Satoshi Takeishi - Fragments (2018)

Fragments is the conclusion of Satoshi Takeishi's triptych electronics works started in 2016 with Dew Drops (clang040) and followed 2017 by Premonition (clang050). Although these three works differs in texture, there are a few rules that Satoshi stuck with when he was working on them. One was that all the pieces were to be constructed from improvised performance. Another one was that each projects were directed to achieve a specific feeling he wanted to express in his personal association with electronic music that had an strong influence on him. The pieces in Fragments connects to the feeling of Satoshi's memories trapped in the old recorded materials he accumulated over the years. He was very much attracted to the intimacy of these recordings and wanted to create a small pieces to express that feeling without using the actual recordings from the past. The making process of Fragments was quite simple (as in his previous triptych works). Satoshi gathered various not-so-professional musical instruments and electronic gadgets sitting around in his apartment and recorded a few rounds of improvisations for each instrument. He then set himself to stay out of any particular musical style or pattern, and try to focus on getting the sound of the instrument to tell a simple story. Then using a low-bit sampler software, he performed another round of improvisations using the previously recorded improvisation materials. Some of them went thru cassette recorder and toy sampler keyboard for further audio manipulation. Satoshi spent most of his time choosing and mixing the right passages and phrases to construct the final structure.