The Retail Sectors - March Of Incurable Workaholic - Distraction Records
The cover of March of Incurable Workaholic
Writing music under the name of The Retail Sectors since 2000, Kentaro Togawa, the Japanese multi-instrumentalist takes as his primary inspiration Japanese video game and film music and incorporates this into guitar-driven melodic sound explorations in the same vein as Steve Reich. The experimentation of sound, though, whilst leaning towards the abstract, shows an acute sense of musicianship, a deft touch for rhythm and a passionate understanding of dynamics.
Don’t be fooled into thinking, though, that The Retail Sectors’ newest release “March of Incurable Workaholic / Song About A Girl Who Killed Herself Yesterday” is some blippy electronic release. These are carefully worked soundscapes and subtly crafted compositions. The Retail Sectors’ drums, for example, are something very special. Reflecting the title of the first piece, they are incessant and brutal, but the sound of the snare penetrates everything with a resonating warmth and devastating reverb.
Then there are the layers of sound. Mixing both distorted and chiming guitars, The Retail Sectors creates the musical landscapes previously associated with bands like Sigur Rós. Yet this is instrumental, and so the dynamics do all the talking, the piece appearing to be being held at bursting point for so long that finally the guitars drop out, seemingly exhausted from the exertion.
The second track on the record “Song About A Girl Who Killed Herself Yesterday” is darker and more abstract. The guitars progressively work in several different ways – evoking solitude, fury and devastation at various different points.
The tracks are released by Distraction Records on 8” clear square 150 lathe cut numbered vinyls, presented in cotton paper, photoetched with miraclon letterpress (pretty special to see a label care about their releases) on the 17th of November. The vinyl also comes with a free download code for the MP3-minded. See here.
Here is the video for March of Incurable Workaholic:
0 comments so far
There are no comments for this post yet. Why not be the first by filling out the form below.