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Akai Ikuo
Language Without Words

Beta-lactam Ring Records

Posted: Thursday, May 22, 2008
By: Matthew Johnson
Assistant Editor

Mostly unknown in the west, in his native Japan Akai Ikuo is revered both as a producer of experimental electronic music and as an accomplished musician able to play dozens of different instruments. He brings that wide-ranging eclecticism to his first album available in the USA, a collection of short sonic sketches that incorporate everything from jazz to glitch to blues to house. Opening track "Cha-Ri Trip" borders on conventional, at least by IDM standards, with muttered speech and hints of brass intertwined with broken electro rhythm, but after the brief snippet of jazzy electro that is "Night in November," Ikuo takes things in a more improvisational and acoustic direction with "Red Hot Noodle," a cacophony of chopped up bass guitar, horns, and dissonant piano chords. While Ikuo does occasionally delve into the traditions of his heritage with bits of muffled koto, it's the jazz influences that make the strongest impression here, and it's not smooth jazz or bebop either, but the more difficult rhythmic intricacies and deliberately atonal honks of the avant-garde. It's not all confrontational though, and the mellow guitar strums and hypnotic house beat of "Heart Beat" balance out the bleats of brass, and "Rain in Mitaka" is pleasantly sleepy, piano and saxophone working together over the pulsing bass line rather than fighting each other for position. Blues inspirations also make their presence known, especially on "Dual Ole Attack," little more than an electric guitar jam layered over static, but sublime in its simplicity. While Language Without Words is on the short side, with most tracks clocking in at under the three minute mark, its brevity makes for a painless introduction to what one senses is an often difficult artist. Hopefully this release will draw some much-needed attention to Ikuo and give western audiences the chance to hear more of his oeuvre, for it seems this is just the tip of a very large iceberg.