MUSIC

Welcome denizens of disaster, one and all - please make yourselves uncomfortable. Did anyone ever tap you on the shoulder as you were walking through an unfamiliar land, just to tell you to watch where you’re going? In this interlinked age of protocol-onies and networked nations, the only territory you can’t rely on is your own state of mind. Mapped-out by a series of second guesses and double takes, Catastropheland is a diminished reality. In Catastropheland, the road signs are all traps, the charts are the wrong way round, and the jokes fall flat. Meanwhile, nine tracks of virtual shapes are bounced off the dishes of an orbiting Syncom 7 and beamed straight into your personal space. The quest for the augmented self might not lead to the results you expect, but as a citizen of Catastropheland, your residency permit is never up for review, and you’re only a shipwreck away from being washed-up on a melting shoreline.

A Certain Frank is the Düsseldorf based duo of Frank Fenstermacher and Kurt “Pyrolater” Dalhke. Through the 80s and early 90s, they made speedy, wild coldwave as Der Plan, releasing music on their own label Ata Tak (which also released Oval’s wonderful debut ‘Wohnton’!). In the mid-90s, influenced by a lifelong love for the exotica and tiki bar jazz of Martin Deny and Les Baxter, the two formed A Certain Frank. Hence, the sounds of A Certain Frank are far warmer, sensual and sultry than that of Der Plan. “Without You,” from their 2001 album ‘Nothing,’ approaches something like Sade across its pulsating, truly gorgeous six minutes. And the New Age composition “Naïve,” from A Certain Frank’s 1996 debut ‘No End No…’ (and appearing on DSPs for the first time courtesy of your friends here at ULYSSA), drifts back-and-forth between enchanting flute lines and brooding, synth stabs. And then, there’s “Nothing,” a shadowy triphop earworm that stands confidently alongside the work of Skalpel or Portishead. Yes, A Certain Frank is that good and, sadly, that overlooked. In fact, taken altogether on ‘Ulyssa presents: A Certain Frank,’ it becomes quite clear that their austere dada experiments in electronic lounge and jazz are as curious and captivating as more celebrated albums like Nuno Canavarro’s ‘Plux Quba’ and Björk’s ‘Debut.’ The time has come to give A Certain Frank its due. ‘ULYSSA presents: A Certain Frank’ is the first time any of these songs have been released on cassette and the first time songs from ‘No End No…’ have come to streaming services. ULYSSA Season 2 begins here. Sploosh.

The other day, Koshiro Hino, who succeeded in the Tokyo premiere of his masterpiece "Virginal Variations" as a composer, is finally attracting attention from both inside and outside the country. His solo unit YPY's worldwide distribution album is finally released. The undisputed 2010s talent, Hino, is a track maker / musician who emerged from the club scene, but due to his strong writer's ability to be inversely proportional to his low waist, he couldn't fit in an underground box, and the creative power that erupted. The state of holding down. YPY is devoted to live performances and recordings every day, but in reality there are few releases and the value of this work is quite high. This album reveals an early impulsive and multifaceted rhythmic quest that is different from the stoic attitude of his band, goat. This time, his ally, Yosuke Yukimatsu, gave advice on song selection, and Hino's urge was firmly established in the album. One of the characteristics of YPY is that it has a compressed and massive sound and the style is electronic music, but it has a strange organic feeling like a living thing like the indigenous music of Africa, which is a cassette tape for sound making. It is also related to the use of. The title song "Zurirezumu" is a mysterious work that takes advantage of the equipment trouble that happened by chance, and is YPY's first recording!

"The trajectory from the initial impulse of Koshiro Hino = YPY as a track maker, not as a brain of goat, bonanzas. However, the trajectory does not mean that it is heading straight somewhere. , The path is constantly ZURE. Why. Because he is constantly trying. Why keep trying. It is to explore the possibilities hidden there. Here is a fragment of Koshiro Hino so far. And the pieces from now on will also ZURE polyrhythmically. Are your ears listening to the sound of the heart? John Cage continued to question the possibility of hearing. The possibility awaits us. ing."
-Yosuke Yukimatsu
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"I listened to it and thought," It's the sound of a live house! " There is no so-called chord feeling or melody, it is not noise, it is not music that can be heard only by "sound", it is not dance music, but it is a familiar sound. Is it physical music? It is a playful work. You should listen to it first without thinking about anything. -Phew