015 - Aural - アーバン空想

 

Grey overcast days, bright blue skies, neon red saturated streets at night.  Consciously or unconsciously, color plays a pivotal role in both the mood and tone of  our surroundings.  White, grey, black, brown, yellow, and green.  Six different colors, each of which has a critical role in the creation of Aural’s album, アーバン空想.  

“Color plays an extremely important role in production. Music is almost like a recipe, and color is the texture and flavor added in,” they explained when describing the importance of color’s significance while taking the listener on this musical journey.  The details of how  color influenced them remains a trade secret, but it's the fact that it plays a pivotal role in music creation that  is most fascinating.  

In utilizing these colors, Aural guides the listener from place to place within this city that we have never seen, showcasing different aspects of a life that we have never lived.  It's in these observations that we begin to understand the life of the people within the city as foreign and alien to anything we've seen before.  It takes us half the album, but eventually we are able to make sense of the chaos and bustle that is before us.

The album is divided into two parts of a single story.  The first chapter (the first three tracks), takes the listener from scene to scene in this massive collection of city structures.  As we take in these foreign sites and try to make sense of them, this translates musically to little more than soundscapes: city sounds with no real sense of melody or any interconnections between the differing elements of the songs. Musical meanderings if you will.

It's in the second half of the album where we begin to see these differing elements come together to form something of a musical focus.  While the sense of wandering is still in place - as portrayed by the different cityscape samples - we now have a direction to go in and it's leading us to a place with intent.  In the tracks 人工的な and 忘れられた通りたち in particular, there is a strong sense of melody that the entirety of the composition revolves around.  

“Yes, the shift was intentional as the first half is essentially an introduction to the city environment, whilst the second half, becoming more melodic, is the journey deepening into the ‘heart’ of the city.” Aural explains the narrative flow of the album,“There’s not really a plot that was implemented, it’s more of an experience when listening to rather than a story being told. It is fundamentally a discovery of the creative mind, with the album itself being the foundation for the individual to fill in with their thoughts.”

The structure of most of these compositions are similar in scope.  Most of the songs begin by introducing a soundscape of city noises, such as walking down a street or waiting for a subway train. While this allows a peek into the lives of those around us, the longer we observe the more Aural’s musical soundscapes take shape .  

Take シティ内側, for example.  The song begins in the aforementioned subway.  We hear people going about their daily lives as the trains come and go.  Once these soundscapes establish  location, music is slowly introduced.  First, a childlike melody seemingly played on bottles filled with different levels of liquid.  This is later accompanied by a slightly more chaotic and piercing instrumental played over top.  

I had first interpreted this as two different people that we as the observer were watching.  One being a child or innocent figure and the second perhaps a busy business man whose mind is in chaos from the day that is progressing around him.  When I asked Aural about this section of the album he had a different interpretation while composing the music.  

“The first melody that is introduced is meant to serve as the individual's initial thoughts of the current setting and of discovering something completely new to them, whilst the next melody is actually discovering it. These two then wash into one another, signifying that the previous emotions towards the new environment have expanded.”

It is with this type of difference in interpretation that the true beauty of ambient music can be realized: two people listening to the same music can easily arrive at vastly different interpretations.  While there may be an intended way of hearing it, neither interpretation is wrong.  It's for this reason that  ambient music is loved by so many,as it generates is deeply personal experiences to a broad audience of listeners.  It is this dynamic of ambient music that Aural has tapped into with アーバン空想, but they have managed to do so in a unique, captivating way.

Acknowledgements

A large thank you to Aural for sharing their music with me and for taking the time to have in depth discussions about their composition style and albums.  As always thank you to Blissmonkey for editing and promotion.