When Keiko Uenishi came to visit us here in Australia as part of the What Is Music? festival in 2002, she delivered some amazingly intricate sets of processed electronics. Her sensibilities, facilitated through the use of the LLOOPP MAX/MSP software generated a gentle but directed sound excursion that engages with its listener in a strange and hypnotic fashion.
On Two Novels she takes us through a tour of the projects and collaborations that have dotted her music creation over the past few years. Located in Brooklyn, Keiko calls in collaborators such as Toshio Kajiwara and DJ Olive, Kaffe Matthews, Ikue Mori and others. These collaborations reveal the qualities of O.Blaat’s work with enlightening truthfulness. Attentive to the smallest of sounds, her knowledge and comfort-level using LLOOPP produces a fluid and suggestive production aesthetic, captured well on pieces like ‘Afternoon’ (featuring contributions from Aki Onda) and ‘Nightfall’.
As each of these audio-novellas play out, you’re left hungry for a repeated session, curious to see if more boils away just below the volume level of your previous listen. It’s been a while coming, but the wait seems well worth it!
Lawrence English