Re.sort by sora ( 4 / 5 )

Must hear tracks: “Revans” “Etude: Diagonal” “Rayuela (ii)”

Sometimes our wires get crossed.

Every time I had Everlasting Gobstoppers as a kid, I had the same perception: these taste the way Windex smells. Young as I was, I still knew the notion was absurd. I mostly kept the idea to myself. When I finally ventured to express it – I don’t remember who I told, doesn’t matter – I remember their response: silence first, then bemusement.

So when I tell you that Re.sort sounds the way nostalgia feels, I don’t expect you to relate. Everyone’s wires of perception cross in their own special ways. All I can do is humbly predict that somewhere in this amorphous collage of a record, your wires will get crossed too.

The man behind this morphing, wire-crossing collage is Kurosawa Takeshi, a Kyoto-born pianist who spent most of the 90s building his chops on digital samplers. In 2003, he released Re.sort under the name sora (all lowercase). It was the culmination of a decade of tinkering.

sora’s toolkit can be indexed as such: hypnotic motifs on piano and glockenspiel, samples beamed in from space, and a virtual library of blips and bloops. Some of them drip like water. Some shimmer like the scales of a fish. Some resonate with the percussive force of a bell. Some crackle. Some click, or clack. With these tools, sora crafted a glitchy masterpiece much greater than the sum of its parts.

A magical thing happens as Re.sort plays: the acoustic samples of jazz ensembles and ancient crooners sound warped and distant, while the mechanized raindrops and digital glitches are intimate and near. The distinction between natural and unnatural is inverted. sora’s deftness as a programmer puts the rhythm of life into whirring sequences. Like daydreaming in the matrix, with past experiences coded into each passing cloud.

In the midst of this nostalgic reverie, the tracks tend to blur together. Some divine moments stick out, though.

“Revans” is the centerpiece and closest thing to a structured song. It is a scintillating embrace – a cozy night in great company. A night of conversations written for the stage, complete with sampled applause at the end. “Etude: Diagonal” repeats elliptically like the tides. A routine that makes your head spin. “Rayuela (ii)” brings tap dancing drums and an unplaceable sensation of homecoming. Something about its meandering wind chimes, yearning violin and welcoming piano – even on the first listen, it feels like you’ve been there before.

Despite all my earnest descriptions, keep in mind that Re.sort references nothing in particular. It is a copy of a copy of a copy. It doesn’t actually sound like a pleasant night with company, or a homecoming. It approximates the feeling of remembering those times. For all I know, you’ll hear a childhood camping trip, a dive bar’s neon sign, a perfect afternoon shadow on your living room wall. We’re all wired differently, after all.

I have a feeling you’ll hear something, though.