By Jordan Fritz
Proving once and for all that people who use Macbooks aren’t necessarily useless, Kashiwa Daisuke envelops the listener within his own imagination in 5 Dec. Daisuke is not a musician, but a visionary. As a follow-up to 2007’s instrumental poetry reinterpretations, program music I, 5 Dec quickly moves from an uneasy ambience to overwhelming swells of brilliance. Invoking everything from Ryuichi Sakamoto to Prefuse 73 to Frank Zappa, this album may seem like a bit much to ingest in one sitting.
“Red Moon” lulls the listener into a calm, only to have “Requiem” breakbeat and glitch the world atwain. Venturing deep into the realm of prog-rock temporarily, albeit tastefully, in the aptly titled “Bogus Music,” Daisuke pulls back into a deep dub beat heavily laden with distant piano and static samples. Daisuke-chan stays within the boundaries of no genres, opting to clear his own path through the dense world of music.
Anyone looking for a challenge, a new experience, or who happens to love ambient music already should do themselves a favour and give an hour of their time to this man.