AKHIRA SANO レコード& CD

Review: This new LP, Shadow's Praise, is the result of a dialogue between its maker - painter, sound and installation artist, and field recordist Akhira Sano - and David Nissen, a French photographer who captures urban landscapes in low light and high contrast. Initiated by label and publisher IIKKI - who specifically commission these sorts of collaborations - the project works in two physical imprints: a book and a disc (vinyl or CD). Intentionally, this highly experimental album may be experienced in three different ways: the book read alone, the disc listened to alone, or the book and disc read and listened to together. For the sake of Juno being a music site, however, we'll focus on the sonic content of the album; it features six muted but beautifully melancholy works, each lasting around six minutes, combining haunting dronescapes, subtle melodic upturns, lowercase glitchings and immersive enviro-ambiences - all reflecting the mood of Nissen's photographs, which are somewhat removed from their context. The ultimate aim of the album, we glean, is to establish a specific mood relative to the perceiver's gaze - the music helps the viewer to "plunge into the image".