Hanami (花見?, lit. "flower viewing") is the Japanese traditional custom of enjoying the transient beauty of flowers. It's not just flower watching, it's appreciating the mesmerizing beauty of nature. Arboretum, a collaborative project among sound and visual experimentations rooted and active in Berlin since 2012, honors the art of Hanami yearly by releasing a very special album. The CD comes with five original Japanese cherry seeds and is limited to 300 copies.
Øe is Fabio Perletta, a sound and visual artist from Italy. He is also a label owner and has worked with an impressive amount of artists over the years. For this special project he created five soothing ambient pieces with a very minimal approach. Each of them is a beautiful composition of soundscapes and some minor rhythmic elements. These rhythmic elements are barely noticable at first but they do have an effect on the brain and imagination. Somehow they serve as a grasp, something to hold on to while exploring the elaborate musical landscapes Perletta recorded.
Øe places himself somehwere between artists like Biosphere and Brian Eno. The songs on 'Unseed' focus on atmosphere and slowly altering sounds. If you like a lot of variation and tempo-changes, this might not be your cup of tea but then again, no ambient record is. This music is best to be enjoyed with your eyes closed and your mind free, drifting along with the dreamy soundscapes. Maybe while sitting on a terrace or a meadow and watching the flowers bloom. You don't have to be in Japan to enjoy that.
I've been listening to this album several times now and I still find it hard to write something other than what you can read above this paragraph. 'Unseed' is simply a beautiful ambient album with five high quality tracks. I can only recommend checking it out if you like artists like Harold Budd, Steve Roach or any minimal ambient artist. So if you'll excuse me, I'm off to my terrace to enjoy the beauty of nature before it gets too dark...and even then, I'll enjoy the wicked flight of the bats
Serge