Yui Onodera - Semi Lattice (2015)

Dreamy, melancholic, peaceful, or just plain gorgeous? As long as your ears are open, the sound world of Yui Onodera will take you where YOU want to go. From simple means (piano, guitar, computer), Onodera draws complex materials, and then mixes them back into deceptively simple results. The work draws inspiration (and its title) from an abstract structure thought up by architect Christopher Alexander. What you get is quiet background music if you leave it at that or, if you are willing to take the time to listen, a deep immersive journey.

Hailing from Tokyo, Japan, Yui Onodera is a musician, a composer, and the founder of Critical Path. He studied both music and architecture, which explains his uncanny grasp of spatiality in music. His method consists in blending delicate instrumental lines with field recordings and computer treatments to create quiet, ambient electroacoustic pieces. This approach is akin to artists like Machinefabriek, Stephen Vitiello, and Chihei Hatakeyama.

"Semi Lattice" is Onodera's second solo album to be released in 2015 (the first one was "sinkai" on Japanese label Arctic Tone), after eight years of solo silence. In the interval, Onodera pursued several fruitful collaborations with musicians and groups like The Beautiful Schizophonic, Pjusk, Vadim Bondarenko, Mizkami Ryuta, and Baskaru recording artist Celer. All these projects seem to have informed "Semi Lattice" in some way, Onodera's solo works having grown lusher, fuller, and more fully-formed.