Greetings in Braille: *Updated* – New Music from Beaunoise

[Updated 3/26: Francis of Tanaka Heavy Industries let me know in the comments that this tape is not by Clive Tanaka, but by Beaunoise, who is one of the members of Tanaka's Orchestra. I've amended some of the original post below. The sides of this cassette, which is appropriately called Ambient One, are available for free download here. Thanks, Francis!]

I haven’t written a full-on music review for a “real” website in almost 3 years, and I’m not going to start now. But please do not tell Clive Tanaka. He’s the last man in the world to have me on a promo mailing list, and damn if I don’t flat-out love finding his perfectly packaged cassettes (from “Tanaka Heavy Industries”) in my mailbox.

The first one came back in early September, with nary a promotional word attached, and my preliminary Googling turned up little results. (If I only I was keeping up with Altered Zones! Damn!). But upon listening to Jet Set Siempre Vol. 1, by “Clive Tanaka y Su Orchestra,” it was clear that he had competing, yet complementary, musical interests. Side A, “For Dance,” has four cheeky, vocoded electronic pop numbers, while the B-side, “For Romance,” is filled with strings, Air-y synth arrangements, and tropicalia rhythms. You can, and should, download the tape sides for free here. It was also released physically on Burger Records.

This new tape, which arrived on Monday, pushes the mellowness of “For Romance” way outside of traditional pop composition into ambient territory [which makes sense considering it is an entirely different project, by Orchestra member Beaunoise.] I’m not sure if Tanaka is still playing with his “orchestra” (if he ever was to begin with). Here the arrangements are droning, but melodic soundscapes—in the vein of certain Mountains or Stars of the Lid songs. The stickers on the tape itself have incredible Braille embossing—see the photo above—so with the lack of any information on the album’s cover or spine I’ve been calling it the Braille Tape (though we now know the album is called Ambient One). The shortest and most rythmic of all the tracks, “#17″ (which is track 7 of this 9 track album) is streaming below. Hopefully this will be available somewhere soon; anyone with information, or a link to an Altered Zones post from like 3 weeks ago, let me know in the comments.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.