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Miki Yui

Silence Resounding

LINE is proud to present the third full length work by Miki Yui, Silence Resounding. This is the second CD for Yui on LINE. Silence Resounding was made after working on a series of Installations and compositions, relating to environment and to acoustic perception. It draws a map between acoustic landscapes and amorphous memories.

Silence Resounding is a continuation of aesthetic themes from Miki Yui’s well received 2000 release lupe luep peul epul (LINE_003) taking sounds recorded in various spaces, often sampler processed natural/acoustically based, and woven them into intricate multi-layered compositions. These acoustic fragments are meant to fill in the sonic environmental gaps and create a new space that implies a layer of memories. Her sounds mirror memory loopsÜbits and pieces of past sights, visions, feelings, echoed in warm sine tones, clicks, grit, and vibrating timbresÜrecalled and then merged into the environment to return as new memories that let the listener sink into the moment of listening, creating a loop.

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Catalog:
LINE_015
Format:
CD
Edition:
500
Release:
July 2003
Tracklist:
  1. ancienne (02:09)
  2. smoke (04:10)
  3. out in the dark (05:59)
  4. small fish (01:17)
  5. atomu (03:23)
  6. garden (05:23)
  7. golden drop (03:53)
  8. at a harbour (01:59)
  9. d.rain (04:16)
  10. atomo.sphere (02:46)
  11. tele (02:31)

Tokyo born sound/installation artist Miki Yui currently resides in Düsseldorf, Germany. She has presented her work in galleries and as soundtracks to theatre/dance performance and film/video productions across Europe and Japan. Her compositions have been previously featured on 12k’s untitled compilation (12k1008) in 2000 as well as the 12k/LINE compilation between two points. (12k1000/LINE_004) in 2001. mikiyui.com

REVIEWS OF
Silence Resounding

  • Consequently, and without paying much attention to detail, the wayward pedestrian new to Miki Yui’s music may take much of Silence Resounding as New Age environmental tweeness. While that may not be an entirely incorrect proclamation (take “Smoke”, which amplifies the white noise of precipitation into a sea looming with electrostatic charges), Yui uses a familiar palette of sounds that have a knack for simultaneously pacifying and agitating those who wish to absorb it. Ergo, squealing shortwave fallout gets trampled beneath feedback on “Small Fish,” while birds chirp and squawk below the rumbles of distant thunder and preening synthesized ectograms on “D. Rain”. Silence Resounding is something of a darkhorse; eclectic in the narrative of its patterns, it is at times a frustrating, confounding listen yet, in the most pragmatic sense, keeps in Line with the label’s diminuitive ambitions. (e/i Magazine, US)

  • Unusual electronic environments are emitted from Silence Resounding are they real or imagined? Perhaps they are now-real because they were imagined by Miki Yui? Subtle eclecticism sprawls in these mini-soundscapes. Bubbly sci-fi atmospheres warble and blip in the computeriffic-sounding stew of Ancienne, followed by the watery sizzle called Smoke which swishes and spews indecipherably. Blurty swirls of feedback and scree emit from… Small Fish?! In Atomu, ephemeral warbles rise and fade, like the output of mournful electric loons. After moments of practical nothingness, Garden (5:59) begins to bloom, a bit… with a few rows of crystallized jet-trail gusts. Twitchy unknowns slip like tiny digital ghosts through Golden Dropp (1:17). In more-mechanical At A Harbour, distant thrums swirl, accented by occasional elevator-like dings, rippling vapors and not-quite-rhythmic scritches… oddly peaceful! The very faint harmonica-like scrawls of D. Rain are topped with twittering birdlife and what may be weather-related activities. Thin tendrils hover above Tele, as some unseen lifeform barely squeaks, but mostly just possibly-exist in a gaseous nonplace. It’s not the silence, but the hushed little oddities that arise out of it from time to time… With 11 tracks in 38 minutes, Silence Resounding is interlaced with softly esoteric textures as envisioned by Miki Yui. It’s always interesting to hear the feminine point-of-view when it comes to ambient abstractions! B+ (Ambientrance, US)

  • I listened to Silence Resounding, a new release from microsound-minimalist composer Miki Yui, while it was still raining. I was, of course, sitting safely indoors, warm and dry, sheltered from the summer rain. Even while wearing my headphones, I could hear a little something of the rain gently beating against the trees, the rooftop, the windows. These sounds, which could have gone unnoticed, now, when faced with the muted soundtrack of a record such as this, it became clear that they were blending effortlessly with the subtle tones and combinations moving directly into my ears from within my headphones. I closed my eyes, and forgot the rain. I forgot the headphones, the bed, the lamp, the house I was in. I forgot Miki Yui. I discovered a new space in the time I spent with these recordings, with its own geography, its own mythology. I discovered some alluring and evocative sounds, resting gently on the waves of silence, electronic sounds mixed with environmental ones, mixed even further with the sounds of my own environment, making the experience of listening entirely unique. Some pieces are, naturally, more compelling and original than othersÜand Miki Yui seems at her best when working with sine tones and harmonic combinationsÜbut on the whole it’s an excellent work, attempting to draw a map “between acoustic landscapes and amorphous memories,” creating a unique listening space in which to rest, travel, discover new details, if only for a while, before the rain passes. (Incursion, Canada)