RIOU - Exhibition of the Samples (1995)

Belgian kk records, known for its industrial and underground electronic releases since the 80s, hosted the 2nd album of Japanese techno minimalist Riou Tomita. Exhibition of the Samples is an exploration of strange sounds combined with hard techno rhythms, and it has managed to stand the test of time quite well. The "samples" are often drones, blips, toms'n'jerries and say hi to Ms Usually very hard to pin down. This is very enjoyable music and highly recommended for people interested either in techno or in more noise-oriented areas of electronica. And it does funny things to your brain... Recorded in "Bedroom Studios Sakai City" - I wonder if this really was a bedroom!

From sonic-boom.com: "With the release of Exhibition of the Samples, RIOU has immediately shown a marked improvement over the very simplistic nature of his debut release. RIOU even goes as far as intelligently sequencing the tracks on the album in what appears to be a historical order so that the audience is gradually adjusted to the new, more complex musical arrangements. As one would expect, the music is still very subtle often requiring several listens to fully appreciate, but it is also much quicker to reward its audience with new and often unexpected rhythms. However RIOU is still an acquired taste, is only recommended to those with a broad musical tastes and a fancy for old school electronic minimalism."

Interesting side note: RIOU also jointly works on a project called Holon, with Koen Lybaert from Starfish Enterprises (experimental rock - I'll post one later) and Starfish Pool (minimalist dark techno - if only I knew how rip lps!!). I should look into this project as it's probably pretty good.

Tracks

1. Exhibition of the Samples (1:43)
2. Octave Shift (5:45)
3. P.O.Box No.67 (6:12)
4. K.E.I.I. (0:43)
5. Buffer (5:33)
6. Onoreno (5:39)
7. Asymptote (5:43)
8. Tel-10 (5:49)
9. Miss Retina (7:02)
10. 2nd (4:06)
11. Flea Pedler (2:14)

RIOU_Exhibition_Samples_192.rar

posted by Paxjorge @ Saturday, March 25, 2006