Lullatone: Songs that Spin in Circles
Reviewed By: Maarten Schiethart
Label: Audio Dregs
Pennyblack
(UK)
Disorientating electro-acoustics perhaps aptly describe the 'Songs
That Spin In Circles', but meditational wanderings in sound would much
better suit a description of Lullatone's new album. The pacific Japanese-American
duo decided to deliver more of their acknowledged taste in minimal miniatures
and lovely lullabies. 'Songs That Spin In Circles' rely on repetition
and on those styles of a recognised calming nature, such as the lazy
bossa nova on 'A Plastic Bag In The Wind'.
Lullatone's calm and quiet little trips to the grey zone of your brains
will bring sweet dreams to the innocent of mind and comfort to the slightly
poisoned ones. Toy instruments, glockenspiel and vapoury harmonic vocals
work around and enrich that repetition with soft touches. Merrily just
playing about on those instruments that only gentle fingers are allowed
on to, Lullatone startle the mind with the same keynote that would lull
one asleep. The meditative quality is merely one great asset.
The sounds of Lullatone on 'Songs That Spin In Circles' evoke the sight
of pastel colours in one's imagination. John Peel once ridiculed himself,
as he mentioned that back in his hippy days, he once said he would go
into Hyde Park and write poems in the sky. Thanks to 'Songs That Spin
In Circles' we can all have a go ourselves. And we would not make fools
of ourselves. People might think we're a little odd and naive. But who'd
care?
Lullatone: Plays Pajama Pop Pour Vous
"One of those most beautiful things I’ve heard in a while." -Indie Christoph
"I'm smitten with Lullatone's cute manifesto." -Audioversity
"These songs could be the long lost siblings of that iconoclastic Radiohead track--albeit a female sibling whose content to lounge around in pajamas for the greater part of the day, and indulge her daydreaming and fantasy existence rather than reality." -QBIM
"quite possibly the cutest thing that you will hear all year." -Japan Times
"As soon as the bells come in on "Wake Up Wake Up" I
can see little balls of color popping inside right in front of my face,
and as layer after layer pile up upon each other it becomes just a wash
of colors, flashing and popping. It's something alright, it's something
really great."-Skatterbrain
"Sit down and listen to this with your eyes closed and you'll feel
yourself never wanting to open them up again." -The
Yellow Stereo
"Lullatone's music is so soothing that makes you constantly dreamy..."-Get
Echo
Here's the year's cutest song:
Lullatone - "Bedtime Bossa Band": mp3
Songs this good shouldn't be allowed to be released in December. It's
unfair. -Rawking
Refuses
it became the nicest folktronica song-music you can imagine. -Progressive Homestead
Lullatone: Plays Pajama Pop Pour Vous
[pitchfork]
USA
Looks like I'm not the only one making daily visits to cuteoverload.com. Lullatone's fourth album, Plays Pajama Pop Pour Vous, coaxes its bass drum sounds from a pillow. One half of the Nagoya, Japan-based duo, Shawn James Seymour pulls naptime melodies out of thin air, while Yoshimi Tomida whispers about little birds, waking up, and castles in the sky. In the tradition of Kyoto-based producer Nobukazu Takemura, whose Childisc label released their 2003 sophomore effort My Petit Melodies, Lullatone papier-mâché the childlike sounds of bell-tone synths and toy glockenspiel into imaginative, minimalist pop.
Gentle sine waves bounce repetitively throughout sleepy-eyed opener "Good Morning Melody" and yawning synth exercise "Magical...", drifting across unhurried rhythms. It's as if they might evaporate altogether when you open your eyes. Eight-minute finale "Floating Away", with an ideal beat for a slumberland discotheque, uses stereo trickery to create the illusion that reclining headphone listeners are beginning to hover. But then, the defining sensation of Plays Pajama Pop Pour Vous is weightlessness.
Nonetheless, Lullatone can't neatly be filed alongside such kinder-pop acts as the Boy Least Likely To or Architecture in Helsinki. Plays Pajama Pop Pour Vous is interested not so much in being cute as in being cute majestically. Ukulele-driven "Bedroom Bossa Nova" exalts its simple melody and lyrics by letting us gaze at them from a sweeping vista of tropicalia, toy drums, and meticulously breezy production. The glistening harp loops of "Sleepytime Samba" spread out beneath warm beeps and blips with the fragile grandeur of Múm. OK, whistle-led "Pajama Party Pop" could almost be Hot Chip for the seventh-birthday crowd. So cute.
At the same time, Lullatone's latest represents a progression for the
duo. Little by little, their project has become more organic as well
as more indebted to Tomida's girlish vocals, which feature on each of
the new album's eight tracks. Where 2003 debut Computer Recital sought
simple beauty in abstract electronics, Plays Pajama Pop Pour Vous finds
the abstract in beautifully simple songs. These days Lullatone overload
on aesthetic traits frequently viewed as puerile, and they find in them
something transcendent. In the world of Seymour and Tomida, cuteness
is merely beauty of another kind.
-Marc Hogan, January 08, 2007
Lullatone: Plays Pajama Pop Pour Vous
[Audioversity]
This isn't so much of a review as it is an origamied note of thank you to Sean James Seymour and Yoshimi Tomida, the married duo that comprises Lullatone. This is their fourth album of innocent minimalism filled with tiny instruments and twinkling sine waves, and one could even make the argument for this record to end all religious and racial strife on the planet. Hyperbole? Maybe. But I can certainly speak to the changes in my life thanks to Lullatone's patented pajama pop.
Operating out of the city of Nagoya in Japan, Seymour and Tomida have stitched together music for daily life. "Good Morning Melody" begins the treatment for erasing stress and anxiety. Waking is a tricky matter but just follow Tomida's whispered instructions over a pallete of childhood toy instruments and warm electronics. No need for blithering red-faced radio jocks or acrid alarm clock beeping, just ease on into things. "Bedroom Bossa Nova" means a warm cup of tea and your kitten asleep purring in your lap. "Magical..." is just that, five sparkling minutes of Sean's lovely tones and Yoshimi making friends with the robots, planting dandilions behind their ears. All this is only warming us up for "Pajama Party Pop", a song thats not once failed to give me the warm fuzzies with its xylophone, whistling(!) and steady casio beat.
Pajama Pop Pour Vous won't be for everyone, and those people will continue down their long and anger-filled path. As for me, I'm smitten with Lullatone's cute manifesto. In fact, I've sent back my Buddha Machine with a sincere apology letter. Cuter than a kitten covered in birthday cake, this album is the soundtrack for coasting blissfully through your day.
Lullatone: Plays Pajama Pop...
Reviewed By: Maarten Schiethart
Label: Audio Dregs
[Pennyb Black]
UK
A stereotype it is indeed, yet a female singer of Japanese background
adds a degree of sensual, if not innocent, mystery. Lullatone is singer
Yoshimi Tomida and composer Shawn James Seymour. To the untrained ear
Lullatone produce esoterics and whispers. On 'Plays Pajama Pop Pour
Vous', the third album from this duo which resides in Nagoya, Japan
and in New York City, Lullatone, more than before, further refine their
trademark introverted sketches.
In spite of my mention of 'sensual' and the pajama bit in the album
title, this is an album meant for waking up and for starting your day
the right way. Brush your teeth, put on some clothes and go somewhere.
Lullatone recorded these eight cuts onto a cassette which explains several
of their abrupt endings. There is absolutely nothing messy about Lullatone's
music though, where exquisite sophistication embraces the friendly imagination.
Or imaginative friendliness. I am not sure.
Always in balance, with the lovely sounds from their magic carpet being
shrugged off into air, Lullatone's cascade features keyboards and a
toy glockenspiel as key instruments, leading to a sound that is always
lightweight whilst staying lean and keen. The many guest musicians on
'Plays Pajama Pop Pour Vous' provide the vibraphone, ukelele, cello,
steelpan and flute but this album is not an extravagant tombola of sound;
instead the contributions come as small gifts.
Is this children's music for adults perhaps? The serenity of minimal
structures of this collection of wonderfully gentle dance melodies leads
you to think so. Lullatone's pajama pop suits everyone and in a perfect
world they would be recording music for Disney films.
Lullatone: Plays Pajama Pop Pour Vous
The Japan Times
Recorded for over two years in a bedroom, probably at 11 o'clock on
only the laziest of Sunday mornings, the Nagoya duo Lullatone's newest
album is quite possibly the cutest thing that you will hear all year.
While the layered, cut 'n' paste approach to song construction puts Lullatone loosely into the category of electronic music, there is an acoustic, analogue warmth to the recording that is reminiscent of New York's Mice Parade. The songs themselves are pure Japanese indiepop, with Yoshimi Tomida's barely audible, whispered vocals sung over a variety of toy instruments.
There are parallells with the 1990s Shibuya-kei scene, particularly in the playful use of samba, bossa nova and disco rhythms, but Lullatone seem nowhere near as fashion-obsessed as their Tokyo forbears. Instead, their attitude is based in a far more down-to-earth DIY aesthetic that is more consistent with the anything-goes approach of fellow Nagoya musicians such as Nohshinto and Coup Label's excellent "7586 Nagoyarock" compilations.
The arrangements on ". . . Plays Pajama Pop Pour Vous" are minimalist, such as the way the vocal and lead instrument follow exactly the same melody on "Pajama Party Pop" or the trancelike repetition of "Sleepytime Samba"; but they are also deceptively complex, with new instruments dropping in and out and unexpected new melodies beginning beneath the lead to reward the careful listener.
Lullatone: Plays Pajama Pop Pour Vous
[textura]
CA
Lullatone fans can rejoice as Shawn James Seymour and Yoshimi Tomida
return with another delectable collection of sleepytime electro-pop
lullabies. Befitting its ‘pajama' theme, the music is a little
more ‘bedroom'-styled this time around (the material was pre-mastered
onto a vintage cassette 4-track machine to bolster its analogue feel)
and Tomida's whispery vocals now play a more a prominent role, but otherwise
little has changed in the Lullatone universe. Shawn James Seymour has
lost none of his talent for crafting softly tinkling melodies and conjuring
toy orchestra arrangements of sambas and bossa novas from sweetly singing
melodicas, entrancing harp strums, glockenspiels, and keyboards (the
album's bass drum sounds were created from a pillow). Though Plays Pajama
Pop Pour Vous is primarily a duo effort, “Thoughts and Clouds”
converts Lullatone into a small combo with guests adding flute, drums,
wind chimes, steelpan, and vibes to the song's vaporous ambiance. Still,
while the pillow pop music of Lullatone is definitely refreshing, it's
interesting that the album's strongest piece, “Pajama Party Pop,”
is also its most animated, even if the song's major strength is its
potent vocal hook.
January 2007
Lullatone
“Bedroom Bossa Nova”
[Pitchfork]
Two years after Gwen Stefani started dropping the phrase "super
kawaii" (we know, sooo last album), many Americans still aren't
entirely comfortable with cuteness in their music. But much like noise,
coke-rap, or space-disco, being cute-- kawaii is the Japanese word--
has its own underground aesthetic, offering occasional glimpses of the
avant-garde. Japanese ambient duo Lullatone redraw the possibilities
of cute music on "Bedroom Bossa Nova", using toy instruments,
ultra-detailed homemade production, and child-like imagination as their
brightly colored construction paper.
Where the Go! Team's adventure pop and I'm From Barcelona's smiling
choirs rely on superabundance, the emphasis here is on space, which
shouldn't be surprising given the minimal electronic bent of Lullatone's
previous three albums. Think the Boy Least Likely To on a Sigur Rós
scale: Shawn James Seymour's halting ukulele is joined by light, ramshackle
percussion, as Yoshimi Tomida whispers sleepyhead melodies . Birds,
tiny seeds, and meeting the sky "to say hello" become the
most important things in the world for these three minutes. Even Lullatone's
"mistakes"-- a missed strum, a shy giggle-- sound like happy
accidents. It's great getting wound up, but doesn't Stefani ever miss
afternoon naps?
Lullatone: Little Songs About Raindrops
[Grooves]
USA
When does the childlike become childish? Or, to put it another way,
how much leeway does one grant to a work of art that sacrifices complexitty
to present itself in a forum that can, whether intentionally or not,
be readily understood and enjoyed by a child? These questions are hard
to avoid when listening to Lullatone's latest full-length
On Little Songs about Raindrops, his third release as Lullatone, Shawn James Seymour abandons the sine-tone-based approach of his earlier Computer Recital and fills the soundfield with toy pianos and glockenspiels. Each of the ten tracks here is like a miniature symphony, bewiching the listener with tiny strands and clusters of melody, while every so often there is a little splash of color from melodic, ukelele, or voice. As the title and cover indicate, teh music is intended to depict rainfall, which if does perfectly with its pitter-pattering melodic presence and nurserry rhymes.
The album's twinkling repetitiveness recalls the minimalistic orchestrations
of Steve Reich and, especially Raymond Scott's delightful Soothing
Soudns for Baby. Like Scott's electronic lullabies, Little
Songs about Raindrops retains an air of stilled wonderment that
transcends its childlike surface. My one-year-old loves it, and you
will too.
-Richard Rees Jones
Lullatone: Little Songs About Raindrops
[Cyclic Defrost]
Aus
With Little Songs About Raindrops, Shawn James Seymour (Lullatone)
shifts the focus away from the pure sine tones of last year's Computer
Recital to a more expansive toy orchestra sound. Stylistically, his
music retains its previous child-like, innocent qualities but now sounds
even prettier. As before, the songs are charming moodscapes that cumulatively
induce a peaceful reverie; there's no conventional rhythmic base to
speak of, the closest thing to it a faint click that repeats throughout
“Leaves Falling” like raindrop patter. Obviously one presumes
that his recent move to Nagoya, Japan catalyzed the stylistic changes,
as the music is now statelier and often as delicate as a Japanese garden.
It's also less minimal than before, as Seymour is joined by singer Yoshimi
Tomida on four songs, plus guitar and ukulele players on others. Adding
to its charm is its occasional home-made feel, with brief music box
tracks like “My Petit Prelude” and “Pitter Patter
Interlude” sounding like they were recorded in Seymour's bedroom.
Those are slight pieces, however, mere fragments compared to longer
and more intricate songs like “Morning Coffee” where glockenspiels
and gamelan chimes interweave with growing intensity. Amidst string
plucks, a melodica sound adds a nostalgic air to the song's meditative
mood as it does to other songs. Admittedly, a sameness in the sound
and style starts to emerge by the midway point of the recording—most
tracks develop from intricate interweaves of melodic patterns—but
there's no denying the lovely marriage of lapping ukulele strums and
looping glockenspiel melodies in “Leaves Falling” or the
appealing onomatopoeic qualities of “Drip Drops Jumping On An
Umbrella” where guitar plucks mimic bouncing water droplets.
-Ron Schepper
Lullatone: Little Songs About Raindrops
[XLR8R] USA
...Shawn james Seymour (Lulaltone) shares Wall's taste for
looped sound. Parades of cascading bells, toy xylephones, plastic pianos,
and small stringed stringed instruments all take part in Seymour's remarkable
plight to paint colorr through tintinnabulation, and the results are
wounderful.
-Alexis Georgopolous
Lullatone, 'Little Songs About Raindrops'
[Loop] (Chile)
A new work of the North American Shawn James Seymour after
his previous 'Computer Music' [2003]. This time Shawn replaces the sine
tones by toy xylophones and showcase a more acoustic work, always delicate
and subtle, in the minimal slope of Steve Reich [please listen for example
his 'Drumming' album] and childish melodies songs. In this album - with
the finest design of Eric Must [E*Rock] of painted raindrops with the
primary colors -, we can listen to Nicholas Cox's viola on "Puddles
on the playground", or the guitar of Keiichi Sugimoto [Fonica/Cubic
Music] on the tracks 'Yesterday' and 'Drip drops jumping on an umbrella',
and the hidden and velvet voice of his companion Yoshimi Tomida.
Lullatone seems to be of a different place from this afflicted planet
and with his music he teaches us that behind the simples things beauty
comes out. More info at audiodregs Text Guillermo Escudero
July 2004
Lullatone - Little Songs About Raindrops
[de:bug] (Germany)
If you do not know already, more nicely goes. 10 TRACKS of
Lullatone, which move somewhere between a ringing Mobilie from children's
game things melodies and digital variants of the domesticity Laptop
arrangements, which naturally always are bezaubernd and, since it is
Lullatone, also freely from all Kitsch, but seriously those in such
a way produces meant great miniatures for the digital everyday life
with our four-legged friends and the easy slow movements and illusions
the environment called world. The pieces are called e.g.. "Afternoon
Nap (For Pets)","Morning Coffee" or "Drip drop Jumping
on at Umbrella" and exactly the same also listens to it and it
is condemned beautifully that it such music gives oneself. Whether there
is however really this peacefulness, we hope times.
-bleed *****
Lullatone - Little Songs About Raindrops
[Stylus]
USA
Unlike the previous two, Lullatone’s third album is not based
on sine waves and their symphonic capabilities. Instead, Shawn Seymour
reverted back to his first love, toy instruments, for the majority of
the musical output on Little Songs About Raindrops. Before Seymour moved
to Japan for school a few years ago, he was busy experimenting with
simple keyboards and toy instruments. When the time came to move, one
keyboard went with him and the instruments stayed behind.
Perhaps that’s one reason, then, that the music here is so naïve and affecting. Or it could be that anything played on toy instruments is going to inhabit that space. Either way, Little Songs About Raindrops continues in the same melodic path as its predecessors. The songs are composed with a minimal amount of instruments, are intricately woven and all seem to refer back to a much simpler and gentler time.
But a time, nonetheless, when samplers and laptops ruled the world, because, make no mistake, for all of the fey and doe-eyed innocence that the sounds on the record conjure up, Seymour is a skilled manipulator with the laptop.
“Yesterday” makes this much clear from the beginning, as
a mess of electronic tones wind their way within, over and under Yoshimi
Tomida’s voice and a sampled guitar. But it’s followed up
on “Wake Up Wake Up” by the aforementioned toys: music boxes,
miniature xylophones and others. These tones, on each track throughout
the album, interweave with one another to create complex lullabies that
seem simple, at first hearing.
But Seymour’s talent lies in this deception. Because while the
instruments denote childhood, the arrangements belie someone far more
experienced at the controls. “Leaves Falling”, for example,
uses subtle digital stuttering to masterful effect, amid a multi-hued
interlocking melody and counterpoint.
But, for all this talk about toys and naivete and Casio keyboards, the inevitable question is: does it hold up over its length? The answer is yes and no. If you’re in the mood for such a thing, Little Songs About Raindrops is the perfect after-work or late-night comedown. Pleasant, innocuous and pretty, the album falls directly into line with Lullatone’s previous work. But, at the same time, it’s not good for much else. While minimalism, as Seymour suggests in a recent interview, can be cute, the two put together doesn’t also engage the listener past the novelty aspect.
That doesn’t seem to be the point, though. Whereas Seymour’s
sine wave experiments were useful for their exploration for the obvious
and immediate beauty of the sine wave, Seymour’s fascination with
toy instruments is just that. Think of it as a love letter to the instruments
and ideas that got him here. It’s not challenging, but it sure
is pretty, isn’t it?
Reviewed by: Todd Burns
Lullatone - Little Songs About Raindrops
[just add noise]
(USA)
As its title suggests, listening to this pretty little ditty reminds
me, irremediably and immediately, about rain, the simple rain I used
to watch through the window as it fell outside of my parents home when
I was as a small boy; back then, free, happy, optimistic and with very
little to worry about. It could also serve as an early reminder of how
the rain still drops and wets my hair, as the water slowly runs across
my ears and forehead, making me aware and happy of it. It could be as
simple as a morning drizzle or an early summer shower, but the reality
of this recording may be as complex as the physical and chemical reaction
that produces the rain to fall from the skies.
The world Shawn James Seymour, a young American currently living in Japan, creates as Lullatone is filled with tones, timbres and fragile rhythms that open up, sparkle and shine across the surface. More than just pretty sounds processed erratically, each track has its own depth, embellished by carefully plucked strings, voices and random sounds that never seem to get in the way. In essence, each song is a tribute to those small details that make up everyday life, like waking up, drinking coffee in the mornings, watching your pet take a nap, or thinking about yesterday. More than just a record of electronic lullabies or playful sounds, this is a soundtrack that weaves and connects precious moments into the time and space around us.
“Little songs about raindrops”, originally released in Japan last year on Plop records, is truly a breath of fresh air in the crowded marketplace of indietronics. Whereas many tend to focus on style and attitude, Lullatone focuses on the beauty of sound detail and design; making those past memories to surface once again if only to watch them fade away again as the recording starts to end. [Ejival]
Lullatone - Computer Recital
[absorb.org]
UK
composed entirely of clear and distinctive lullaby-style tones (like,
er, hence the name!), lullatone (brainchild of shawn james seymour)
recalls the leftfield whimsy of certain french laptop artists such as
dorine muraille and un caddie renverse dans l'herbe, but without all
their distracting and sometimes self-conscious embellishments.
'computer recital' is for the most part beatless: compositions build from loops of delicate melody that are woven in as the tracks progress. the result, as on 'my second favourite song in the world' or 'coloring' is an uncluttered exercise in musical discipline, as complete and self-contained as a snowflake.
'resound' introduces the addition of soft, pulsing beats, so unobtrusive
that it sounds almost reluctant. they are a welcome addition however,
giving the glacial tones warmth and an emotive quality, similar to what
you might find on early casino vs japan material. that reference also
seems apposite in another way, as there is a distinctly japanese flavour
to some of these compositions: simple, delicate harmonies provide a
refreshing reprieve from the incessant aural clutter of urban living.
reviewed by elizabeth wells
Lullatone - Computer Recital
[avant.folk]
Spain
We can understand the minimalismo of two ways. Like the pioneers who
from mid the '60's generated and developed this method, that is to say,
with an amount of notes very reduced to obtain a maximalist sound, by
means of the repetition and superposition of curls. Or with the methodology
of the minimum sound that prevailed in the '90's, where the silences
and the microsounds take a vital importance. Lullatone does both, combining
in an intelligent way, playing with the acute frequencies of exemplary
way in this debut disc for Audio Dregs, after an mp3-ep for the online
label Observatory. If LaMonte Young abused our brain (and our patience)
with its sine waves, Lullatone abuses (in the good sense) our heart.
With the manipulation of these 'pitidos' of extreme sharpness and the
details of keyboard, vibráfono and treated voices is able to
take to good port which in theory would seem impossible. Compact, homogenous,
environmental and round a work.
Lullatone - Computer Recital
[Penny
Black] UK
Getting it at you straightaway, Lullatone's 'Computer Recital' opens
up the squeeks and twitches from a PC keyboard with great impact in
the opening 'Make This Sound'. Sharp electronic sounds, like fingerclicking
in a slow-ish samba fashion, pitch you up, to never return to base again.
Arisen from just a few tones, is a formula which lasts throughout an
entire album. Both artist name and album title aptly describe content.
I guess that comes with computer orientated sounds. These need filing.
Way back when, Lullatone, whoever he or she might be, would had been
a genial pianoplayer. 2003 going on 2004, Lullatone also is a reference
name. 'Computer Recital' refers to a language familiar with most. Anywhere
like it, this Audio Dregs CD revokes when The Ace Of Spades gets in.
The Devil made Lullatone do it and 'Computer Recital' makes itself heard
on those tracks, just when it seemed to be safe to walk them. The album
is a digital demand to return to base and it should carry answers. Lullatone
leaves all out in the open while the 'Computer Recital' album closes
in. Lullatone explores the magic of abstraction so well, it passes by
unnoticed. Once there was a Pianosaurus mini-album of music played on
kids' toys and it re-occurred to me how crisply that brought back childhood
just when the Lullatone version of 'Frère Jacques, dormez-vous?'
cropped up, now as 'My Second Favorite Song In The World' . The pureness
in micro-chip sound, the innocence of melodic electronica, stands out
on 'Computer Recital'. Even when maturity is obvious, Lullatone holds
on to original ideas. This french lullaby evergreen gets a reprise when
it's the middle part of side two of 'Computer Recital' and takes up
the finishing lines as well.
-Maarten Schiethart
Lullatone - Computer Recital
[Free
Williamsburg] US
Ever since the release of Brian Eno's "Discreet Music" in
1975, ambient music has become a widely accepted genre of music and
mode of expression, and has since morphed into all kinds of subcategories.
Thus, some 30 years later, ambient music has come to mean different
things to different people, but typically the term refers to quiet,
slowly shifting sounds that are best enjoyed as a kind of environmental
backdrop.
The genre has become widely popular with electronic musicians, especially those with a penchant for minimalism, sound-art, and processed field recordings. However, many a powerbook is being flipped open to further expand upon the genre as a kind of pop music. This seems to be the direction that Shawn Seymour, a.k.a. Lullatone, is taking on his debut Audio Dregs full-length "Computer Recital."
Composed largely of warm, ringing tones and tinkly synth sounds, Lullatone's music has a child-like innocence about it that evokes blurred memories of baby toys and charm bracelets. "My Favorite Song In The World" begins with what sounds like the refrain from the alphabet song, and the simplistic, playful sequences of "Coloring" and "Tracing" sound like they were conjured up from an old wind-up music box or snowglobe.
While I might describe his music as ambience for infants, his understated
repetitions and subtle, shifting melodies would lull most adult listeners
into a state of tranquillity. Occasionally a soft high-hat will make
itself barely known, but for the most part, "Computer Recital"
is a soft, cuddly cloud of a recording readymade for mood enhancement.
-- SK
Lullatone - Computer Recital
[giant robot #30] USA
These pretty casiotone lullabies sound like something that would accompany
a baby's crib toy. I wouldn't rock this at a party, but it might work
at some weird art show, poetry reading, silent movie theatre, or long
drive. It's background music that will probably help you think through
some of your issues. Brcause of the steady consistent ryhthm, it might
help you work harder or faster. I feel like one of Santa's elves putting
together some toys while this plays, although the music does get more
minimal here and there.
-en
Lullatone - Computer Recital
[Grooves
, issue 11, Summer 2003] USA
Computer Recital is 40 minutes of gentle sine wave tones that perpetually
reconfigure themselves into simple lullabies and music box melodies.
Don’t confuse Lullatone (Shawn James Seymour), however, with Ryoji
Ikeda, another sound artist whose music is well known for its employment
of sine waves. Comparatively speaking, Ikeda’s music is cold,
severe, and clinical, whereas Lullatone’s is intimate, inviting,
and warm. It evokes the remembered (or more likely reimagined) ambiance
of a child’s bedroom, with musical bells chiming in a mobile hovering
over a sleeping infant’s crib. That the inner photograph shows
Seymour playing a child’s multi-hued glockenspiel dovetails perfectly
with the innocent and playful mood of the recording itself.
Most tracks adhere to a common template whereby multiple layers of treble sine wave melodies interweave. That ‘My Second Favorite Song in the World’ begins in an almost Reichian manner is no accident, as much of the recording deploys a similar strategy of cycling patterns favoured by minimalist composers like Steve Reich and Philip Glass. While the sine waves do maintain a consistency of tone throughout, they sometimes resemble gently played kalimbas and percussive bells. Other instruments are added subtly to broaden the overall sound. An understated drum pattern emerges on ‘Resound,’ and heartbeats and heavily processed vocals by Sookmi Park appear on ‘Tracing.’ ‘Make This Sound’ incorporates a clicking rhythm pattern that discreetly hints at a clicks’n’cuts connection.
Computer Recital is the kind of recording that will only impress if
one listens to it in accordance with the stringent terms of reception
that it implicitly sets forth. Otherwise, one will hear it as too repetitive
and too unvarying in its mood. One will bemoan the absence of instrumental
contrast, will become impatient with its incessancy, and will lead one
to argue that 40 minutes of such gentle sine wave noodling is perhaps
30 minutes more than is necessary. While all such criticisms could be
argued with legitimacy, they also evidence the adoption of a misguided
mindset in broaching Lullatone’s delicate music.
-Ron Schepper
Lullatone
Computer Recital
[pitchfork]
USA
Consider the sine wave. It's the purest tone possible, a smooth wave
without overtones. A sine wave, if reproduced properly, sounds exactly
the same as another sine wave at the same frequency. Perhaps because
few sounds in nature are true sine waves (some insects come close),
we associate sine waves with machines. Ryoji Ikeda builds much of his
music from sine waves, and the tone of his music reflects an abstract,
mechanized and mathematical world. Ikeda has made some mind-blowing
music that, to me, doesn't sound particularly human. It's music that
seems pulled from some philosophical plane and injected directly into
my brain.
But Ikeda's ideas are only part of the sine wave story. I wonder if-- for American kids, at least-- a lifetime of exposure to the emergency broadcast system tests hasn't given sine waves a twinge of humanizing nostalgia. I remember tests while Electric Company played, and I remembered the real thing when a tornado would touch down in the area. I hear sine waves now and it triggers vague memories of being huddled with my family in a damp basement with the radio on, hearing the branches rattling against the house as the wind whipped outside: "Bzzzzz. This is the Emergency Broadcast System... a tornado warning is in effect for..." The familiar EBS tone was not actually a sine wave; the combination of two tones, 853 Hz and 960 Hz, gave the sound a slightly grating edge meant to signal "danger." But it was close, and it was the kind of thing you paid attention to when you were a kid. The EBS tone, though ostensibly a warning, had a certain comfort to it.
On Computer Recital, Lullatone has found a way to take sine waves and arrange them into soft, gentle little lullabies, and I can't help but wonder if Shawn Seymour (Lullatone's driving force) feels a similar sense of nostalgia. This is music that instantly seems connected to pleasant childhood memories. Lullatone gets some of his warmth from the sine waves by not being a purist. While he makes regular use of clean tones, he mixes them with tones enriched with a dollop of harmonic distortion, in addition to tossing in some other instruments occasionally. So you get some organ, little hints of percussion, and even a subtle vocal.
Lullatone's melodies are the repetitive and sequenced sort that minimalist composers added to music's vocabulary, and though tracks are easy enough to tell apart, the mood from one to the next varies little. Computer Recital is a calm, clean, reflective musical space that seems intimately connected with sounds coming from Japan, despite Lullatone's home base in Louisville. More than any single record, Computer Recital reminds me of the patient, measured melodicism of Nobukazu Takemura collaborator Aki Tsuyuko's solo album Ongakushitsu. It definitely sounds like something that could have come out on Childisc (witness titles like "Coloring" and "Plastic Toy Record Player"), and, deepening the connection, Lullatone's only other release is a split-single with Takemura alias Child's View.
Even with these obvious inspirations, Lullatone doesn't seem derivative--
or, more accurately, the fact that it may be derivative doesn't much
matter. There's something in Computer Recital's single-minded pursuit
of simple beauty that personalizes the record. Everything about it radiates
smallness and intimacy; it's intended for one-on-one communication,
and hence, consideration of outside references seems unimportant and
possibly even intrusive. The only requirements for enjoying Computer
Recital are ears and the ability to daydream.
-Mark Richardson, June 2nd, 2003
E*ROCK - Conscious
LULLATONE - Computer Recital
[xlr8r] (US)
Portland, OR, long one of North America's prime fiefdoms of indie, is
slowly becoming known for a particular brand of electronic music, fusing
pot-rock instrumetnation with delicate digital manipulations. E*Rock,
founder of Audio Dregs and publisher of Thumb zine, offers
lo-fi collages of guitar, drums and found sounds like Frippertronic
pop on the verge of coming unglued. Labelmate Lullatone's Compuer
Recital, taking cues from Christoe Charles, beads curtains of bell
tones that ripple like blown glass. Perfect for waking up to-every alarm
clock should come equipped with these vanila-sky sonic motifs.
-Philip Sherburne
Lullatone - Computer Recital (audio Dregs/ADR047)
[de:bug]
(Germany)
(rough translation from German by google)
In the USA, then it seems, has ever more Kids fear the house to leave.
If they are not straight in Japan on route, they remain themselves endeavoring
then rather inside and to take up the perfect play clock plate. We ask
as universal substitute symbols for bell plays of Bontempi, Casio Sinusgefiepe
in the garb of franzoesichen tradition Alco verse and err slow Repetetivschleifen
à la have we forgotten to understand. Speak: on the Kirmes for
hamsters and Schluempfe (Weihnachts Season) Lullatone would have to
play at least five Gigs per day. That is not homogeneous not hectically,
it simply nobody in the world on the idea would come to take up so a
plate. Clearly that that pleases Mr. Takemura it engaged, equal the
Lullatone for a further album. That comes then sometime. Up to then
we have however only that here. And here Hoppy "comes and then"
Bye Bye Bye "to" Poppy "". Other world, completely
clearly. Improves world, which otherwise.
thaddi ****
Lullatone - computer Recital
[autres
directions] (France)
As much of discs published under one of the most beautiful
current electronic banners, Audio Dregs (Inkblot, Carpet Musics, Supersprite...),
Lullatone astonishes and enchants. Announced, deferred many times many
times, this first opus of the artist Shawn James Seymour had put to
us water with the mouth thanks to some mp3s, Split 7"with Child'
S View (project of Nobukazu Takemura) and, it should be acknowledged,
a charming imagery. Using of pure frequencies (sinusoidal signals) which
it transforms into pretty childish melodies, Lullatone creates musical
spaces of play for all small with discovered of their hearing... Near
to Child' S View, Lullatone could have been called Child' S Ear. Of
the musical boxes answer some breaths in withdrawal, of pulsate discrete
are repeated in a corner, evoking the universe of the Japanese label
Plop (Fonica). The described compositions are all at the same time air,
delicate, sincere and touching. They hide under this pop and mélodieux
aspect a consequent work on the sound and textures. Computer Recital
is between the cloud of chantilly and the ice with mint. In the blue
clouds If I plunge the eyes In a dream enchantor I see to open the skies!
-stéphane
LULLATONE - computer Recital
[Loop]
(Chile)
Shawn James Seymour becomes involved in its own box of Lullatone music,
"Computer Recital", Audio Dregs, 2003 Shawn James Seymour
seems a boy who plays with his box of music, hidden in some room with
toys like the xylophone that makes tililar so innocently to remove from
melodías which they fracture and they shake. Shawn guessed to
the thought to E*Rock (Co-director to him of the magnificent Audio seal
Dregs) when it commented to him that he made music that well could fit
in its label. Then, nothing else to listen to "Computer Music",
Lullatone would belong in form immediate to roster of the seal of Portland.
"Make this sound" that opens east album contains a symphony
of pure tone, so prístino and minimal of which it only is to
wait for his echoes and silencios. "Resound" develops in a
somewhat different but definitively intimate and cosy atmosphere. Hardly
delicate beat and loop without return that surrounds with its timbres
and imperceptible percussions. It will be necessary to be kind to the
second delivery of Lullatone that will do by the seal of Nobukazu Takemura
Childisc. Surely it will be another delicate work as she is this.
Child’s View / Lullatone ‘Split’ (Audio Dregs)
[Losing Today]
UK
Another curious release and one we have absolutely no idea about (make’s
a change, eh?), this time on clear vinyl and limited to 500 pressings.
Lullatone, do as their name suggests on the soothing ‘Raindrops
keep falling on my xylophone’. Lone Louisville based Shawn James
Seymour delivers some neat oriental sounding music box variations that
recall the serene exotic imagery provided by ISAN on their ‘Digitalis’
long-player while tempering the appeal further with an overall sense
of Raymond Scott’s lullabies for children projects woven into
the script.
Child’s View is the sideline project of Nobukazu Takemura who
conjures up a tasty collage of skipping beats, fluid clicks, irregular
rhythms with a serious down tempo appeal. Awkward arrangements jig up,
down and sideways in an attempt to mess with your head, try imagining
Mum in sedate mood in ghostly tripping mode. A very cute release indeed.
Child’s View / Lullatone ‘Split’ (Audio Dregs)
[Stylus]
USA
This record is the only street-legal, industry-approved meeting
between the two – and, perhaps surprisingly (not me, though),
Takemura’s Child’s View offering definitely brings the record
down. “Woods” is far from his strongest offering and it
seems like a I’m-too-good-for-this throw-away track. The vocals
are half-heartedly processed and the beats are bland at best. Lullatone
brings the only real signs of life on the record with his laid-back
digital-lo-fi piece “Raindrops Falling on My Xylophone.”
The title sums this piece up better than anything I could say about
it, so I will simply confirm that it is awesome.
[Mike Shiflet]
CHILD'S VIEW/LULLATONE: Postcards V.3 7"split
[ich hasse die media]
Spain
interesting this idea of gathering in a 7" a well-known artist,
a veteran in this stuff of the music, Nobukazu Takemura (here under
his old nick: child's view) with a precoucious young guy (21 years old),
unknown name, but ready to jump to the top of the hill of the best pop
and dreamy electronic music: lullatone. child's view attacks with intensive
and crunchy beats and Aki Tsuyoko's voice in a very robotic-vocoder
style. Track by Shawn James Seymour (lullatone) is a small lullaby,
[ culocranky ]
