Mitchell Akiyama If Night is a Weed and Day Grows Less

Far and away the most intellectual album to fall anywhere near my doormat in the last six months, this is the 4th solo CD by Canada's Mitchell Akiyama. With his roots in creative writing and literature, Akiyama has followed a peripatetic career. His musical output began in 1999 with the release intr_verse on his own intr_version imprint. This first foray into warm, beatsy electronica was followed by his roundly-acclaimed follow-up, Hope that lines don't cross, in 2001 on Substractif records. He's also worked with Cincinnati musician Joshua Treble on more organic, compositional pieces, full of warped guitars, pianos, and life-noises. His third solo effort, Temporary Music, was released on the renowned German label Raster-Noton. He's also worked on videomusic productions, creating imagery and sequences using digital techniques, composing the video-paintings that accompany his cerebral live shows.

Alongside such avant-garde technical concerns and influences, there is also a strong presence of art music, in particularly the piano concerto. The eight pieces here are the result of four piano compositions that Akiyama dismantled and then reconstructed, thus creating disorderly yet beautiful melodies and arrangements. Philosophically there is also a strong presence of post-structuralist theory - the image of weeds on a lawn that is close to Deleuze and Guattari's notion of rhizomatics, connections in a disorderly and non-hierarchical form, while the notions of discipline and control versus anarchy and freedom that the album's form sports with call to mind Foucault or Virilio. Yes, this is music that knows it is clever.

But it's also an album of intense beauty. As well as a philosophical investigation of the mysterious and ghostly hollows of existence, this is a great listen. Sparse piano tracks are backed with warm percussion and quiet beats. It's an album of deceptive and at times bewitching melody, with tracks like enfin rien n'est gagné recalls Satie or Debussy, while "with hope that" smacks of a modern-day Mozart, the piano stretched to its creative limits in a way that's both provocative and soothing. At the limits of the Canadian avant-garde, yet blessed with a rare sense of harmony and subtlety, Akiyama has produced a gem of an album.