Search - Cornelius :: Point

Make a "Point"

E. A Solinas | MD USA | 10/31/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Japanese avant-pop-trippist Cornelius (real name: Keigo Oyamada) had a hard act to follow after 1997's "Fantasma," an electronic masterpiece. But "Point" doesn't disappoint -- it's more experimental, spacier and almost hypnotic, a twist of rock, experimental electronica and dreampop.



"Point of View Point" may be the highlight of the album -- sharp guitar strums overlaid by some intermittent blasts of drums, an eerie bright hum and "left/right/left/RIGHT!" It's lush, sunny and memorable, and the sort of pop that sticks in your head -- in a good way, like a trippier version of the Beach Boys or Beatles.



There's a wildly different sound in "Smoke's" a bouncy funky groove and "Drop's" a strummy pop. Shifting the tone is "Tone Twilight," a dreamy slow pop song with an ambient touch. Then Cornelius does an about-face in "I Hate Hate" with a spray of abrasive electronics leading to some aggressive, bombastic electro-rock.



Rock. Trip-hop. Ambient. Blues. Lounge jazz. Funk. All are woven into this album, along with some wicked vocal samples and a sprinkling of experimental sound effects. All of this to apparently illustrate Cornelius's thoughts on nature and machines, clashing and yet musically intertwined.



The guitars and drums are absolutely brilliant -- one moment they're bluesy, then bombastic, then gentle acoustics. Laid over the basic bones is an array of electronic music -- the wavy wails of "Another View Point," discordant spray in "I Hate Hate," or sparkling blips of "Brazil." But Cornelius knows when to put the electronics in the backseat and just let the instruments take over.



He also takes it one step further by laying in samples like falling water or singing birds. The birds especially show up in the two-song cycle of "Tone Twilight Zone" and "Bird Watching At Inner Forest," which sound like a rainforest soundtrack. And the vocals are inobtrusive. It's not hard to hear them, but the vocals are so submerged in the mix that they sound almost like another instrument.



Cornelius shows again that he's a master of avant-pop in "Point," a worthy follow-up to the outstanding "Fantasma." Beautiful, eerie, and fiery, this is a definite keeper for indie-electro fans."

Point

superball9 | Arlington, VA, USA | 11/29/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Perhaps the musical equivalent of Derrida, Japanese sonic collagist Cornelius uses his latest release, Point, to deconstruct music and sound using binary oppositions to show the instability of his preferred artform. This is not a novel idea for birth-named Keigo Oyamada as his much-heralded 1998 international debut, Fantasma, made good on the same subject but from a more light-hearted point of view. Where as Fantasma was the know-it-all student walking into class on the first day eager to demonstrate his skill and superiority for the rest of the class, Point is the more mature professor awaiting him. Cornelius achieves his deconstructionist task by showing how each element of Point directs (errr, points) the listener to an opposing ingredient eventually circling back to its initial starting place (errr, point) as songs flow seamlessly together united by something as simple as the sound of water or birds. The primary oppositions Cornelius brings to the fore of his music are that of man vs. machine, and nature vs. mechanization. "Drop" is a perfect example of this concept. It begins with the sound of peacefully moving water, then adds a simple acoustic guitar track to the mix, ultimately showing that it is the water that keeps much of the song's beat. "Drop" segues into "Another View Point" with the cascading water giving way to a sequencer playing the same beat as the flowing stream. Demonstrating its circular and contradictory nature, Point begins and ends with a single sustained piano note morphing into an automated tone. In the opening track, "Bug (Electric Last Minute)," a single sustained piano note gives way to the crashing of a digital sound machine while the closing number, "Nowhere," ends the disc with the crashing of a phonograph lid terminating both the note and the white noise produced by a record stylus in an empty groove. It is this binary that Point rips apart so effortlessly with the piano, water, and phonograph on one side with the white noise, sequencer, and digital crash on the other. With Point Oyamada shows how these elements are oppositional yet are inherently one and the same."

I'm going to make a "Point" of telling you to buy this....

fetish_2000 | U.K. | 08/26/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Cornelius is a strange artist.....his recording schedule is hardly prolific. (recording only a Handful of albums since 1995), yet he has a devoted fan base, that laps up his eclectic range of Alternative Pop/Rock & Freewheeling Indie-Electronica. He blends gleefully upbeat beach-boy harmonies with elements of Garage-Rock, Dream Pop, acoustic, exotica & Shibuya-Kei (think 'J-Pop'), to Dizzying effect and has a knack for twisting or presenting songs in a abstract or innovative way, that has earned him his cult status.



The acoustic strum of "Point Of View Point", is a delightfully playful Pop song. Organic and summery, this is the sort of psychedelic Sunshine pop that the 'Beach Boys' used to do so well, with insistent drum beats and acoustic guitar strumming the order of the day, the lush beach boys-styled harmonies sporadically interspersing over the top, are a complete throwback compared to the sort of music that was being released around its 2002 release, and actually stands out as one of the (many) highlights on this extraordinary album.



"Smoke" mines an especially weird area between kitsch-pop & guitar funk (seriously!!), in which the almost twee sounding instrumentation sounding like something from a 'Belle & Sebastian' instrumental, is coupled with a 'Bootsy Collins' styled funk Guitar riff looped over the top. And that's not before the Sweet harmonies suddenly spring into life, and take the track into a different place completely. Its important to note that tracks like this, aptly demonstrate Cornelius' fantastic ability to takes disparate ideas, and gel them into cohesive songs.



"Tone Twilight Zone" is an instrumental track that could, have so easily sound tracked any one of the large amount of reflective Singer/Songwriter albums that are out there, strummed acoustic guitar, with swooning, dreamy soft-touches, develops from an airy bounce into some delicious, dynamic, sweepingly subtle chord changes. Subtle, minimal and cleverly devised, this is Cornelius doing an Ambient instrumental track, with a mastery that explores his many influences.



Cornelius gets a chance to express his more 'Aggressive' side with a track that pitches it's tent in the fierce Garage-rock genre. With the Intense & Energetic Garage Punk Guitar workout of "I Hate", which....with it's Chugging Guitar Exuberant drums, its laced throughout with weird Electronic Bleeps & Sounds peppered over the course of this minute running time, by which point the sound of someone going "Ssssh!" rounds out the track and leads immediately into the sublimely downtempo and wistful "Brazil", that uses a blues-guitar and Electronica vocal sampling to a smooth and Sensual sounding Electonica track, but with guitar instrumentation, and is so lovingly crafted, so finely detailed, that comparisons with Cornelius' similar artists almost seems laughable, as he's so far ahead of the game, its not even funny.



His well known love for "Exotica" is amply played out with the closer "Nowhere" which is swanky lounge driven exotica of the highest order. Carefree and pleasantly rambling, whispery intertwining and notable for its superb implementation of soothing trombone. Cornelius rounds out the album with an air of knowing cool, rather than a loud noisy conclusion.



"Point's" eclecticism is one of it greatest assets and shows that there are people out there taken Pop-orientated music into new and interesting directions (albeit viewed through a Japanese-pop filter). If Artists that are take elements of Pop music and experiment with it and bend it into new interesting shapes, or musicians that take rock music and soften the edges (Artists like: Stereolab, Money Mark, Cibo Matto, Fantastic Plastic Machine, Broadcast & Mouse on Mars spring to mind), then you'll get along famously with this melting pot of musical genres. It truly is a remarkable album that admirably tries to extend its boundaries (and largely succeeds), this is sublime Alternative Pop/Rock, of the highest magnitude."