Nobukazu Takemura – Child's View

would love to buy let me know if you're selling a copy thanks :DD

One of those albums that reveals something new with every listen. A real beauty…..

One of the best albums ever... start to finish it's just beautiful!

Nobukazu Takemura, the man that played with clicks, chops, cuts, new classicism and very high-concept things, began his career with hip hop and smooth jazz. Before the magnificent musicality based on cd skips in "Icefall", before the child-like semi-developed melodies in "Songbook", even before his jungle excursions, he was an acid jazz producer that released songs that could fit in any Talkin' Loud compilation.

Well, mostly. Anyway, this is my favourite album from him and one of my favourite ones, because it sounds so relaxed, so easy, and so well constructed. The basics are, again, acid jazz with samples, similar to the first Dj Krush, with a very lively sound that makes the songs sound really organic. He likes the voices he will use in is following productions: voices that are not very treated, not schooled, very crude sounding, except in the great "Searching" where Dee C Lee sings gently about looking for love. But "Rill", "For Tomorrow" and "Let my fish loose" sounds uniquely from him. Difference is, again, in the genre and arrangements: double basses, harps, pianos, synths, sax, violins... Some rapping too, some scratching. It's like Wim Mertens doing a Pizzicato Five meets Incognito album. Like Jazztronik in the 90s but with a Nyman attitude.

And then it's better than the description I could give of it, because there is real emotion behind those songs. "For tomorrow" is purely epic in its tense musicality and choirs, "Pastoral Jazz" or "Crescent" are great downtempo tracks, the more jazzy bits like "Ivory Tower" work very well, and though the album is very very long, it doesn't seem so. A perfect collection of songs for a summer evening whose virtue is sounding as complex as easy as gentle.