Hiiragi Fukuda - Seacide

Hiiragi Fukuda turned a lot of “heads” with his 2013 album “My Turntable Is Slow” - released on NY label Selection Records. For many outside of his hometown of Tokyo, Japan it was their first introduction to the guitarist & experimental musician. TiM hopes to carry his name into 2015 with the release of “Seacide” - Fukuda’s first foray into synthesizer music.

Orginally released as a criminally limited cassette on Sloow Tapes, “Seacide” is entirely instrumental & improvised, with Side A (the “synth” side) executed on a Yamaha monophonic synth, it’s hypnotic drones & pulses echoing out of his practice amplifier and carving out sonic territory akin to NY pioneers Suicide as well as UK Industrial godfathers Throbbing Gristle. ‘Trochos’s metallic heartbeat radiates a meditative spirituality while the back & forth sway of “Sharpener” conjures up images of 8-bit generated waves cascading over a computer-coded sea side. Side B (the “guitar side”) features Fukuda’s stratocaster, with opener “Seashells” easing out a fragile, mechanical lullaby, while album closer “Breeze” features more of Fukuda’s soulful finger-picking atop a jaunty bossa beat. The album was recorded in just two days by Fukuda himself in his Tokyo bedroom, with a Boss DD-6 (as a Loop machine - it can record only 5.2 seconds) & captured sonically by a Sony TCM-400 onto a cheap cassette tape (made in indonesia).

RIYL: Suicide, Les Rallizes Denudes, Ruth White, Matchess, Throbbing Gristle