Pitchfork

As someone who spends a lot of a time listening to music, and trying to somehow assess its value, it's important to acknowledge that I have certain auditory sweet spots that exist independent of logic and reason. Maybe it has something to do with an odd brain geography that's resulted in some quadrant being unusually receptive to certain kind of stimuli. Perhaps repressed childhood memories, or forgotten dreams, or some bender-induced chemical rearrangement from before I knew better are to blame. All I'm sure of is that some combinations of sounds do it for me every time and it becomes difficult (and not very much fun) to decide whether this music I'm drooling over is "good" or not.

Listening to Ripple, the debut album from Fonica (Japanese boy/girl duo Keiich Sugimoto and Cheason) I realize I'm mad for the sound of pretty, repeating guitars mixed with warm, glitchy electronics. Simply put, when the electro-acoustic guitar/DSP combo is done in a certain way, it can make me cry. I think I'm enjoying this album so damn much because Keiich & Cheason are skilled at mixing the acoustic and electric guitar patterns with the beeping, static-laden drone underneath, but I'm allowing for the possibility that I'm just a sucker for this sound. Honestly, I'm enjoying Ripple too much to care.

The track titles on this alubm are appropriately simple markers of a single idea or impression, titles like "Soar" and "Perch" and "Fluid". Most cuts are a bustle of activity, small taps and clicks and keyboard squiggles that mesh into a buzzing sonic tapestry; foregrounded is a simple guitar melody that accentuates the pale, blurred color of the mood. Though the laptop processing pioneered by Markus Popp and referenced here suggest the beauty of a purely mathematical world, Fonica have completely humanized and softened their glitches, so that their prime references are sensation and memory. These tracks make you remember things like the tingle that climbs up your arms as you wade into a lake.

It's interesting to hear Sogar's Jürgen Heckel crop up on "Whirr" (he's credited with "sound materials"), as his recent album Apikal.blend on 12k definitely marks him as a kindred spirit. Heckel also makes laptop music using a guitar, though I would describe his work as organic but not necessarily human. The microscopic detail of Heckel's thin, shifting drones obscures their guitar origins. On "Whirr" it's easy to hear his signature trebly sound, which reminds me of the summer buzz of a cicada, but then Fonica blend this digital insect chorus with an evocative guitar melody and a bubbly layer of bass. The simple string elements bring the drone much closer to pop, though it could also be argued that it evokes post-rock of the Mice Parade variety. Either way, "Whirr" is absolutely gorgeous.

Elsewhere Fonica evoke a Childisc-like simplicity. "Fluid" is just a wispy music-box melody that sounds like a feather being dragged along a toy keyboard. "Coda" takes a few acoustic guitar strums and harmonics, chops them up, and layers in some subtle electronic accents. This track and the closing "Zephyr" remind me a lot of Greg Davis' Arbor, where the laptop can be switched off at any moment to showcase the rich and complex sonic properties of plucked steel strings. Ripple is a wonderfully satisfying and succinct little record, a beautiful synthesis of guitar and electronics.