METROPOLIS

METROPOLIS
Iwamura Ryuta

This work can be considered a sequel to "CITY" (2019),
a collage of urban noise from cities around the world
and serene piano performances.
While inheriting the intent and technique of the previous work
the fusion of ambient sound and music
this album narrows the focus of its stage
from the world to Tokyo.

Sounds that echoed one day in the metropolis, Tokyo.
The beat of train joints at Tokyo Station, marking the departure of one train after another.
The roar of jet engines shattering fleeting silence at Haneda Airport.
The thunderous crushing of waste at Tokyo Bay's final disposal site.
The quiet footsteps of visitors resonating within the National Museum of Modern Art.
The pounding sound of heavy rain on the 8th Circular Road...

On a summer morning, the voices of children playing in Setagaya
melt into the chorus of cicadas.
The foghorn of the Hikawamaru at Yamashita Park signals noon,
while in Marunouchi in the afternoon, the guiding sounds of traffic lights overlap,
playing a strange music.
Then at dusk, the sound of the bell at Zojoji Temple drifts through the air of Shiba Park,
and in the suburbs welcoming night, insects begin to vibrate their wings.

These Tokyo noises recorded by Iwamura
become not only essential musical elements within this album,
equivalent to musical tones,
but are also freely arranged like collage materials at times,
and treated like a quietly resonating drone in the background of the music at others.

The track titles "Station", "Museum", "Park", "Airport", "Landfill",
"Temple", "Intersection", "Port", "Hotel"
are inorganic, abstract, their connection to the land of Tokyo
deliberately stripped away.
The question seems posed poetically:
Are these sounds truly emanating from "Tokyo",
or from the non-place city "METROPOLIS" within us?

Our consciousness approaches and retreats from the music,
wandering the border between ambient sound and musical tone,
embarking on a journey through the ultimate abstraction
of the megacity "METROPOLIS".