- Melati Malay, Kaazi and Tristan Arp blur the lines between New Age music and sound art.
- Asa Tone is a multinational collaboration between Indonesian-American musician Melati Malay, Australian producer Kaazi and Mexico City-based multidisciplinary artist Tristan Arp. The group's 2020 debut was recorded in the jungle canopy of Indonesia, and dabbled in minimal electronic and ambient music with just a hint of gamelan. Yu Su commissioned the trio's second effort as an event-specific work for the New Forms Festival in Vancouver, British Columbia. Live At New Forms is a cohesive, 30-minute piece broken into ten parts, centered around rhythmic synthesizer bleeps, subdued percussion and a mix of found sound and vocal sampling. The album nails the energy of hopeful New Age but also incorporates elements of downtempo and IDM.
Live At New Forms came to life remotely during quarantine, as the group embraced "new approaches in chance-based composition." The three individually compiled pools of generative loops and field recordings, then pieced their contributions together over Zoom. The release's polished sonic edge recalls the sharp glow of a laptop screen. On "II," sequenced congas support glitchy, angelic vocal chops. "IIIIIII" uses quivering chimes and jittery, pitch-shifted voice manipulation to craft a glistening soundscape. In the record's sixth movement, samples of what sound like rodents float atop metallic pads, until Malay's calm, indecipherable talking permeates the trance. On the closing track, scattered arpeggiations disintegrate into a lush, shadowy drone.
The record's high brow origins define its backstory, but they also seep through in its aesthetics. While I'm generally hesitant to turn to a release's cover when discussing the music, the auditory textures on Asa Tone's latest compliment the range of blues and blacks that make up its packaging. Accompanied by custom modular filmwork from artist Nika Milano, the on-stage performance blurred the lines between listening party and experimental video screening. Although the full video from the New Forms installation isn't available for online viewing yet, these splotchy graphics emphasize how color and optics enhance the Asa Tone experience.
I wasn't personally present for the New Forms staging, but closing my eyes and putting on the album reminds me of time I've spent in similar contemporary gallery spaces, like The Getty in Los Angeles or MoMA PS1 in New York City. The clean, modern production is technical, but maintains a sense of bohemia that keeps things engaging and playful. Juxtaposing a free-spirited ethos and taut gridlocked arrangements, Live At New Forms sits nicely alongside recent releases from Leaving Records labelmates like Green-House, Arushi Jain and Colloboh. "Held / And waiting to be held," a pleasantly robotic voice murmurs over razors-edge keys in the record's opening moments, a record of surreal warmth and emotion made in isolation and performed in communion.
Tracklist01. I
02. II
03. III
04. IIII
05. IIIII
06. IIIIII
07. IIIIIII
08. IIIIIIII
09. IIIIIIIII
10. IIIIIIIIII