murmur

Rhythms and sound textures for reminiscing about a different world, distinct from stereotypical tribal beats; a soundscape that arises from the energy of praying with music, directed toward a place that is not here.

"murmur," which invites listeners to a scale beyond human through the fusion of Eastern mystical grooves and modern beat music, is Akoorum's fourth album.

From his signature sounds, metallic objects and voice samples, his fetishism and massive sound world can be richly experienced, and using rhythmic loops as a sequence-door, he eerily navigates listeners toward musical emotion and spiritual empathy.

Akoorum boldly draws the "sampling" technique, which symbolizes his career as a beatmaker and his origins in hip-hop, not as a hackneyed expression, but rather as a "non-formal motif" into his own inner space.

The process of sound transforming through that challenge can be heard in the collection of songs that retain a J-Dilla-esque beat feel.

Starting from hip-hop beats, what he, who was strongly influenced by ambient, new age, and spiritual jazz, now sought in music was not a specific religious view, but "the universal spirituality of music."

The title of the first track, "Ten Blocks Out, Coltrane Gazed At The Stars Between Sets," is a quote from the symbolic anecdote of John Coltrane, who walked about ten blocks between live sets to gaze at the starry sky in search of inspiration and universal truth.

And throughout the entire album, each track presents, as a musical language, the idea that it is not meant to concretely explain a specific episode, but is an energy that music cannot define.

The album's visual art was handled by the painter Hayato Omori. A single oil painting created for this album fulfills the role of a medium that visually connects the technology of DTM with Akoorum's organic and primitive sound.

Akoorum's very personal and existential relationship with music, through the exploration of his roots and philosophy, is converted into the basso continuo of rhythm/loop/spirituality.

This work, which gazes upon an imaginary sensory paradise, is an attempt that is also related to ethno (oriental) futurism, yet it is a strange masterpiece that de-marginalizes genres purely by its inner motivation.