Search - Yamamoto Seiichi :: Nu Frequency

Difficult ramblings by a colorful guitarist

vyper | Minneapolis | 10/31/2004

(2 out of 5 stars)

"It's hard for me to critique this album,as it is all instrumentals and ambient sounds,without any obvious hooks or strong melodies to give the potential buyer a clear picture of what's in store.



The reason I bought this album is,I guess because I am a Yamamoto completist.I don't know how technically proficient Yamamoto is,he's certainly not a virtuoso by any means.But I do like the textures and colors he often comes up with,and at times he can come up with very nice melodies.



This album is very hard to describe,I wouldn't want to say it's jazz because I cannot judge what jazz is,or what techniques may appear on this album.



Nu Frequency,from a layman's point of view,contains deliberate klutzy percussion,melodies and chord progressions that meander,fade in and out,start and then disappear altogether.Like his next album Baptism,you can almost picture Yamamoto hitting "record"and noodling with his guitar,becoming bored with things,dropping them,pausing,and starting another lick.



This album is generally low key,I don't know if any of it was improvised,but it certainly sounds that way.Yamamoto seems to favor some type of personal chaos,where he throws together a bunch of half formed ideas,improvs,etc.and let's the listener try to digest it all.



I sometimes call Yamamoto's recent offerings"Klutzy Ambient",because the mood and ideas are THERE,but Yamamoto seems unwilling to put a definite stamp on his songs.This work I think would benefit more from a more focused musical end result on Yamamoto's part,for in small doses,Yamamoto can be highly enjoyable,but if he has too much space he can wander here and there and you're left wondering"what was your point?""