Saturday 9 April 2011

OCD008 : Robert Edwin / Messy Waves



OCD008 : Robert Edwin / Messy Waves


Robert Edwin was born in Shizuoka, Japan at the end of 1973, and still lives there.
     He started piano lessons at the age of 5 but stopped playing at 9.
     However the exposure and training that he received during this time grew inside his mind until the age of 17, when he bought his first electric guitar. Inspired by the artists seen on MTV rather than the music that was being enjoyed locally, Robert began to develop the keen and unique musical vision that was soon to be his. 

When one hears a Robert Edwin song, he does not know how to react as his music explodes to the mind !
Robert’s music could be depicted as a mixture of heavy guitars meet crazy rhythmes meet hip-hop meets Yellow Magic Orchestra meets Japanese pop from the 80ties meets Godzilla !
He believes it’s just noises while most people believe it’s pure fun and energy !
It is definitively a music that brings you a big smile for the rest of the day !


Composing members:
Robert Edwin : keys, guitars, vocals and production

With some guest appearances by :

Miurn / Phonetiks / Brankal / Deft Aphid / Ajlovett / 444 and Kam Stick


Track listing :

     1.  Tech nock 3                                       
     2.  My World                                            
     3.  Love is Peace                                     
     4.  Pink disk chick                                   
     5.  From Moomin valley                            
     6.  Spot on
     7.  Space Tamachans
     8.  One
     9.  Teisei                                              
    10. Oh pai
    11. Hatsukura ni Hatsukura                        
    12. Shake on it                                      
    13. Myspace addiction
    14. Out of Body Experience

Album Review

"Confusing" and "frantic" are not generally adjectives that figure prominently in a positive review, but they're attributes that work well to describe the really pretty engaging music of Japanese producer, composer, and multi-instrumentalist Robert Edwin. This is his first full-length release, and you can tell it's the work of a singles artist: stylistically it's all over the map, the common feature that binds the tracks together being a sort of all-purpose sonic adventurousness that leads him equally willingly into house, punk, hip-hop, prog rock, and avant pop territories. Not everything is brilliant, but the high points are seriously impressive: the claustrophobic "From Moomin Valley," which sounds like a collaboration between John Zorn and Birdsongs of the Mesozoic; the startlingly tuneful and fun "My World"; the hip-hoppy "One" and "Tisei"; the frenetic "Shake on It." The less successful moments vary in quality from slightly tedious ("Out of Body Experience") to rather wanky and self-indulgent (the unforgivably proggy "Spot On"), but even when he fails he generally does so in ways that are genuinely interesting to hear.

Les amateurs de télescopages musicaux notoires devraient apprécier ce Messy
Waves où perlent gouttes de sueur trance/dub ("Pink disc chick"), électronica
foutraque ("Love is peace"), pop expérimentale ("My world"), hip-hop ("One"),
néo-jazz rock ("Myspace addiction", "Shake on it"), et pas mal d’ovnis plus ou
moins chantés/parlés en arrière-fond, comme ce "Hatsukura ni hastsukura",
détournement probable d’un hymne pop/métal nippon. Auteur de ce forfait, le
japonais Robert Edwin parvient à distiller sa musique à partir d’un bric-à-brac de
sons et d’influences, et aussi d’un certain sens des arrangements, souvent assez
soigné (le monsieur serait-il un fan qui s’ignore du Yellow Magic Orchestra et de
Cornelius). Inutile de dire que ça part dans tous les sens, à tel point que s’il
décidait de mettre un peu de breakcore dans son panier, on verrait bien les sbires
de labels comme Daly City se lancer sur ses trousses.

Laurent Catala





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