“i made this music primarily for myself – to connect to memories of a time and place”
Berkeley producer, recording engineer, and electronic musician Beau Sorenson returns under the Beaunoise moniker with experimental ambient album Ongaku, a hazy meandering trip through sound and memory. Inspired as much by a personal trip as it is by Chris Marker’s 1983 French documentary film Sans Soleil (which connects Japan to San Francisco and other places), the new work weaves synthesized soundscapes with recordings Sorenson made in Japan—in Tokyo, Osaka, Hakone, and Koyason.
The result is amorphous and unpredictable, like a walk through a foreign city: Here it’s peaceful and trodding, but suddenly there is noise and discomfort. Here it’s dripping and oozing, a murky soundscape, but around the corner there is light and clean air. It is a personal record for Sorenson, intended to capture the feeling of a specific experience in a specific time and place, but its wide and clear soundscapes gesture openly to the rest of us listeners, inviting us to meditate on our own hazy-tinged memories.
As of publishing this post, there is one more limited edition cassette available of a total 50 on Bandcamp.
