Underground Resistance
Inspiration / Transition

On steady rise following two sublime singles over the past year—Sagano b/w Haru Wa Akebono and Karakuri b/w Michinoku—Tokyo-based artist Hoshina Anniversary elaborates his eccentric musical point-of-view even further with a debut album for the ESP Institute entitled Jomon. Fourteen tracks stir a melting pot in line with our obsessions, a variety of styles which often stay in their own dedicated lanes while here their trajectories collide in demonstrable fusion. Hoshina gleans borderline absurdist qualities from late Jazz hero Chick Corea (evident in his wild and meticulous keyboard runs), calls upon ancient Japanese instruments, shrines and mythologies, and makes sideways nods to early minimal synth productions, yet all of the above are sifted through some granular equalization, an abstract veil that smooths the skin of Hoshina's mutant creation. A weight of experience pervades throughout, a requisite education in the electronic realm and a deep reverence for Jazz and its masters, and in turn this confidence transfers a sense of ease which leaves us poring over alternative approaches to otherwise familiar tropes. Once this conversation with the music is established, a subliminal push/pull tension toys with us across the length of the album, undulating our sense of space. The tonally rich, dynamic and melodic side of the works present a cool sense of depth but are violently contrasted by a slew of over-saturated punches, and at some point an inevitable alchemy casts these disparate expressions into a haunting monolithic array. Some are glistening and smooth, others are porous and jagged, but all amount to a staunch and cohesive work with the ability to transport listeners to regions unknown.

Ronan’s journey has seen him move between Boston and New York, Washington State, Bogota, and most recently Mexico City. Rarely in one place for too long, his energy and enthusiasm for his craft carry that same roving sense of adventure, whether in his own expressive productions welding hyper-speed techno and classic hardcore into a dynamic whole, or through his Eternal Ocean imprint, which has notched a string of impressive releases from close friends and like-minded producers. Throughout, a sense of wide-eyed wonder and joy is the constant, an awe for its ability to transport and transcend, to become a calling in its own right, through sound and soul, a grounding force that becomes the guiding path through the world. It’s that sense of possibility that dominates the sensibility of Vision Quest, Ronan’s second outing on Eternal Ocean, a four track offering recorded in Ridgewood, Queens just before he headed west in 2018. The tracks echo this awareness of a road stretching out before him. These are tunes about the journey, best exemplified by the snaking routes and pathways they pull the listener through: half-time breakdowns, sudden vocal stabs, hard-left turns and sudden shifts of tempo. Where previous Ronan EPs found their strength in meticulous mixing and track-craft, these embrace technique and arrangement as means to an end, resulting in lyrical, ever-evolving tunes that show an artist embracing the time given to create worlds unto themselves.

SONIC002, consists of four tracks that confirm and continue the concept of the label. In the first three tracks the search for "club" sounds focuses on innovative and futuristic sounds. The fourth track, "Timeless", changes the rules with an experimental 100 bpm imprint; it represents a timeless journey where sounds seem to create "parallel dimensions". Vinyl Only.

ITALIAN LIBRARY SONGBOOK VOL. 1 | Alessandro Alessandroni by Jessica Duncan, pAd, Alessandro Alessandroni