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Nobukazu Takemura
"Songbook"
by: Zero Sharp

Nobukazu Takemura must be a busy man. Including "Songbook", he now has released 3 albums on two different labels. "Songbook" falls under his Child View project, a name he sometimes goes under. Stepping away from the digital, he teams up with Aki Tsuyuko to produce something that probably should have turned out excellently. It unfortunately did not. The tracks all sound very "innocent", which might just be a code word for scattered and not quite on key. However, while it is pleasant to listen to you own children sing, listening to other child-like performances can be grating at times. Takemura captures that perfectly. There is that IDM signature madness which should spawn some amount of method, but this album generally stays scattered. That is not to say that it doesn't have its moments. There are good songs hidden among the mess, "uruu" being one of my favorites. In general, though, it's songs like "mirror tower" and "from the ocean of forest" that leave me feeling dry and unimpressed. Aki Tsuyuko, who does have the kind of voice that was no doubt desired for this project, cannot speak English correctly, and I'll have to admit that I don't like the cutesy, gimmicky effect it has on the vocals. Some of drumming is fairly inspired, but in general, things just don't hold together as songs. It's just a big collections of randomly placed sounds someitmes. I wouldn't really reccomend this album to anyone, and I would suggest, instead, to get one of his past releases if you'd like to hear good music.
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