How does one judge the greatness of an album? Obviously, there’s the oft-repeated line that an album is more than just “a collection of songs.” The album as a whole ought to represent a single, unified piece of art. And yet, to what degree ought this rubric rule our evaluation of an album? A perfect ten album would have both elements in full, awesome songs and an integrated album. But if you’ll take the time to browse through the TSB archive, you might notice that there aren’t a lot of 10s being given out these days. So, when one part of the equation suffers, how much ought we to dock the album? Is one portion more important than the other?
Perhaps these questions are a little past my pay grade, and have more to do with the idiosyncrasies of the particular reviewer than any grand, overarching critical theory. What I can say is this: if an album were to actually be no more than a collection of songs, Usual Revolution and Nine, the fifth album from acclaimed Japanese electronicist No.9, would be near the very top of the pack. As a unified work of art, however, it’s less impressive, even if just barely so.
In truth, there are really two albums at play here – or, perhaps, an album and an EP. Most of Usual Revolution and Nine is composed of the same quirky and playful electronica which No.9 has produced so well in the past. His style is a mixture of organic and standard instrumentation with a somewhat folky bent, sent through your standard electronica choppers, filters, and beat producers with a restrained hand. Folk-tronica? Perhaps, but that seems a bit too clichéd for music that manages to succeed on this level. It might still be the best label, but only if you think of the good things it connotes, and none of the bad.
As my colleague Barry Smethurst noted in his review of No.9’s last album, the artist deserves especially to be commended for keeping a level head and a sense of balanced composition. There are some electronica artists who never know when to stop, who just can’t say no to one more element. When it’s so easy to put yet another new layer on top of anything, why stop? Venetian Snares seems to come to mind…
No.9, on the other hand, if not precisely a minimal artist (he’s not nearly sad enough!) certainly seems informed by the minimal aesthetic which has been delivering many of the best works in the field of electronica recently. Perhaps the best example of this is the second track, “I Hope.” The song is a sterling remix of “Canon,” an unreleased song of No.9’s which he has taken to playing live. It’s not quite accurate to say that this song evolves slowly, because it always seems possessed of a brisk pace. 'Gradually' is probably a better word to use. Again, it’s not quite accurate to say that the song crescendos, either, because it never reaches that sense of apocalyptic abandon which crescendos are known for. Yet, the song still builds itself up to enormous heights, and after a fairly inauspicious beginning, No.9 eventually reaches a piece of music so extraordinarily thick that you could cut it like a layer cake. Over the course of eight minutes, the song builds in an almost classical style, revolving around a series of central leitmotifs which flit in and out of the listener's consciousness with succeeding senses of ever warmer familiarity. The majority of Usual Revolution and Nine is composed of tracks like these, and, by and large, they rank among the best efforts in No.9’s history.
Perhaps with 'classical' I’ve finally found the accurate word to use, for that is the word which most readily describes the rest of the songs, the “EP” within Usual Revolution and Nine. Coming seeming out of nowhere, about a third of the songs abandon any pretense of folkiness and decide to dive straight into the burgeoning world of classical/electronica. Now working in the vein of masters like World’s End Girlfriend, now mixing in slightly more downtempo compositions in the vein of Akira Kosemura, No.9 feels slightly unsteady in this area. As you might have guessed, it’s these songs which contribute to the general sense of disconnect on the album. Try though he might, No.9 just can’t make the majority of the “classical” songs fit into the larger fabric of Usual Revolution and Nine.
Which isn’t to say that they’re bad songs. “Clover Classic,” which has been a Track of the Week here for a little while, is well deserving of its status. “Alive,” our first taste of the new classical sensibility, is a little boring as the track opens, but then transitions to an awesome and nearly Kashiwa Daisuke-esque ending. “Again and Again,” found toward the middle of the album, is a wonderfully peaceful little piece which provides a nice moment of contemplation.
Wait, let’s read that last part again: “…provides a nice moment of contemplation.” Hmm… it almost sounds like the songs do fit together after all! Alas, this is not quite this case. As with most other aspects of Usual Revolution and Nine, the cohesion (or lack thereof) of this album refuses to be pigeonholed. Just because the songs don’t work together perfectly doesn’t automatically mean that they repel each other like two negatively-charged ions. The relationship is something more like a wrong jigsaw-piece, hammered into place: sure, it’s not quite the right piece, but it still provides a semblance of the proper pattern. Moreover, and perhaps more importantly, it provides us with a sort of negative image of what that correct pattern ought to have been.
So what conclusions can we draw from Usual Revolution and Nine? Well, unless No.9 has a few hidden masterpieces on his first two albums which I’ve not yet heard, I think it’s fairly safe to call this his greatest work yet. And last year’s Good Morning was a tough one to beat! True, there’s a certain sense of disunity which prevents the album from reaching its greatest possible heights. But this is only partially true. Although I have focused on the enormity of the classical compositions within the structural framework, the rest of the songs function very well, bouncing off of each other with applaudable aplomb. This is particularly true of the two remixes, which are often stumbling blocks for electronica artists looking for album-wide cohesion – but No.9 blazes past such potential problems. In particular, though decidedly not a classical song, “I Hope” seems to derive many of its mechanics from classical music, importing them to a different setting. This helps to prepare us for the classical numbers that come ahead, and could even be a large part of why they do not become entirely problematic. Indeed, even some of the classical numbers, like “Again and Again”, manage to work themselves into the fabric of the album so instrumentally that I cannot imagine building upon them. And those that don’t work so well in the context of the rest of the album still remain singularly awesome when taken by themselves.
Does the slight lack of cohesion hurt No.9? Yes, but only just a bit. The album can only really be considered to have structural problems when compared against perfection. That might seem like a tall order, but it seems to be exactly where No.9 has set his sights.Usual Revolution and Nine is an album that most artists would be ecstatic to have as their masterpiece, but I wouldn’t be surprised if No.9 only manages to get even better.
-Tom Butcher