Bleep

Japan Sound Portrait sharply follow up their Indication 1 side with a brand new hour of street smart techno(logy) and found-sound ambience from the sprawling urban centres of Japan.

Compiled and composed for an exclusive one-time run of bamboo USB cards, Indication 1.1 is sure to become highly sought-after due to the limited nature of its pressing as part of the series.

Lining up an all-star cast of associates and artists involved in the project, head honchos Neil Cantwell and Nick Luscombe carefully pieced together contributions that range from interwoven sketches and interpretations from Shinekosei's Juel Suite, a performance of sho and drum sticks on rock, in a cave, by Eri Fujii and Kazunori Honda, kidkanevil's KanZeOn ReIndication, a new composition by Verity Lane, field recordings by James Greer & Laurent Fintoni's 'An afternoon in Akihabara' plus numerous Japanese household appliances and game centre activities including, Sharp Ag-ion coat washing machine, Pull light switch and light, Otamatone and UFO Catcher.

All of this is strung together into an hour long piece that spills out of the speakers like an audio tour of some of Japan's biggest metropolises, guiding you through dimly lit streets where trains rattle overhead and through back alleys where snatches of daily urban living expels audio that ranges from fuzzy electronics and lounge jazz to deep house akin to the ship-scope sounds of the country's Basic Channeler Shinichi Atobe.

Interwoven with elements of silence to break up the flow, these moments add a reflective sheen to the experience that carries as much weight to it as John Cage's experiments with intentional silence. Indication 1.1 could almost be seen as an update on the urban living emptiness escapism of Nie Mehr Allein, a CD of everyday recordings that is designed to give the listener the illusion of another being inhabiting the space it is played in (for further reading we recommend David Toop 's Haunted Weather).

Neil Cantwell and Nick Luscombe's project is on its way to becoming one of the staple projects of Far East audio, alongside recent Mood hut, Samo DJ & Maxxxbass SNAKER LP's and the deepest house sounds excavated by Soichi Terada.

Whatever else, Indication 1.1 is another fascinating step into the Japan Sound Portrait project.