a wreck of engulfed composition that embellishes and gradually moves as it rises. As for what is decidedly broken or fractured, the composer decides to erect a hymn (the beautiful A Hymn for the Broken).
It is certainly the great wealth of Break to be an album finding the right balance between emotional intensity and sensory fragility, as much of the beauty of a music knowing how to capture the elusive as the existence of all these porosities and these cracks that shape and give life to it.
Rockerilla (IT)
(Translated from Italian)
After years spent illuminating Illuha’s insights, Corey Fuller made his debut in blissful loneliness with Break. A collection of ambient ballads capable of warming the coldest nights. Melodies played on old synthesizers are looped around they seem to come from the Arctic settings of the Sigur R6s (11Man) .The album opens with the fifteen minutes of “Seiche,” an exciting crescendo culminating with a symphony of shoegaze moods.”Lamentation,” soon after, sends Harold Budd into orbit on Saturn. (‘the heart-wrenching album “A Handful Of Dust,” five minutes of STARRY melancholy.
Silence And Sound (FR)
(Translated from French)
Half of Illhua alongside Tomoyoshi Date, Corey Fuller is an artist who knows how to multiply the experiences according to his many collaborations, from Ryuichi Sakamoto and Taylor Deupree (who sublimely mastered the album), Stephan Mathieu, Marcus Fischer, Chihei Hatakeyama and many others.
With Break he is the master of ceremonies of interiority, browsing every pore of our skin to deposit a wide range of sensations to delicacy tightrope.
The layers intersect and intertwine to create soundscapes filled with melancholy lights. Corey Fuller trains our senses in a canvas of floating-density cloud melodies.
The ensemble resonates like an ambient mantra with dreamy ebb and flow, unfurling their hypnotic waves on pianos with captivating curves, letting the notes extend their humanity onto velvet carpets sewn with gold thread. An opus of aerial beauty and subtle atmospheres, full of swirling spirituality. Sublime.
Toneshift (.COM)
Corey Fuller has been a mainstay on the 12k label for a number of years, as one half of Illuha. Those albums explored a loose, free-flowing ambience and the duo’s live performances that I’ve seen owed a lot to improvisation. On this solo album, Fuller has created a meticulously crafted work, every sound being deliberately placed and having a much tighter arrangement than those Illuha LPs.
Opener “Seiche” begins with gentle piano notes tapping out a descending melody encased with thin drones, that weirdly reminded me of Autechre at their most mellow. A breath exhales from speaker to speaker, adding a surprising element to the mix, when suddenly Fuller’s own voice appears, vocal-as-texture. This took me slightly off-guard, but actually sits so perfectly in the mix that it makes total sense. It also speaks volumes as to Fuller’s confidence in this piece, not to mention the emotive quality it infers. But this epic 15-minute track has only begun. Low bass notes suddenly give the track a propulsion, and the synths begin to be layered with grit and fuzz. This immediately reminds me of Christian Fennesz’s work, unbalancing the ambient drift with sunburnt distortion. It’s an impressive and unexpectedly dramatic way to start the album.
Other tracks utilize hazy wisps of distortion elsewhere, like on “Illvi∂ri”, which surfs on a granulated wave above drifting synths and melancholic piano strikes. Despite the distortion, there’s a meditative quality buried under the layers.
The beautifully titled “Look Into The Heart Of Light, The Silence” is the most ambient track here. Clocking in at around 13 minutes, it sputters into life with crunchy panning synths that eventually give way to warmer drones and bright piano notes that float by like dust motes in sunbeams. There’s a lot of emotion in this album, and this mid-way track has it in abundance.
The final two pieces close out the collection with less distortion than the preceding ones. “A Hymn For The Broken” finds mellow, warm drones cascading into each other, and those voices appear again, this time soaked in reverb and acting like melodic counterparts to the synths. “A Handful Of Dust” begins with detuned, warbling chords that get covered in a soft layer of hiss and room tones. Field recordings rattle around the edges of the track, like creaking chairs and someone can be heard breathing into the microphone. Again, the piano is the centre of the composition. It’s the instrument that Fuller has played throughout his career and found the perfect home for here. For all the sonic experimentation and creative processing, those piano notes are the real message in this album, and express so much emotion in such simple ways.
「混然とまみれながら響く悲しい旋律。圧巻。ただただ、泣けてくる。こんな音楽の形は、かつてあっただろうか。」
From Quiet Minimalism
このアルバムを聴いて想起するのはミラノのドゥオモのような巨大な建築物。美しくも物悲しい旋律、緻密な装飾のように散りばめられたノイズ、低く重く鳴るベース音、吐く息、コーラス、そしてまるで古いテープレコーダーから鳴っているかのようなストリングスに、ポラロイド写真を思わせる郷愁といった感情が惹起される。それらすべてが統合され、ひとつの音楽とし響く。このアルバムは間違いなく大傑作。
1曲目Seicheは構造として三部構成。ミュートされた弦楽器が爪弾かれながら静かに立ち上がっていく。人の息、パッドなどが配置、挿入され、突如現れる人の歌声。そして砂嵐のごとく舞い上がるノイズと重低音のベース。混然とまみれながら響く悲しい旋律。圧巻。ただただ、泣けてくる。こんな音楽の形は、かつてあっただろうか。
2曲目Lamentationでは、くぐもった音質のピアノから、歪んだパットがかぶさる叙情的な曲。フックの部分がこれまた涙を誘う。でも冗長に長引かせず、スパッと終わってしまうという潔さ。ここからまだまだ聴けたのに、というところでこの判断。きっとこういうのを、センスと呼ぶのだろう。私にはできない英断だ。
4曲目Caesura は11秒間、無音で終わるという仕掛け。
5曲目Look Into The Heart Of Light, The Silenceはカットアップされたノイズの刻む細かなリズムに、ゆったりとしたピアノが緊張感を持ったトーンで鳴り響く。音数が増え、曲はさらに美しさが増していく。
６曲目は浮遊感漂う美しいアンビエント。コーラスが差し込まれまるで天空にでもいるかのようだ。
7曲目はピアノとアンビエンスのフェードインとフェードアウトでこのアルバムが終わる。この曲にはTayler Deupreeがパーカションで参加している。
今年はこの作品を超える音に出会えるだろうか。またakariを聴き直してみよう。
Translated from German:
Last year, I almost lost faith in piano music. Too many upstarts with too much and far too bad Dudel kitsch and pseudo-electronics. Of course, they should all do what they want, and they do. But the really good records can not penetrate with such a release flood, and that's stupid. So my recommendation: Listen to Corey Fuller. I'm not sure if I ever met his music. I cannot rule it out, he has released quite a few albums on 12K, albeit not yet under his real name. Fuller's handling of the piano is, of course, dirty. Interesting, because even with him, the piano initially only meets electronics and a few sounds. The depth graduation, however, is a completely different one. Fuller wants - I assume him just once - also achieve something completely different and just make a contract at Edel, but pure table. He is the true new master. How this works, is exemplified in the long first piece "Seiche" in which he condenses all the disciplines, which he later decides in shorter episodes, to a large whole and courageously places in the area. His work can not really be located there. The associations are obvious, but more or less all turn out to be clever feint. This creates a confusion in the midst of supposedly familiar terrain that shakes you up rousingly. Of course, gentle. At least for long stretches.
Im vergangenen Jahr hätte ich fast den Glauben an die Klaviermusik verloren. Zu viele Emporkömmlinge mit zu vielem und viel zu schlechtem Dudel-Kitsch und Pseudo-Elektronik. Natürlich, die sollen bitte alle machen was sie wollen, und das tun sie ja auch. Aber die wirklich guten Platten können bei so einer Veröffentlichungsflut nicht mehr durchdringen, und das ist blöd. Darum meine Empfehlung: Hört Corey Fuller. Ich bin mir nicht sicher, ob ich seiner Musik bislang je begegnete. Ausschließen kann ich es nicht, hat er doch auf 12K schon so manches Album veröffentlicht, wenn auch bislang nicht unter seinem Klarnamen. Fullers Umgang mit dem Klavier ist wie selbstverständlich dreckig. Interessant, denn auch bei ihm trifft das Piano zunächst nur auf Elektronik und ein paar Geräusche. Die Tiefenstaffelung ist jedoch eine vollkommen andere. Fuller möchte – das unterstelle ich ihm einfach mal – auch etwas ganz anderes erreichen und eben keinen Vertrag bei Edel, sondern reinen Tisch machen. Dabei ist er der wahre neue Meister. Wie das funktioniert, zeigt sich exemplarisch beim langen ersten Stück „Seiche“, in dem er alle Disziplinen, die er im folgenden in kürzeren Episoden durchdekliniert, zu einem großen Ganzen zusammenrafft und mutig in die Gegend stellt. Wirklich verorten lässt sich sein Werk dabei nicht. Die Assoziationen liegen auf der Hand, erweisen sich aber mehr oder weniger alle als clevere Finten. So entsteht eine Verwirrung mitten in vermeintlich bekanntem Terrain, die einen mitreißend durchrütteln. Natürlich sanft. Über weite Strecken zumindest.Tran
Break is Corey Fuller’s first solo record on 12k, and it fits the aesthetic of the label perfectly. The crashing of the waves – a metaphor for the struggles and troubles that inevitably come one’s way – is the theme of the record, but it’s also about finding peace and courage while in the eye of the storm, and treating that storm as a cocoon in which transformation is undergone. From the inky depths of a crushed soul to a clearing of the thunderstorm, Fuller notates something which for better or worse unites humanity in its entirety: struggle and heartbreak. We share in the same sorrows, and the same difficulties unite us. Humans are not too dissimilar at all – suffering is universal. We share more in common with one another than the news headlines will have you believe.
Unity is stronger than division.
As such, this album is an olive branch, a peace offering for the world. Aiming for a realization of the truth, Break reveals a nature common to everyone, awash in pre-installed morality. Fuller wants to elevate things, even while the two sides of peace and conflict continue to engage in warfare. Everything passes, so this thought can be a comforter when you’re in the thick of it, or in periods where patience is needed. It’s a virtue for a reason, and deep breathing can work wonders.
Break’s quiet music unites in times of despair. Vocal exhalations mirror the crashing of waves against obdurate rocks, and Fuller’s sighing vocal, a passing cloud of vapour, translates the transience of life into sound. Similar to coming up for air during a trial, taking in a lungful of oxygen, the sighs offer respite.
At sea level, high tide seems invincible, but when it recedes, scissor-shaped rocks reveal bones and old shipwrecks. Our lives are like that, too. On the surface, all appears well, but when you look underneath – when difficulties arise and hope recedes like the afternoon tide – you’ll begin to notice the threads of anxiety and fear. Worries and struggles affect the human body in a physical way, but Break’s inner peace can’t be shaken. Some of its heavier sounds attempt to drag the music down, but fragile and almost weightless piano melodies swim in the mix, keeping it afloat. A constant pull and release sweeps through the entire record, the air and the oxygen of the surface contrasting with life under the blue, bobbing line.
Grainy distortion occasionally marks the tone, which fizzes like the surf. The background atmosphere remains light and clear to the point of transparency. When the music ascends and the background loses weight, the music floats in the air like a bubble, tethered only to its light, almost microscopic elements. Fuller’s attention to detail is second to none, and it all points to an intense period of considered work. The melodies are ushered out with care, and much of the music cycles around the piano, which was ‘recorded in a way that you can hear the bones, like an open ribcage, moving, contorting…’
‘A Hymn For The Broken’ is a soft, stirring piece which would feel at home in a church. Its low-hanging, weighted progression contrasts with a lighter vocal, the two sides of the spectrum meeting, embracing. The sombre air distances itself from the promise of joy, cutting it in two even as it tries to find solace in a quiet, prayerful way. Sitting near the tail of the album, it’s a reminder, if one was needed, of the darkness before the dawn, and the tension before the break. Fuller leaves the reawakening until the last track, which gives the music a vulnerable air, all too aware of numbered days. While that might induce fear, it’s the natural order of life, and Breakaccepts that. Sometimes volatile, and at other times incredibly still, the album is described as an ‘emotional riptide, where violence and rest struggle to be the last voice’. The music stirs in the currents, seemingly broken by cruel theatre, while still dazzling with a gentle heart. There’s a bruised innocence about it.
Although Break lies in the middle of a storm, it isn’t adrift. The struggles are its making, a defining moment, and it grows all the stronger because of the experience. When it can finally see an exit, anxieties fall away, dropping like a heavy backpack to the floor, making for the ultimate outbreath, and the ultimate release.
Translated from French
Corey Fuller - Break | Light arrows
Acoustic descriptions swarming with microscopic details, discreet odes to invisible environments in the most beautiful japanese ambient style, so delicate, tribute to the elements in a restrained sonic diversity… That’s how I perceive the electronic magic of Illuha, duet from the Land of the Rising Sun between the native Tomoyoshi Date and the American-born Corey Fuller, that embraced for a long time the japanese culture under all its angles. Before we talk about his first solo long play for 12k interesting us today, it seemed necessary to me to replace the artist particularly in Illuha, that had for me a deep influence on my way to listen and appreciate ambient music still now. Without holding forth the fact that Fuller and Date released among the last things really worthy of interest until today in 2014 for 12k, with their sublime Akari and next to the not less solar Solstøv by Pjusk, the extensive sense of detail exposed by the two musicians through their last work only matched the subtlety they used to invite dozens of aural sources to cohabit in balance in a yet pretty narrow space. A mute poem telling the story of fragments of light briefly uncovering the hidden richness of the interstices, before meeting the dark forever.
Corey Fuller seems to partially take his inspiration from this concept, but at a larger scale in Break, with a surprising accuracy and elegance. And I do not tell that about the artist but the label, whose golden days date back to almost five years, and from which I personally didn’t expect anything more since ; thanks for proving me wrong Taylor Deupree. And how can we better interpret the light and its transience than recording a piano and all its flaws that we often want to silence ? The fullness of the notes translates the purity of the sun, but the cracks of the hammers and the action of the fingers on the keys remind that the aseptic beauty we imagine is first born from the real world and its quirks. With a hint of intellectual dishonesty, I picture Break as the wise kid of Dropped Pianos by Tim Hecker and Tiento de la Luz by Thomas Köner, mixing the expiatory stochasticity of the first and the comforting quasi-perfection of an other world of the second. Add on this a deep sense of melody constantly fighting against the time seeking to erase it in its flaking textures and ephemereal harmonies, and you will get a splendid manifesto about the turbulent transitions of existence.
A constant dialogue between serene threnodies on a calm sea and tumultuous desires of elsewhere towards misty horizons (Look Into the Heart of Light, the Silence), between polyhertzian storms flaying the gates of the soul and blinding cathartic arpeggios taking back to the surface (Seiche), between memories weighed down by the dust of the years and sufferings partially eluded but entirely felt nonetheless (Illvi∂ri). A will to experience the past again to better free ourselves from it, through tracks of universal feelings never explained but always implied ; the punctual presence of voices and noises of our daily life remind that Man is tacitly at the center of the album, but that he doesn’t need to have the exclusivity of the place. And Break suggests in the end to go forward by expiating the loads that prevent us to make our own way towards the skies from which its aura arises, lifting us up to the zenith and transfixing us with light arrows bringing the heart back to the life he deserves rather than the one he endures.
Complex but sensitive, volatile but precious, Break reconnects with the 12k releases we loved, those where aerial sonic layers knew they had to keep a tight link with the earth that saw them grow, those where all the elements coexist without thinking one of them is worthier than the others. Those of an unstable organic harmony captured for just a few instants, and then given to the audience in a digital eternity without losing their meaning. Corey Fuller understood that, and even if Lamentations or A Hymn for the Broken might fall a bit too much in the pathos, it won’t be enough to tarnish the surprise he offers us in the beginning of this year with a very moving work more than commendable.
Available now on 12″ LP, CD, and Digital (Download and Streaming)
Break is now available for preorder
