Review Summary: Alice D. Millionaire
Aube is the alias of Akifumi Nakajima, a Japanese noise artist. When most people think of Japanese noise (Japanoise) artists, the names Boredoms and Merzbow immediately come to mind. Although both of those artists are considered innovators in the noise genre, Aube is a whole different beast. First things first, Mr. Nakajima makes noise music far removed from the shards of noise (Merzbow) or psychedelic playfulness (Boredoms) often associated with Japanoise. Rather, he creates/designs extended ambient tracks pulled from the recording of a single sound source. For example, all the noises contained on Pages from the Book were created by the artist mangling pages from The Bible (other sound sources have included water, voices, and even brain waves). Mr. Nakajima says he prefers to consider the music he creates under the Aube moniker as designs, calling himself a designer. Although that may seem a bit confusing, after listening to Pages from the Book it becomes perfectly obvious what he means.
As I said before, the name of the game is ambience. The four "designs" contained on this album are all about creating a mood. What mood the album creates is entirely up to the listener. I would describe the experience with one word, "Lynchian" (for those in the know, more specifically Eraserhead). All four tracks are over 10 minutes long, which turns out to be the perfect length for these designs. They all build slowly, adding repetitive layer after repetitive layer, until you get lost. Anyone interested in noise, sound-collage, or electro-acoustic should make a serious effort to hear this. As a seasoned noise fan, I love to put this on and fill that ultimate void in life. The void that only noise music can fill. Challenging? Yes. Rewarding? Definitely.
