Articles
2011 Top 10s and 20s
Spotlight 4

Albums
Akhet
Cory Allen
Alva Noto
Aun
Bass Communion
Alexander Berne
Birds Passage / Rosado
The Black Dog
BNJMN
Ursula Bogner
Cokiyu
Steve Coleman
Cubenx
Mats Eilertsen
Elektro Guzzi
eleventhfloorrecords
Ben Fleury-Steiner
Golden Gardens
Goldmund
Thom Gossage
Steve Hauschildt
Helvacioglu & Pancaroglu
Illuha
Larkian & Yellow6
Clem Leek
Mamerico
Milyoo
Hedvig Mollestad Trio
Nao
Yann Novak
Sasajima & Hirao
Scissors And Sellotape
Ryan Scott
Till von Sein
Shaula
The Silent Section
Scott Solter
Spheruleus
Talkingmakesnosense
thisquietarmy
Anna Thorvaldsdottir
tINI
Tycho

Newly Issued
The Beach Boys

Compilations / Mixes
Deetron
Mike Huckaby
Radio Slave
Rebel Rave 2: Droog

EPs
Thavius Beck
Niccolò Bianchi
Falko Brocksieper
Alex Cobb & Aquarelle
Deru
Everything Is
Ed Hamilton
Hammock
Herzog
Oknai
SlowPitch
Tracey Thorn
Damian Valles

Cokiyu: Your Thorn
flau

Nearly four years on from her Mirror Flake album, Cokiyu returns with an equally sumptuous sophomore effort titled Your Thorn. It's about as resplendent an example of serenading electronic vocal pop as one might hope to find. Born in Ehime, Japan, Cokiyu earned a Master's Degree in Musicology at Kunitachi College of Music, Tokyo and has created material since her college days with Max/MSP. In short, she brings no shortage of highly developed composing, arranging, and technical skills to her work.

Her gossamer, lighter-than-air vocals wrap around you like the warmest and softest blanket, but they're only one part of the package. The songs themselves are armed with lovely melodic turns (the yearning lilt that animates “Recall” one example of many) and the word that comes to mind in terms of the arrangements is opulent. In one of the album's most colourful settings, the light-hearted “With My Umbrella” becomes a showcase for her ample sonic imagination when she surrounds her breathy vocals with a bright array of glimmering sounds, warbling synthesizers, and percussive filigrees. While as sonically rich, “Little Waves” finds delicate clusters of electronic and acoustic tinklings easing the listener out of the album on a calming, lullaby-like note.

Though luscious dreamscapes such as “See the Sun” reveal her affinity for the more soothing end of the spectrum, she tries on other styles, too, during the forty-one-minute album. The instrumental “Textured Clouds” offsets its ambient design with noise punctuations, and “Drag the Beast,” though very much emblematic of the album's vocal pop style, includes a skittering pattern that can't help but recall the Oval-esque explorations one associates with experimental electronica of the late-‘90s and early-'00s. Perhaps the most extreme departure from the song-based style is “Gloomy,” a three-minute ambient-drone piece featuring free-spirited drum playing. All told, Your Thorn is less a radical departure from Mirror Flake and more a consolidation of its strengths, not to mention a carefully calibrated expansion upon its stylistic breadth.

December 2011