The idea that you should know something just because it is old and has therefore been around for a while can safely be described as unworldly. Even in the past, in the pre-digital age, a lot of music was released on recordings. And by no means did everything make it to the record shops in the town of your youth. So if you haven’t already come across Tokyo musician Takayuki Shiraishi, don’t be embarrassed. In the eighties, he was involved in underground projects between post-punk, no wave and industrial, such as BGM, MLD or Tristan Disco, and »Photon« was his first techno album in 1997. A reduced approach, very few melodies, hardly any aggressive drum machines, but a series of percussive sounds that might appear rather unusual in this cosmos. Like the fretless bass on the first track, »Afterglow«, where no beat can be heard far and wide, just like on the title track. Instead, compact circles, minute differences in place of accentuated distinctiveness, and constant movement with an overall uniform appearance dominate. For minimal techno in the narrower sense, it was all a bit too much connected to the old-school Detroit sound. Takayuki Shiraishi spices this up with his own sounds, which could be described as »Asian« by projection. Too idiosyncratic to sound old-fashioned from today’s perspective. Certainly classic though. And ready to be discovered.
Photon
