Memory Color: Blue Sun Daydream
Memory Color
Though Elijah Knutsen's Memory Color label is based in Japan, its first release (issued under the same name) was produced at his home studio in Portland, Oregon. The Japan connection reasserts itself, however, in the concept for Blue Sun Daydream, which is pitched as “a sprawling sound sculpture of a summer in Southern Tokyo,” and also in the track titles, which evoke the locale before a note sounds. To create the material, Knutsen was joined by Tokyo-based sound designer Kato Eiji, who helped record and master its field recordings, and Australian musician P.rosa. The album is emblematic of the general style Knutsen's conceived for the label, which aspires to issue material reminiscent of the ‘90s Japanese ambient scene and figures such as Tetsu Inoue and Hiroshi Yoshimura.
Infused with nostalgia and yearning, Blue Sun Daydream features five soundscapes that a ‘blindfolded' listener would likely mistake for Celer when field recordings merge with synthetic elements to generally melancholic effect. Not that such an identification would be objectionable, wrong though it would be: any release that could be mistaken for Celer is well worth one's time and attention.
“Night at Sotokanda” introduces the recording iridescently with swirling vapours and neon-lit electronics, the night-time in this instance peaceful, calm, and so cloaked in mist it takes on a dream-like quality. After field recordings of nature sounds suggest day's dawning, “Honshu Weather Tower” moves into Celery-like territory by coupling the real-world elements with elegiac tone flourishes and hazy washes. In classic ambient form, the mass advances in seeming slow-motion with a balance struck between sounds of human activity and the serene soundtrack intoning alongside it. Arriving without pause, “Ikebukuro Station Chimes” situates us solidly within the Toshiba-based train station and then entrances with a collage of announcements, bird twitter, and gleaming keyboards. Waves crash ashore within “Atago Altitude Park,” though the detail's quickly joined by ghostly tones (whether synth- or guitar-generated is difficult to determine) that reinforce the becalmed tone.
The set-ending “Color of Sundown” transports the listener with a seventeen-minute soundscape, its title suggesting the album could more accurately be regarded as capturing the arc of a single summer's day in Southern Tokyo. Regardless, the piece comes closest to realizing Knutsen's desire to convey yearning using ambient means. When paired with the delicate lustre of melancholy tones, the faint sounds of joyful human activity do begin to seem like the memory of a happier time one longs for but knows can never be regained.October 2020