Cokiyu – Mirror Flake – 4/5
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No, I’m not entirely back to metal listenings; my tendencies are only beginning to sway and there is still plenty of room for the most delicate of styles to garner my adoration, as Cokiyu has quickly succeeded in doing with this debut release. Found whilst looking for artists similar to ‘Piana,’ she proves to be far from a novice when it comes to music; with a degree in musicology she utilises her new found talent in order to create a collage of musical colours. With a mature outlook on the subject matter, her simple minimalist style combines breathy delicate vocals with simple piano lines and xylophones melodies, and the more I listen, the more I wonder how it manages to work so well.
I must confess when I first heard it I was looking for another Piana album and so naturally was disappointed by the variation but this piece, whilst similar, has a whole different intention gone behind its creation. There is no torturous glitch element but instead an altogether amorphous tone behind the music; a natural unpredictability that gently meanders and flows throughout the piece in a similar yet indescribably different manner. The pacing of the piano lines never feels entirely in time; the basic tune repeated throughout the piece but never seems to have been given a rigid tempo, the vocals merged into the composition like the whispering wind, hazily in harmony with the faintly glowing electronic work that forms the other component to her sound.
Everything feels horrendously simple; the same two second piano line repeated for four minutes during ‘The Piano and The Frog’ serves as an example of what should quickly become mind-numbingly monotonous, but it never actually does. By all means of logic I should have grown weary and tired of this long ago, but the atmosphere it all manages to create; the unusual sense of slow and gradual change; the natural tone it all takes, it’s all simply indescribable. In fact, the front cover describes what this sounds like far better than I could; simple, vibrant, organic, innocent and adorable. There’s always a risk with minimal ambient of failing to hit the mark and just coming across bland, but this serves as a classic reminder of how to do things right.
Highlights: Mirror Flake, In the Air, Star Takes a Rest
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