Logic System: Logic – JPN – CD [2008]

1. Intro
2. Unit
3. Domino Dance
4. 天変地異 (Convulsion Of Nature)
5. X?
6. Talk Back
7. Clash (Chinjyu Of Sun)
8. Person To Person
9. Logic

Recently, I got around to making a CD of Masami Tsuchiya’s “Rice Music” album and talk in the comments from Schwenko went in the direction of the role that Hideki Matsutaki’s sequencing and programming played in it. I’d heard the track “Talk Back” from the”Logic” album on the “Terpsichore [Silly Not To]” compilation and I’d liked what I’d heard, but schwenko averred that I really needed to drop what I was doing and listen to “Logic.” Easier said than done, but it transpired that schwenko was entering his collection into Discogs, and discovered that he had multiple copies purchased in his ardor [it happens to me too] and…would I like one? Well, if enough free music is thrown in my direction, I have no problems with that, as long as I’m not taking food out of the mouths of the artist. So along with the Cosmpoolitans CD he also had multiple copies of, the Logic System CD showed up in my mailbox last week. What’s it like?

Mr. Matsutaki came by his synth pilot’s wings honestly, by assisting Isao Tomita and probably the earliest example of his programming and sequencing I have in the Record Cell was his support work with Ryuichi Sakamoto on his “The Thousand Knives of Ryuichi Sakamoto” album. Now that album was shot through with luscious, warm, analog modular loops and sequencing! “Logic” was his own project from three years later. There were stylistic similarities but technological differences, of course.

“Intro” was a selection of jittery, high pitched loops suggesting frantic energy that acted as the intro to the magnificent “Unit.” The latter opened with a haze of chorused synth drones doppler shifting across the soundscape, that sounded like they were ripped screaming from the intro to John Foxx’s “Underpass!” In other words, a sound I can’t get too much of. Bleep loops began intruding as the complex, warm, rhythm loops built up a methodical, lurching vibe. The “x factor” was the woman talking in French over the music; in a manner not unlike that on Simple Minds’ “Twist/Run/Repulsion.”

Once the “chorus” of the instrumental kicked in the sound was regal and glorious. ascending in pitch over each subsequent bar. The vibe was not a million miles away from Prog, yet it also shared some Krautrock DNA to give it a real hybrid vigor. There was actually a lot of “synthesizer records” that came from this era that are neither fish nor fowl if one is trying to classify them. When the rhythm programming and percussion was this excellent, it’s best to accept it and go with the flow!

“Domino Dance” was quite another thing entirely. A quirky, almost techno-reggae number with squelchy, liquidized synth leads trilling like birds while an electric organ chord rambled through it all. Jabs of guitar, courtesy of YMO live member Kenji Omura dialed down the slightly cartoonish nature of this song.

“XY?” was a tour-de-force of sequencing with fast tempo drum machine programming and trilling synth leads that recalled crickets. As the song progressed, flute-like leads were offset with subtle, yet stinging guitar leads from Mr. Omura. Meanwhile, an American voice processed and slurred down to a dead stop in the climax of the number added a quixotic element.

Most of the music here was written by Matsutaki’s partner, Ryo Kawakami. The song “Talk Back” was the only one here with real lyrics and singing. The 808 programming links it to Bill Nelson, but it’s a little more minimal that that. The gated sound bites laden with effects played well with the guitar licks carefully applied to the track. Omura’s probing, insistent solo in the song’s climax was excellent.

I enjoyed the minimal sequencing that opened “Clash (Chinjyu Of Sun)” but once it got underway there were dubby leads {and lovely syndrum hits!] until the shocking middle eight where the heraldic horn-like leads and sequencers seemed imported from a Wendy Carlos record for maximum “wha…?” factor.

“Person To Person” was perfect soundtrack music to a tech noir film in your mind. The electric violin by Hiroki Tamaki really got the spotlight in this song to shine. I would ae liked to have heard a little more of this player in the mix. Then the brief album ended with the technopop of the title song, which slotted into the more playful sound of “Domino Dancing” with a relentless underlying energy that lasted until the song’s phased cold fade.

I have to say that the album was certainly the delight that it was touted to be. Fans of “A Thousand Knives Of Ryuichi Sakamoto” definitely need to expand their collection to include this one. I’m chastened that I’m so late to the game but it’s always better late than never, right? Besides, it’s not as if I’ve ever seen a Logic System release ever in my life? If not for the kindness of strangers I’d still be out in the cold but there’s a reason why Matsutaki is all over the periphery of Japanese technopop that we love. He’s a demon of modular synth programming! Listening to Logic System, I can’t help but wonder that a pair-up between himself and Benge would end up sounding like? Let’s go suggest that to Benge himself…

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