Review: Miki Yui – Aperio!
The first track on Aperio! is like rolling something around the palm. Turning it over, feeling the indents and protrusions on every side. Gradually, an everyday object transforms into a miracle of craft through persistent attention alone. A synthesiser surges in and out, splitting into two notes and reassimilating, circling a single premise as its intricacies – the soft curvature of its tone, the pendulum sways of volume – radiate with ever greater charm. An array of strange noises skulk the periphery like shadows sweeping across the drones, bringing new perspective on its particulars through the simple obfuscation and release of the light. Through gentle movements and the deepening attention afforded by passing time, Miki Yui turns a humble object into the centre of the universe.
Each track is titled after both an action and an entity/notion – “Listening (oneness)”, “Rhyming (colors)”, “Dreaming (now)” – perhaps alluding to the fact that the motion of “doing” is the precursor to all significance. This duet between modest sonics and movement, between object and process, feels central to Aperio!. “Revealing the source would only limit the imagination of the listeners,” Miki Yui states. “My sounds exist to trigger their own imagination”. Indeed, attempts to place these sounds within their source context are often futile – the reversed whistles on “Chanting (afar)” are like the eerie rotations of passing UFOs, while the rattling static on “Babbling (mono)” acts as refuge for the slurps and pops of some exotic species of frog. By feeding her recordings through a mangle of fidelities and manipulations, she dislocates her sound from earthly association. Many feel like documents discovered in a box of dusty unmarked tapes – captured transmissions from an elsewhere or another time. Without knowledge of their origin, the only option for imbuing these sounds with significance is to actually listen. Time will do the rest.
