Ektoise
Kiyomizu

This little-known Australian, Greg Reason, is a curious character, as is his bizarre and ambitious project. Ektoise is a chimera. A shapeshifting chimera, in fact. In the sense that it merges together parts that one would never expect to find fused together. Through this project, one can catch a glimpse of strange shores, inhabited by decidedly peculiar flora and fauna, by many chimeras.

Some, or rather many, many believe, say, shout, holler while covering their ears things like: by the second decade of the twenty-first century, everything that could be invented has been invented, everything that could be experimented has been experimented, listening to music produced in the last 20 years makes no sense, or at least it makes sense only in very few and rare cases, things were better in the old days, and many similar annoying discussions. By doing so, they impose non-existent limits on the inventiveness of any person and metaphorically make unlikely readings of a crystal ball or some such thing. As if in any previous century to the twentieth, someone could have precisely imagined a Northrop-Grumman B-2 Spirit! Or any technology (and more) of the modern era, like a laptop, ADSL, a food processor... anything.

All of this is wrong; there are lots of people, or at least there is someone of our species somewhere around this crazy planet, who are just waiting to record some form of music to dare some strange experiments, try some absurd fusion of genres and sounds far removed from each other, and indeed try to do something new. New doesn't necessarily mean perfectly successful or more beautiful than others. It doesn't even mean innovative. But some love everything that is new, and some love what is daring and bold. There are also those who are happy when they learn that there are still those capable of inventing or at least taking things from the past, putting them together, and seeing what happens because no one has done it before, even without particularly appreciating it. These people should be happy more often because there are still those who want to do all these things. Actually, let's remove the still. There are those who want to do all these things. So be happy.

"Kiyomizu" is the second album of this particular project. A project that mixes, shapes, modifies, merges, deconstructs, and ventures into experiments that see elements rarely placed next to each other or even held tightly together. The first self-titled full-length was characterized by this raw, strange, almost stunning, and sometimes confusing experimentation, taking this last term positively. "Kiyomizu" might seem a more immediate work than the first self-titled, because the junctions are held together more tightly, the transitions between the various sounds are often more gradual. Even if the massive final Ambient piece is indeed a difficult bite (34 minutes in total for three tracks) it still has moments of great fluidity for basically having a certain type of sound (and various digressions). Or maybe not. 

However, there is also imaginative and courageous experimentation here. Rock, Electronic, Shoegaze, Psychedelia, Noise, Ambient, Jazz, World Music, and much more  are either hinted at or appear in substantial amounts. There's the almost normal start with "The Shoreline by Morning" a delicate Ambient and Electronic piano, a slight Noise in the background at least basically. Continuing with "Subquanta," the oddities begin when a cloak of Knife-like electronics covers without hiding, though, in little time, guitars that were very Route 66. Got it? No? I move on. There's also a track that would make people like Raime or The Haxan Cloak as "State Vector Collapse," there's the almost Aphex Twin-like intelligent electronics of "There and Here," and there's "Square Peg" which is a post-everything sound magma interspersed with brief jazz phrases that, who knows how, ended up there. All things that don't seem to take themselves too seriously, but almost do.

If you love creativity and experimentation (at least the attempt) on the edge of mockery, come by here as there’s quite a view.