Japanese / English
FourColor "As Pleat"
CAT.NO:12k1065
RELEASE:May 03 2011
FORMAT:CD
EDITION:1000
LABEL: 12k
Fourcolor is the solo project of Keiichi Sugimoto (Minamo, Filfla) and should be well known to the 12k audience with his two previous releases, Air Curtain (2004) and Letter of Sounds (2006) both highly regarded and now out of print, which established him as one of the label’s leading roster figures.
As Pleat takes the familiar sound of Fourcolor and explores some subtle new sonic territory. It’s as tonal and warm as always but he expands on his style by including more fractured, accidental sounds and an obvious growth in experience and talent. What makes Fourcolor’s music so engaging is how Sugimoto manages to coax a lovely spectrum of sounds from his guitar without it ever sounding too over-processed or digital. From bubbling, low bass that provides a foundation to woven harmonies, pulses, and shimmers, there is a rich palette of sounds created. Add in a bit of careful, jittery skip-editing and implied rhythms and a groove starts to emerge from the ambience. Hints of his poppier Filfla project also come into play once again as Fourcolor brings in some guest-vocals courtesy of Sanae Yamasaki (aka Moskitoo) who lends her angelic voice to “Quiet Gray 1” and “Iris (Familiar)” adding further dimension to the works.
As Pleat is unquestionably Fourcolor, but there is a pillow-like quality to the sound, a softness that plays beautifully off of the more organic edits and sharper plucks that all combines to create the most engaging Fourcolor album to date.
All songs composed and mixed by Keiichi Sugimoto
Voices on track1&10 by Moskitoo
Mastered by Taylor Deupree
Cover painting by Moskitoo
Photography by Keiichi Sugimoto
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Music Video - FourColor "Quiet Gray 1 [featuring Moskitoo]"
Performance - FourColor Live in Tokyo,14 FEB 2011
Performance - FourColor Live in Osaka,17 JUL 2011
Keiichi Sugimoto is an international artist and composer from Japan. He plays in several sound projects such as FilFla, FourColor, Minamo and Fonica.
His compositions have been released from record labels throughout the world such as 12K (US), apestaartje (US), TOM LAB (Germany), and HEADZ (Japan). As FourColor, his album "Water Mirror" was chosen among the best electronica albums in the THE WIRE magazine (UK). He has also toured extensively in Europe, Asia, Australia, the United States, and Canada.
He has provided numerous tracks to films, visuals, plays, exhibitions, television, web commercials, and company videos. In 2004, FourColor provided the music for director Jun Miyazaki's "FRONTIER", appearing at the Cannes film festival. In addition, the film won the "Young Viewpoint" award during the director's week. In 2006 at the France Aix-en-Provence film festival, Keiichi Sugimoto won the original soundtrack prize, for his soundtrack of "Whirr", a film by German director Timo Katz. By 2007, these achievements had lead Sugimoto to be registered to the French film composers association (U.C.M.F).
In addition to his artist activities, in 1999 he established Cubic Music, a record label to release music and to organize events. Some of the artists he has released include World's End Girlfriend, Kyo Ichinose, piana, and No.9. He has also been active in inviting foreign labels and artists to perform in Japan, as well as organizing tours for international labels such as 12K, Hapna and TOM LAB.
[Artist Statement]
It is not too difficult to appreciate the melodies of the piano. We have all been familiar with for such a long time, and to notice it as "beautiful".
But when you hold piano strings inside of a piano, wrapped around each other, it makes a dull, dim sound, and you realize a different appeal that is separated from the way it originally sounds. My music is a quest in search of these new, unique, and funny sounds underneath, that would attract listeners, not only to perceive beautiful sounds as beautiful, but by layering each of the sounds delicately, it would form original subtleness and textures.
By composing them together precisely, they are transformed into "music": Harmonies and dis-harmonies, vagueness and clearness, digital and analog, necessity and accidents. My aim is to deal with these opposite factors on the same level to create a unique music.
FourColor |
FourColor |
photo by Yoshikazu Inoue