009.5 - The Deep Dive - Kagami Smile - Opaque Lens World

 

 

The deep dive is for readers who want to dig further into the album by reading the notes and pre-review interview that is done with each artist.  It is best read after the review.

 

 

Notes

Refractive Dream - Album starts with a faded beat that has a strong echo effect on it, it fades from what feels like a nebulous place.  The song really is in no hurry to get where it is going and I think that that is going to be a running theme throughout the album judging by the song lengths.  Some distant droning sounds eventually catch up to the beat and give a little bit of context of what is going on… maybe.  Everything is very nebulous.  This isn’t so much dreampunk as it is ambient techno.  A slow build of various tones and sounds over a repeating beat, if the beat wasn’t there this would be pure ambient music… or just sounds.  There really isn't anything musical going on even 3 minutes into the song.  The whole thing is eerie… something just seems off.  When I listen in the background there are a few repeating noises that are phased in and out that sound mechanical in nature.  The first major change comes almost 4 minutes in.  That’s where the noises become much more prominent and start playing off of the left and right channels.  There is a sound that teases a hand clap type sound to accompany the main beat but it goes as quickly as it arrives.  The whole while the tone faded in to start the song has been the main player.  It's mono-tone and acts as the backbone of the song along with the beat.  It's only at 6 minutes that we get something even akin to a melody.  It’s hidden deep in the mix behind the main tone and the mechanical sounds but there is a repeating melody playing, it is very simple and very hard to hear but it is there.  All of this really seems to be pointing to something.  What that is I’m not sure.  The only clue I have is the song title, I’ll have to ponder this some more and talk to Kagami about what he was thinking when he composed this.  
The song dosen’t change much at all during the 9 minutes, with the major changes happening around 1/3 and ⅔ of the way through the song.  I wonder if that segmentation is significant to the message that is attempted to be communicated here.  Maybe there is no message and we’re just supposed to float along the ambient soundscapes that drive this song.  One thing that is interesting though is how the song ends.  The beat and the mono-tone finally fade out and a simple repeating synth melody takes over for the last 45 seconds of the song.  If this is a dream, maybe thats us waking up?  Interesting track.

Dead Rave - This one starts very similar to the opener, simple beat with a mono-tone synth pad over it.  I didn’t mention this in the first song but the production here is not warm… it's chilling.  It’s got a disconnected feeling to it where it’s familiar yet there is something distinctly alien to it.  Disconcerting.  The song builds very similar to the opener as well, the beat has an echo on it and drives the song.  Some mechanical sounds grow in the background as well while the monotone synth acts as the background.  As similar as this sounds to the opener, the effect derived here is completely different in feel.  The beat fades out rather quickly into the song and the mechanical… almost alien sounds take over.  I can’t stress enough how alien this feels, it's really bizarre and does not sound like anything of this earth.  The beat comes back in about 3 minutes in and builds along with the mono-tone synth to overpower the mechanical sounds.  The whole thing seems like a struggle between two opposing forces.  They never hold the spotlight at the same time, and they are at complete odds with each other.  The one eventually becomes almost overbearing, like all consuming in the way that its pushed forward.  It’s very hard to ignore and pulled me out of my work several times on casual listens.  On active listens its demanding of my attention.  A third strain of sounds begins to come in to challenge the monotone and mechanical sounds about 5 minutes into the songs.  Maybe challenge isn't the right word… accompany.  It has a symbol like feel to it and seems to be in synch with the beat, buried deep in the mix.  This whole idea of opposing forces seems to be a theme running throughout the album for the first two tracks at least.  Going to have to formulate that into a question for Kagami.
About 7 minutes in, right before the end we have another huge change.  The beat and mechanical sounds fade out completely and something as close as we have gotten to a melody throughout this song takes forefront along with the monotone.  This is the second song in a row where a shift like that has occurred towards the end of a track. The song is very similar to the first track, yet by the tones used and how they are presented the are entirely separate entities.  Each being instantly recognizable from each other.

Transparent Longing -  Ok we’re starting off with something quite different than the other two songs here.  Instead of a monotone it's a duotone.  Two notes played back to back repeating ad nauseum.  They seem to be taking the roll that the monotone had on the first track, we’ll see if it lasts the whole song, but if it does it’ll make the first truly major change for the album.
There is still a beat buried deep in the mix and it stays there.  The thing that really stands out about this track aside from the duotone is the fact that everything seems to be working in harmony instead of being opposing.  There are sounds in the background but they don’t seem to be fighting with the main tone.  Instead they take their place beside it and let the duotone run the show.  They are also much more musical… like the sound like percussion instruments rather than mechanical sounds.  
The whole thing swells to almost an overwhelming degree much like the second track did, the tones chosen here almost cut through your head, they demand attention.  This whole thing is really a cacophony of sounds, its rhythmic and there is a ton of stuff going on if you listen.  
Right around 7 minutes things start to pull back a little bit, and the only thing driving the song anymore is the beat (still buried) and the duotone.  There is something else sneaking up at the end of the duotone that wasn’t there before… it's an extension.  Like the tone takes longer to finish than it did earlier in the song.  I’ll have to go back and listen again but I wonder if that has been happening over the course of the song.  If it has then the transparent longing title is amazing.  
Going back and listening to the beginning the extended period is there but it's not nearly as pronounced as it is at the end of the song.  Interesting choice, and I wonder why it only became so much more noticeable at the end.  I’m listening to both parts one after another now and the mix has definitely brought that tail end up at the end of the song.  It's much more pronounced now than it was at the beginning and I can understand why I missed it.  Still curious if that has anything to do with the song title.  Something happens at the end of the track.  A huge noise or something right when everything has faded out.  

Memory of Swimming Cornea - Ok we start off completely different here.  There is a monotone again but it is right in your face. Its also very warm in its production. Completely different feel from every other song so far in the album.  If we’re swimming then this really is the right tone for it… it has that ‘underwater’ quality to the synth tone used.  Familiar yet foriegn, but still very organic compared to the other mono or duotones used so far.  
Something is slowly creeping into the mix however, it sounds distorted and inhumane. It's very much in the background and I didn’t even notice it until ablmost 1:30 into the song.  There is also a very very buried beat with this as well, I hesitate to even call it a beat.  It's more like a percussive instrument accenting each measure rather than a consistent beat.  
So out of everything that I expected to happen here it was not that the ‘beat’ would become the opposing force to the monotone.  It happens so slowly that I didn’t even notice it at first.  It wasn’t until almost 6 minute that I realized that it was a lot easier to hear than it was before.  And then again at 6:30 there is another bit of percussion that goes with it.  It gives it much more of a true feeling of a beat as it adds more elements.
There is something else going on with the monotone as well.  There is another tone buried deep in the mix that is giving it a phased, wavy quality.  Maybe that is what I was hearing before that gave this the underwater quality, but it is absolutely there.  That underwater quality keeps with the song throughout but instead of feeling warm, as the beat and mechanical sounds that accompany it slowly swell it takes on a much more unknown quality.  Like sinking further into the water and the light is slowly fading and we are entering into truly unknown territory.  It’s not explored for long though because the percussion quickly faded and the monotone followed shortly thereafter.  Interesting track and choices.  

Swimming Beside A Mass Consciousness - Ok this song really feels like it belongs right after the previous track.  It has that very warm floaty organic feeling to the main synth line.  It’s almost like a whale calling out.  It sounds very lonely… nothing is reciprocating the call.  It feels like something very important has been lost.
Another interesting choice is that even 2 minutes into the song there is no beat to speak of.  First track on the album that is pure ambience.  The frequency of the whale tone as I’ll call it seems to be random, but it still doesn't have a reciprocation.  What is happening though is a mass of noise is building up in the background.  I wonder if these are two characters based on the title.  One being the protagonist who is swimming being the originator of the ‘whale call’ and the mass of noise is the mass consciousness.  
Ok this is really cool, right around 4 minutes the noise stops and voices are heard deep in the background.  I can’t tell what they are saying but its like the ‘whale call’ character has broken through the mass of noises and found something that he is looking for.  Maybe a connection.  The song returns to that warm feeling from the beginning too and the ‘whale call’ sound is more frequent now.  There is also a low tone that could be considered a reciprocation maybe? It builds slowly throughout the middle few minutes of the track.  
This song really feels like it's telling a story… one of harmony more so than opposing forces like I heard in some of the earlier tracks.  I really like how all of the elements work together and the whole sense of swimming or floating that the track encapsulates.  It’s probably my favorite track on the album so far, really love this one.  
As the song comes closer to conclusion the mass of noise completely fades and only the distant voice, the low tone and the ‘whale call’ are left.  It really is a beautifully told story if that’s what Kagami was going for here.  I may be completely off base but the freedom granted the listener to interpret a story here is amazing.  Love how the track ends and I love how it built off of the previous track.  These two belong together.  I wonder where we go from here.  


Paradox of Loss - The long one.  I was afraid of doing this track when I first signed up to review the album, only because of the length.  When I’m actually digging my clutches into the album I’m really looking forward to this one.  Every song so far has had a similar structure to it, but this one is over twice their length so I’m wondering where Kagami is going to take the sound over these 20 minutes.
The song starts with a slow building swell monotone.  Very similar to the first track.  Deep in the mix there is something going on that I can’t tell, maybe a very subtle melody.  Whatever is happening it gives the music a texture that it wouldn’t have with the monotone itself.  Three minutes in and we’ve barely even moved from the opening.  This song’s pace makes the others look like a cheetah… glacial is probably an opportune word.  
There are things happening however.  There are some sounds around 3:30 that sound like fragments of formerly known sounds that have been disintegrated into nothing but a whisper of what they once were.  There also seems to be a cello? Playing in the background.  It gives everything an organic feel in a sea of lost souls.  Oh maybe that is something… maybe we’re building off the last track and we followed that voice and now we're lost in the mass of voices and can’t find the one that was calling out to us.  
I don’t know if that’s what Kagami had in mind but it sounds good so I’m running with it.  Right around 5:45 the fragments of sounds just stop suddenly and we are left with the cello and some fragments of whispers along with the monotone.  Some more fragmented sounds slowly come in to accompany the main tones but these sound different… like they are drifting past us rather than us being in a crowd… we are searching for something, someone.  Maybe this whole time we are the monotone, the duotone… the main focus of the song… maybe each of these songs is a scene and we are looking through the eyes fo the protagonist and the tone is the realization of the self? I don’t know but its the one main thing that the album has going throughout and if this is a journey to somewhere then that would fit.  Even if not, I like the idea so I’m running with it.  
About 8 minutes in it feels like we're transitioning into something darker, less warm.  The cello is barely audible at this point and the main tone has started to become distorted.  Its rising to the forefront like some of the other tracks where it becomes hard to ignore.  This is a powerful tone that demands attention.  There is something else going on here too, deep deep in the mix there is a pulse.  Maybe even a heartbeat.  Not sure what that represents but it's an interesting addition.  
By 10 minutes the noise and whispers are everywhere.  Disorienting, nothing has a direction.  This music isn't stagnant but has a sense of not knowing where it is, or where it wants to go.  If this is representative of our main character he is lost and is searching for something, anything to grasp onto.  
By 12 minutes the cello sound is pretty much gone.  It may be deep in the mix, and I think it is but the warmth that it provided is completely gone at this point.  The howling abyss tone takes over more and more and there is this sense that we are traversing deeper and deeper into it.  The deeper we go into this abyss the less warmth is felt.  Around 13 minutes the mechanical sounds from track 2 (I think) come back in and start circling around us.  Its slowly building and its taking us to a place that we don’t want to go… or maybe we do.  Maybe we think we deserve to be here? I don’t know the answer to that , and the answer may be personal to each listener.  But you gotta let yourself be swept away by this music, it has a chilling effect when you let yourself be lost in it.
15 minutes in and all I hear is the swirling mechanical sounds, the howling void and a the distant cello.  We’re descending into the depths of whatever place this is and at this point we can’t turn back, we are committed to whatever this place is.  Is this our own personal hell? Is this purgatory?  Where are we?  Wherever we are it is not pleasant
16 minutes thirty seconds in we start to lose the noise… there is now just a wall of sound that sounds like it has a… wall between us for lack of a better term.  We’ve gone through the period of tribulation and we are now in a place where there is less going on but it still is not comfortable.  Maybe if we lost someone we are now in the different stages of accepting their loss?  Maybe if we are searching for someone we are starting to realize that we may never find them.  There is less chaos here but there is not comfort… this is more of the protagonist accepting reality, whatever that reality is.

Myth of Silence - After the giant journey that was the previous track I’m hoping that this one is less emotionally intense.  I was left drained.  
A beat returns for the first time in over half an hour. Its a pretty stark change after everything that we’ve been through.  The other major difference is that there is no main tone for the listener to grab onto.  Its just percussion and some background sounds.  So very very different than anything else on this album.  Really wonder what it all means.
We eventually do get some kind of synth but its distorted, phased and incomprehensible.  It feels like it wants to be familiar but its so distorted that its unrecognizable.  The synth gets so distorted by 2 minutes in that I wouldn’t even call it a synth.  Eventually things start to even out and take form.  The beat fades slightly into the background and the distortion fades and the synth becomes more recognizable as something that we would be used to.  
Is this the character realizing what was lost and coming to terms with it? Is this acceptance? It sure feels like the musical equivalent of struggling to come to terms with a significant loss and finding meaning from what has transpired.  
Things slowly build more and more into a crescendo but unlike the other monotone ones this one is super active.  Huge difference from the rest of the album.  Crazy.  Noise, a strong beat, warmth, chills… a ton of different things competing and yet working together to form a cohesive structure.  Structure… probably the first time in the entire album that there has been any kind of structure like this.  There is melody as well, its very slow and its hard to follow but its there.  
Man I love this.  Such a huge contrast to everything else.  As the track continues to its destination it keeps swelling and swelling until everything is just one giant ball of sound with a beat.  Everything is just phasing in and out of existence by the last minute… Is this really our final moments?  What does this mean for the character? Is he joining the sea of voices as one of the lost? Is there truly nothing more? Everything fades… there is nothing left.

Overall - Holy crap what a journey, this is crazy good.  At first I thought that there was just a collection of sounds.  These sounds had a conflicting theme of mechanical vs. the mono or duo tone.  But I don’t think that is what is going on here anymore.  I think that there is a story that Kagami is trying to tell the listener, and what that story is can be very personal to each listener.  I feel like there is a story of someone who had something that was lost and went searching for it. They thought that they found it briefly but then realized that it was truly gone.  When that realization occurred the character has to make a choice of either accepting the loss or falling into the depths of despair.  What happens I’m not sure, the last track is frantic that it sounds like they are desperately searching for anything but end up with nothing.  And then the album ends… What a trip.  

Interview

During most of the songs there is a single element that dominates as the main focus.  I called it the monotone or duotone in the notes.  This singular focus of the songs seems to carry great significance as to the focus of the album. Could you go into some detail as to what your ideas were with this style of songwriting? In your mind what is the significance (if any) of this portion of the music?

When I make music, I tend to not use too many tracks. At most, I will have 3-4 tracks max that I use to create the entire work. I’m a minimalist at heart, and I believe simplicity can achieve more detail and force the creator to think and work in ways he or she wouldn’t normally work when using a greater variety of tools. I think for me, as a maker of ambient music, one sound can have a variety of details. It may sound very mundane to someone, but the more you listen, the more the sound can change or vary much like perception.

The songwriting on the album can often become rather foriegn and alien, where the atmosphere of the song sounds very inhuman.  How were you able to achieve this sound? Was there any reason that you went in this direction rather than keeping a more “human” sound?

I have a few synths I use when making music, I use all of the same ones. I won’t go into detail about what they are, but I usually deconstruct the sounds with granular synthesis techniques, that could give the overall feel or quality of the synth an ‘other worldly’ quality perhaps. I also like to insert field recorded sounds. I record samples of my daughter’s toys and deconstruct them as well, the sound of keys on a toy piano, a toy guitar, blocks, etc. Tape saturation, hiss, and decay or things I employ that give my sound a more alien quality. Also speaking on the unfamiliar, I tend to put my synths into a sort of arpeggiator and I warp them to be longer lengths, so there is a machine at play more so than a human element. In this way, the machine is perhaps composing the track for me, I am merely the participant.

There seems like there is some sort of narrative going on in the album.  I outlined what I thought was going on in the notes.  In your mind what were you trying to communicate to the listener as the album progresses?

The album should be interpretive, I don’t tend to communicate exactly what I mean to convey. The title ‘Opaque Lens World’ refers to human perceptions and how people see different versions of reality based on their perceptions. I wanted to create something that showed sadness and beauty. The image of an eye clouded over in fog as it treads its way through a barren futuristic world. It could also be a reflection at the state of the world in the beginning of the 2020’s; one that is slightly askew to our ‘expected reality’.

Most of the songs are right around 9 minutes long except the final two.  Starting with Paradox of Loss, why was the runtime extended to 20 minutes? Did your songwriting differ while approaching a song of such epic lengths rather than the other songs on the album?

My songwriting doesn’t differ much. I tend to make things without regards to structure. For me, it is about strictly creating a sound world or experience for the listener. I want them to be immersed in something for an hour and then come back out of that trip with perhaps a different viewpoint than before. I record all of the songs I make live, all first take. I usually sketch a few ideas before I record and then when I like all those ideas I press record and let the sound guide themselves. I am merely the listener. I generally like long songs, and I only end the recording when I feel like the sound has finished where it wants to go. It’s an inner voice telling me when to stop.


On the same note Myth of Silence is much shorter than all of the other songs and contains a much more pronounced beat and other elements that make it sound much more ‘grounded’ than the other songs.  Was there any difference in your songwriting here?  What if any thoughts were trying to be communicated with this song in particular as compared to all of the other songs?

No difference really. I had the textures and synths that made the track call for a more percussion feel, so I employed a heavier clubby kick.

The title ‘Myth of Silence,’ could refer to someone that is perceived as being guarded because they often don’t speak around others. Or how quiet people are perceived as shy or meek. When often they are just processing things differently in comparison to someone who is more extroverted.

Several of the tracks contain some sort of percussion putting them more in the ambient techno category as opposed to the pure ambience found later in the album. Was there any reasoning as to why some songs contain a beat vs not?  Also in regards to their placement, is there a reason why the pure ambient tracks are in the center of the album while being sandwiched by the songs that have a beat?

I’m sorry you are probably looking for a deeper answer, haha. There was not really any reasoning for me other than the sounds dictate what warrants more percussion or what doesn’t warrant percussion. It’s really not a conscious decision I make, the sounds I make all guide me to what I use and what I don’t use. In this way everything is stream of consciousness. I often, don’t listen to tracks after I make them. I will go back later on and listen to what I have created, only to hear or find out more about the songs themselves when listening. It’s the same with writing to me, everything is stream of consciousness and I don’t go back and read until after the creation is done. In this way I look at it as a moment of pure emotion that is not edited after. That to me is important with any kind of art. The same for the placement of the songs, I ordered them by what felt right together.

What type of equipment was used to create this album? (you don’t have to answer this if you want it to remain private)

The synths I use I would like to remain private. However, I do use a lot of tape loops when constructing tracks. Tascam portostudio, I can have a blank tape and a microphone and record a loop into it. I dump these loops in the digital audio workstation and manipulate them in real time. Granular synthesis, field recordings. Lots of delay, tape saturation, tape hiss, some samples of a friend’s voice, etc.

In a lot of the early songs there is this idea of conflicting elements fighting for dominance.  I highlighted often that there are some mechanical type sounds conflicting with any type of warmth or the dominant monotone of the song.  Is there any type of message or symbolism that is trying to be communicated by this? What were you trying to get the listener to picture with this type of song writing?

The message is simply a human working alongside a machine. The machine could be fighting for dominance more so in one track or vice versa. Because we live in a rapidly changing world where increasing technology overpowers our lives.

You mentioned in our conversations that you wanted to create a world with this album.  In your own words, what does this world look like? Where do you want the listener to be transported when they listen to the album?

‘Opaque Lens World’ to me is a grey world full of fog and whispers. It could be reminiscent of atmospheres such as Silent Hill or Yume Nikki (I take a lot of influence from game soundtracks) but much more futuristic. Landscapes of toppled over drones and skyscrapers, the smell of stale cigarettes, a junkyard full of VR headsets.  

The album ends with a sense of hopelessness.  Was that intentional? If it was, why end on such a tragic note?

For me, the ending was much more triumphant, I’m interested that it was tragic for you. There is no correct answer. Your perception creates the album and creates the world of the album. My perception of the album doesn’t matter as much as yours, the listener, who actively engages with the work.

You have a string of songs and albums that contain the aspect of memories.  Here we have Memory of Swimming Cornea, you also have the album Memory Of Iris and Sclera.  Is there a common thread going on throughout these songs and albums? If so what? If not, why the similar titles?

Yes, I like to pay particular attention to memories when I create works and how memories decay and distort over time. I’m a bit of a romantic so some of the titles are in reference to love or any other type of fleeting moments I have experienced in the past. A lot of my work revolves around people I have met in dreams or have engaged with for one miniscule moment in reality.

Are there any other thoughts you wanted to share about this album or your musical projects?

Please check my bandcamp as I believe the heart of my work lies there. Thank you for listening.