Anoice's fourth album made by grand orchestration of pianos and stringed instruments such as violins and violas, that often has a destructive beauty by adding vivid noise and rhythms. This album recorded at Tokyo and London, also contains excellent piece of tunes such as "colder than thermite" that is BGM of the application for iPad featuring Louis Vuitton, "ripple" made for "Variations of Silence" that is a neoclassival music compilation album planned by Tower Records, and "dlops" made for "More Hope for Japan" that is a charity compilation album.
Five music videos ("ripple" directed by Patryk Seni Senwicki and Dominic Spitaler in Austria, "white paper" made by SYN that is an art unit in Ukraine and Takahiro Kido the member of Anoice, three videos "finale" "drops" "the end of something" by the members of Anoice.) will be released at the same date.

= Ricco Label

Yoko Shinto’s cover illustration is incredibly beguiling: simultaneously dark and light, mysterious and accessible, a treasure trove of associations. We see a weeping woman on a cliff, her tears mingling with the rain and the flood. The broken land in the foreground is balanced by stable architecture in the background: a tower, a steeple, a town. The blackness of night is countered by the glow of the full moon, miraculously visible despite the covering of clouds. Is this the black rain that fell after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the fallout from the 2011 reactor meltdown, a metaphor for the fears of an embattled nation? The video for “Finale” seems to imply the former, but while this suggests the title’s origin, it only hints at its current context. The Black Rain screams concept album, but invites listeners to decipher the concept. Like its cover, the album is darkness and light, despair and hope, enigma and interpretation: a possible reflection of a nation emerging from its largest victimization in over half a century.
Bea’s operatic vocals, which appear in both the prologue and the finale, are a bit unhinged, stretching for consolation through lament and lifted prayer. She seems to be asking, “Why?”, not caring who hears or what response they might provide. The effect is unsettling, especially as radio transmissions and dark strings extend a very uncertain safety net. This is not the Anoice of love and laughter; this is an Anoice living in the shadow of destruction. The Black Rain withholds answers, preferring to dwell in the land of the buried in order to translate their voices. And yet there is great yearning in these sullen sounds: a violin that wishes to raise her head to heaven, a piano afraid to pause for fear the tears will erupt. ”Colder Than Thermite” exemplifies this approach, stalling to silence at the midway mark, giving way to distant, mournful organ. And then everything slows down, like a clock losing energy after its owner has died. Even “Ripples” ends before it’s over, as if lacking the strength to finish. A hint of circus melody is carried on the breeze, a phantasm of better times.
The rain is made audible two tracks later: a combination of elements associated with life, twisted by radiation to its opposite. But “White Paper” intimates a blank slate, a future yet unwritten. The scroll is calling for a scribe, the ink for a brush. What characters will be written on this catastrophe, what lines will embrace its lineage? In the opening bars of “Drops”, a shift: the last tears, the last drops, the last ripples, the last advancing tide; and the trains begin to run again, and the marching band begins to march. The only drops now are from buckets and ceilings. The clouds have moved away. In the end – as portrayed by Shinto on the back cover – the weeping woman rises, head upright, as if to say, I no longer need to be protected from the things of this world. She has wept the world’s tears, bathed in black rain, and emerged scathed, yet intact: irrevocably altered, irrepressibly resolute, the mirror of a nation that can not, will not allow its character to be determined by destiny alone.

= Richard Allen / A Closer Listen

Since their inception in 2004, Anoice have set a new standard for airy, modern classical compositions. Their debut album, “Remmings” made huge waves on it’s release in 2006, owing mostly to it’s compositional structure, and inherent grace. In stark contrast to the majority of modern classical works around at the time, it was very much based around typical ‘Pop’ structures and timbres. There was a lighter element to the pieces, and a hint of electronics was used to add something extra to the mix.
“The Black Rain” retains the use of electronics, but the theme of the album is somewhat darker in comparison (following on from 2008’s “Out of Season” and “Ruined-Hotel Sessions”). The beautiful piano playing of Takahiro Kido (a solo artist in his own right, debuting in 2008, with his outstanding release “Fleursy Music”) is ever-present, but less emphasized. There are a lot more pieces that work wonderfully to build tension between the other pieces. By opening with ‘Self-Portrait’ for example (a very atmospheric rendition of reverbed piano, led by a single choral voice), it is setting up the following to contrast the dark, foreboding atmosphere created by the lead piece. By building the tension, then releasing it so adeptly, it makes the following sections all the more pronounced.
Another aspect of this album that was missing from previous outings is the usage of field-recordings and samples. Aside from the aforementioned choral voice, there seem to be a lot more uses of (barely noticeable) background noise that adds depth to the mix, making all these pieces sound a lot fuller, and adding emphasis to the inherent emotion. “White Paper” is an excellent example of this. What would usually be a fairly standard piano riff is founded first of all by an atmospheric drone, created with the use of delays, and reverbs, giving the impression of a digital wave, once again utilizing the technique to clear space for the piano part that is to come. When the piano does eventually enter on top of it’s foundation, there is still some digital effects occurring, giving a usually beautiful instrument a harsher edge. When the end of the piece comes, it seems as though the piano was just a fleeting insight into something that lay below the effects… like we saw through a window that was created especially for us. It is this sense of discovery that really makes the listener feel like they are a part of the music.
As you move through the album, you never get the impression that you are moving towards clarity, even in beautiful unaffected pieces like ‘Drops’, there is a certain off note, changing the whole key of the piece from decidedly upbeat to something a little more apprehensive. It is amazing how Anoice constantly defy expectations, adding something more each time around, to confound the listener. My only criticism would be that, whilst this collection is indeed wholly cohesive, the very fact that they work so hard at shifting expectations, it is sometimes hard to maintain momentum from one half of the album to the other. I think that, had they repeated themes a little more (the choral voice from “White Paper” for example, being found in penultimate track, “Finale” is a good example of how to keep with a theme) the collection as whole would have felt a little more sequential.

= Barry Smethurst / The Future Elements

Anoice is a Tokyo based six piece group formed by Takahiro Kido, Taku Tanioka, Yuki Murata, Utaka Fujiwara, Takahiro Matsue and Tadashi Yoshikawa who are the multi instruments players, and have been working together since 2004. Their debut album “Remmings” in which Non-Format took charge of art works, was released from Important Records, Boston 2006, while their second album “Out of Season” and third “Ruined-Hotel Sessions” recorded at the ruin hotel, were released from Ricco Label that is their own music label in Tokyo, 2008. Many artists all over the world thought highly of these three albums. Anoice also has some other projects such as RiLF (an alternative rock band formed by the members of Anoice and Calu who is the vocalist of Matryoshka), mokyow (a post-rock band formed by Takahiro Kido, Takahiro Matsue and Tadashi Yoshikawa who are the members of anoice, and the keyboardist Kenichi Kai) and cru (a neo-classical unit formed by Takahiro Kido and Yuki Murata), and some secret projects. And, Takahiro Kido and Yuki Murata who are the members of Anoice, have also released some albums as their solo works. There is the 30 or more number of the albums which Anoice and the members have released or the compilation albums in which they participated on some music labels such as Ricco Label, Important Records, PLOP, Nature Bliss, p*dis, Noble Label, Victor Records, zooooo.jp, as a point of the end of 2012. In addition, Anoice and the members took charge of composing music for many video works (Armani, Louis Vuitton, Rag & Bone, etc.), films ("Internet is a Desert" a prize film of Venice International Short Film Festival, "Honokaa-Boy" in Japan, "Penerose" in Austria, etc.), events ("NIPPON VISION" of Japanese department store Isetan, "Tanzbrucke 2011" a ballet of Czech Republic, etc.), spots for TV or webs (Google, NTT, TRIUMPH, Saito Wood, etc.) of various countries, and joined some films ("Takarasagashi" directed by Hayao Miyazaki of Studio Ghibli, etc.), events (Moscow International Biennale, "La Folle Journée au JAPON" classical music festival in Japan, "Argerich's Meeting Point in Beppu" in Japan, etc.), art magazines ("Purple Magazine" in France, "Another" in Netherlands, "POST" in UK, "GONZO" in Belgium, etc.), albums of musicians (Filmes, Michiru, Pleq, Kukikodan, The Watanabes, Sonoda Band, etc.) as arrangers or players of tunes.

Anoice official website ▶ www.fleursy.com/anoice